The question is whether a particular complaint form, the intake questionnaire, constitutes a formal discrimination charge that can serve as the basis for a lawsuit under the Age Discrimination Employment Act (ADEA).

Under the ADEA, employees must wait 60 days after filing a formal EEOC complaint to bring a lawsuit against their employers. The rule is designed to give the employer sufficient time to investigate the charges and perhaps reach an out-of-court settlement with the employee.

Almost half of EEOC complaints are filed by small business employees, according to the National Federation of Independent Business, which filed a brief with the Supreme Court in support of Federal Express.

In 2006 the EEOC received more than 75,000 discrimination charges, only 5% of which had reasonable cause to go to court, according to Karen Harned, executive director of the NFIB's legal foundation.

Harned argued that U.S. employers would face a surge in discrimination lawsuits if the justices decide that intake questionnaires qualify as discrimination charges.

"There has to be a filtering process or small business owners will be inundated with litigation," she said.

In December 2001, a Federal Express (Charts, Fortune 500) courier named Patricia Kennedy filed an EEOC intake questionnaire claiming that FedEx was in the habit of improperly firing older employees who did not meet the company's hourly delivery quotas.

The EEOC did not follow up on Kennedy's complaint. In April 2002, Kennedy and several other older employees, including Paul Holowecki, filed a class action suit against Federal Express. In May 2002, Kennedy belatedly submitted a formal discrimination complaint, known as a Form 5, to the EEOC.

A district court threw the case out on the grounds that plaintiffs were legally required to submit the Form 5 before filing suit against their employers. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed that decision, ruling that an intake questionnaire could indeed be considered a formal charge.

At yesterday's hearing, the justices concentrated on the issue of how the EEOC handles discrimination complaints. Chief Justice John Roberts argued that employees should not be held responsible for the EEOC's complex and often contradictory regulations.

"I don't understand the leap from government incompetence to the plaintiff losing," the chief justice told Federal Express advocate Connie Lensing.

The plaintiffs' advocate, David Rose, argued that the validity of a discrimination charge should not be a function of the form on which it was filed.

But Justice Antonin Scalia responded that employees were responsible for reading the forms that they filled out. "You can't run a system for people who are illiterate," Scalia said. But he also criticized the EEOC's procedures for handling discrimination complaints. "The problem is the EEOC," Scalia said. "What kind of agency is this?"

It may be months before the Supreme Court rules on Holowecki, but the outcome could force the EEOC to change its procedures for all discrimination complaints, including those that arise under the Americans with Disabilities Act and under Title VII, which covers discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex and national origin.

"The decision in Holowecki will likely resolve the many inconsistencies among federal circuit courts of appeal on the issue of whether an EEOC intake questionnaire may constitute a charge of discrimination under the ADEA," said Paul Secunda of the University of Mississippi School of Law, in his American Bar Association preview of the case.

"Depending on the breadth of the holding, the case may also answer this same question for related federal employment discrimination laws."

In each case, the rappers were simply given a new court date.

Busta Rhymes, whose real name is Trevor Smith, was ordered to return Jan. 23 when jury selection will begin for his trial on assault and drunken driving charges.

Rhymes, 35, is accused of kicking a fan, punching a former employee, driving drunk and driving with a suspended license.

Ja Rule, born Jeffrey Atkins, was told to come back Dec. 5. The 31-year-old rapper was arrested on weapons charges last July after police stopped his 2004 Maybach — a car that sells for up to $400,000 — and found a loaded .40-caliber handgun.

Lil Wayne, 24, was ordered to reappear in court Feb. 25. The performer, whose real name is Dwayne Carter, was arrested for illegal gun possession after he performed at the same concert in Manhattan as Ja Rule.

Prosecutors say police officers smelled marijuana coming from Lil Wayne's tour bus, and as they approached, he tossed aside a bag with a loaded .40-caliber handgun.

Grammy-nominated Remy Ma, 26, whose real name is Remy Smith, is charged with assault and witness tampering. She is accused of shooting an acquaintance over money and then trying to intimidate her. She was told to return Dec. 5.

Remy Ma, who has recorded songs with Busta Rhymes and Lil Wayne, said she knew all the other rappers who were in court and considered them friends.

The girl identified the 49-year-old man, who had multiple prior arrests for burglary, in a photo lineup, they said.

The man, from Bayville, was arrested by an officer when he went to First District Court for an unrelated issue, police said. He was charged with second-degree burglary.

It didn't: Ross was let go eight days into his tenure because his employer, Ragingwire Inc., said federal law makes marijuana illegal no matter the use.

On Tuesday, the California Supreme Court is due to hear Ross' case, the latest example of the intensifying clash between federal and local authorities over marijuana use.

