MARLBORO - WINSTON - L&M - CAMEL - PARLIAMENT - KENT - CLASSIC

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court yesterday sided with Philip Morris USA, refusing to disturb a court ruling that threw out a $10.1 billion verdict over the company's "light" cigarettes.

The Supreme Court issued its order without comment.

Last year, the Illinois Supreme Court threw out the massive fraud judgment against Philip Morris, a unit of Altria Group Inc. It had resulted from a class-action lawsuit over "light" cigarettes.

The state court said that, because the Federal Trade Commission had allowed companies to characterize their cigarettes as "light" and "low tar," Philip Morris could not be held liable under state law, even if the terms it used could be found false or misleading.

The plaintiffs claimed Philip Morris knew, when it introduced such cigarettes in 1971, that they were no healthier than regular cigarettes, but hid that information and the fact that light cigarettes actually had a more toxic form of tar.

An Illinois judge ruled in favor of the smokers in March, 2003, saying the company had misled customers into believing they were buying a less harmful cigarette.

In other action, lawyers for the Bush Administration and Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. told the Supreme Court that a female former employee waited too long to allege sex discrimination in the setting of her pay.

The plaintiff, Lyle Ledbetter, worked at a Goodyear plant in Gadsden, Ala., for 19 years before suing for sex discrimination in 1998.

She argued that when Goodyear hired her as a production supervisor in 1979 at $16,760 a year, she was paid less than some male counterparts, a disparity that grew with periodic raises. When Ms. Ledbetter retired in November, 1998, she was making $44,724 a year, $6,708 less than the lowest-paid male in the same job and department.

A federal district court awarded her more than $3.5 million in back pay and damages, a figure later reduced to $360,000.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, ruling Ms. Ledbetter had missed a 180-day federal deadline for filing complaints about discriminatory pay.

Also, the justices refused to block the U.S. government from reviewing telephone records of New York Times reporters Judith Miller and Philip Shenon in its investigation of a 2001 leak over a terrorism-funding probe.