Brennan, Hit by Pneumonia, Is Hospitalized

Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr. was hospitalized Thursday, suffering from pneumonia.

Brennan, 82, was taken to Bethesda Naval Medical Center in suburban Maryland in the early afternoon after visiting a doctor at the Capitol, court spokeswoman Toni House said.

“Justice Brennan was admitted with pneumonia,” she said. “He is being treated with antibiotics, and doctors expect him to respond very well.”

A statement read by House in response to a reporter’s inquiry added: “His illness is not expected to affect his work except for the Monday, Dec. 12, session.”

The court is scheduled to begin a four-week recess after issuing orders and possibly announcing decisions Monday.

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House declined to answer other questions concerning the justice’s health or his hospitalization.

A court employee who spoke on the condition of anonymity said Brennan left his court office after suffering from a fever and chills.

Brennan participated in the court’s oral arguments Wednesday and reportedly has enjoyed good health recently.

His last hospitalization was in August, 1987, when he checked into the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., for tests on his prostate gland. The tests revealed he did not have cancer.

“Although the prostate is somewhat enlarged, the condition is not malignant and no surgery is required,” Brennan said in a statement issued by the court at that time.

In 1979, Brennan had a stroke that left his right hand partially paralyzed, and a year earlier he was treated for a cancerous growth on a vocal cord.

Brennan, appointed to the nation’s highest court by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956, is its oldest and most senior member.

For three decades the court’s leading liberal member, Brennan is now one of three liberal, octogenarian justices. Thurgood Marshall and Harry A. Blackmun are 80.

By comparison, the average age of the court’s conservative justices is about 60.