Ross, 45, contends that Ragingwire discriminated against him because of a back injury and violated the state's fair-employment law by punishing him for legally smoking marijuana at home.

He says he and others using medical marijuana should receive the same workplace protection from discipline that employees with valid painkiller prescriptions do. California voters legalized medicinal marijuana in 1996.

Eleven other states, including Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington state have adopted similar laws and many are now grappling with the same sticky workplace issue of employee use of medicinal marijuana.

The nonprofit marijuana advocacy group Americans for Safe Access, which is representing Ross, estimates that 300,000 Americans use medical marijuana. The Oakland-based group said it has received hundreds of employee discrimination complaints in California since it first began tracking the issue in 2005.

"It's an extremely widespread problem," said Joe Elford, the group's chief lawyer.

Several national medical organizations and disability rights advocates have filed friend-of-the-court papers urging the Supreme Court to rule in Ross' favor.

Ross, who lives in Sacramento, said he permanently injured his back in 1983 while serving as a U.S. Air Force mechanic. He said it wasn't until 1999 that he found true pain relief with marijuana.

The American Medical Association advocates keeping marijuana classified as a tightly controlled and dangerous drug that should not be legalized until more research is conducted.

"I think I'm standing up for everybody else," Ross said. "My motivation is that I don't like to lose and that medical marijuana is effective."

So far, though, Ross has been losing.

Two lower courts have sided with Ragingwire's decision to fire Ross because federal law holds that marijuana is illegal in all guises and a 2005 U.S. Supreme Court decision declared that state medicinal marijuana laws don't protect users from criminal prosecution.

Ragingwire marketing chief Doug Adams declined to comment on the case.

Ragingwire, a small telecommunications company in Sacramento, has been joined in the Supreme Court by powerful corporate interests such as the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority and the Western Electrical Contractors Association Inc., who said companies could lose federal contracts and grants if they allowed employees to smoke pot.

The conservative nonprofit Pacific Legal Foundation said in a friend-of-the court filing that employers could also be liable for damage done by high workers.

"History abounds with cases of employers found liable," the Sacramento-based foundation wrote, "because their employees were driving vehicles, operating heavy equipment or otherwise performing tasks made more dangerous by their being under the influence of alcohol or drugs."

"We have answered every question, provided every requested piece of information and worked with you in good faith," he said in prepared testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Lawmakers have accused the company of holding back information in its role regarding the arrest of Chinese journalist Shi Tao. The Chinese government accused Shi of leaking state secrets and sentenced him to 10 years in prison.

Yang, who became CEO this summer of the company he co-founded, also said Yahoo is committed to doing the right thing and protecting human rights globally.

"We are a company founded on openness, the exchange of information and user trust, and we believe deeply in free expression and privacy," he said.

Michael Callahan, the Internet company's general counsel, is expected to repeat a public apology he made last week regarding his failure to turn over new information to Congress in October 2006, months after he initially testified to two House subcommittees about Yahoo's role in the case.

The foreign affairs committee's chairman, California Democrat Tom Lantos, doesn't buy Yahoo's explanation of why it previously provided incomplete information to Congress.

"Yahoo claims that this is just one big misunderstanding. Let me be clear — this was no misunderstanding," Lantos said in a statement prepared for the hearing.

"This was inexcusably negligent behavior at best, and deliberately deceptive behavior at worst," Lantos said.

Pitt sued the federal government on behalf of its former employees in 2004, arguing early retirement payments between 1996 and 2001 were not taxable wages because faculty members surrendered tenure as a condition of receiving the money.

A federal district court judge agreed, in part. But the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overruled that decision.

The 2-1 court majority says the faculty received the money for past service - making it wages. Pitt says it's not clear whether it will appeal.

Dubay, a 25-year-old from Saginaw Township, had said his ex-girlfriend, Lauren Wells, knew he didn't want to have a child and she assured him repeatedly she couldn't get pregnant because of a medical condition.

He argued that if a pregnant woman can choose among abortion, adoption or raising a child, a man involved in an unintended pregnancy should have the choice of declining the financial responsibilities of fatherhood.

But Lawson disagreed and rejected Dubay's argument that Michigan's paternity law violates the U.S. Constitution's equal protection clause.

The National Center for Men in Old Bethpage, N.Y. -- which prepared the suit -- nicknamed it "Roe v. Wade for Men" because it involves the issue of male reproductive rights. The nickname drew objections from women's rights organizations.

Dubay sued the Saginaw County prosecutor and Wells in March, contesting an order to pay $500 a month in child support for a girl born to Wells in 2005. Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox later intervened in the case and argued for its dismissal.
Dubay previously had acknowledged the suit was a long shot.