Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg has been hospitalized after a dangerous fall.
The eighty-five-year-old Ginsburg fractured three ribs in the accident at her office at the Supreme Court, the court reported in a press release.
The court’s oldest justice fell Wednesday evening, the court said. She went to George Washington University Hospital in Washington early Thursday after experiencing discomfort overnight.
She was admitted to the hospital for treatment and observation after tests showed she fractured three ribs.
In her absence, the court was going ahead Thursday with a courtroom ceremony welcoming new Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who joined the court last month.
President Donald Trump and new acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker were expected to attend.
Ginsburg has had a series of health problems in recent years. She broke two ribs in a fall in 2012. She has had two prior bouts with cancer and had a stent implanted to open a blocked artery in 2014.
She also was hospitalized after a bad reaction to medicine in 2009.
Appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1993, Ginsburg rebuffed suggestions from some liberals that she should step down in the first two years of President Barack Obama’s second term, when Democrats also controlled the Senate and would have been likely to confirm her successor.
She already has hired clerks for the term that extends into 2020, indicating she has no plans to retire.
Ginsburg leads the court’s liberal wing.
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The Associated Press contributed to this article