Chief Justice John Roberts Hospitalized After Fall

Chief Justice John Roberts was taken to a hospital after a fall near his summer home in Port Clyde, Maine, a Supreme Court spokeswoman said.

``He fell on a dock'' near his home, Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said. ``He was described as conscious and alert.''

Roberts, 52, was taken to Penobscot Bay Medical Center in nearby Rockport, she said. Hospital spokesman Christopher Burke declined to confirm that Roberts was a patient or to give any details. Arberg said she had no...

A benign seizure means that doctors performed an MRI and other tests to conclude there was no tumor, stroke or other explanation.

In addition, doctors would have quickly ruled out simple explanations such as dehydration or low blood sugar.

By definition, someone who has had more than one seizure without any other cause is determined to have epilepsy, said Dr. Marc Schlosberg, a neurologist at Washington Hospital Center, who is not involved in the Roberts' case.

Whether Roberts will need anti-seizure medications to prevent another is something he and his doctor will have to decide.

But after two seizures, the likelihood of another at some point is greater than 60 percent.

“We should reverse the presumption of confirmation,” Schumer told the American Constitution Society convention in Washington. “The Supreme Court is dangerously out of balance. We cannot afford to see Justice Stevens replaced by another Roberts, or Justice Ginsburg by another Alito.”

Dr. Steven Pacia, chief of neurology at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, said that, given this was Roberts' second seizure, it's "likely" that he has epilepsy. "It's the most likely thing based on what we know from what's been released," he said.

Pacia noted that seizures can result from an inherited susceptibility that is trigged by such factors as a lack of sleep or stress. "It sounds to me he does have idiopathic generalized epilepsy syndrome, which means that he has susceptibility to seizures under certain circumstances," he said.

Even if Roberts has epilepsy, it shouldn't affect his work, Kalayjian said. "The majority of people with epilepsy you wouldn't know they had epilepsy," she said. "About 70 percent of people with epilepsy do fine; they hold high level jobs, they drive. It's only 30 percent of people that have uncontrolled seizures that need specialized epilepsy centers to get their seizures under control.