Chief Justice Roberts suffers seizure, fall

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts smiles before speaking at Northwestern University Law School in Chicago, February 1, 2007. Roberts, 52, was taken to hospital after falling at his home in Maine, CNN reported on Monday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts suffered a seizure and was taken to the hospital on Monday but a neurological evaluation showed no cause for concern, a Supreme Court spokeswoman said.

"Chief Justice John Roberts, Jr. took a fall about 2 p.m. today near his summer home in Maine after suffering what doctors describe as a benign idiopathic seizure," court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said in a statement.

Arberg said Roberts, 52, suffered minor scrapes in the fall but said he was "fully recovered" from the incident.

"He was taken by ambulance to Penobscot Bay Medical Center in Rockport, Maine, where he underwent a thorough neurological evaluation, which revealed no cause for concern," Arberg said.

Roberts, who experienced a similar seizure in 1993, will remain overnight at the hospital as a precaution, Arberg said.

Roberts is the youngest of the nine Supreme Court justices. He has no known medical conditions.

The chief justice was at his home near Port Clyde, Maine when he suffered the seizure. The area around Port Clyde, midway up the coast of Maine, is known as a summer vacation spot. Roberts and his wife, Jane, purchased the home about a year ago.

The Supreme Court has been in its three-month summer recess since the end of last month.

Roberts, a conservative, was appointed to the Supreme Court by President George W. Bush. He took his seat on September 29, 2005, succeeding William Rehnquist, who died of cancer.

Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, Bush's other appointment to the court, helped push the court to the right in its just-ended term on issues including abortion and race in schools.