SACRAMENTO – Two years after going off the air, the hit television show “Friends,” which became a touchstone for a generation of young adults trying to navigate life and love, may be about to set new legal boundaries for talk about sex in the workplace.

The California Supreme Court heard arguments yesterday in a lawsuit brought by a writing assistant fired from the program, Amaani Lyle, who contends that the profanity-riddled and sex-laden diatribes of “Friends” writers constituted sexual harassment.

The company that produced the show, Warner Brothers, claims that programs about sex and relationships require frank and freewheeling discussion of the subject matter. The company has also warned that allowing Ms. Lyle to proceed with her case could put a strait-jacket on writers and dilute the quality of what Americans see on movies and TV.

“Writers need to, as part of their jobs, take on taboo subject matters. They need to challenge social mores,” the lawyer for Warner Brothers, Adam Levin, told the court.” Since the beginning of time, that’s been the nature of comedy.”

Ms. Lyle’s attorney, Scott Cummings, said most of the vulgar talk and behavior took place in hallways and break rooms, and had nothing to do with preparing material for “Friends.”

According to deposition testimony, the writers routinely talked in crude terms about sex, their own sexual proclivities, and the sex lives of the famous actors and actresses on the program.

“Nobody was involved in the creative process,” Mr. Cummings said. “This was just some guys liking to say shocking, offensive, vulgar, obscene things.”

In their questions, several of the judges noted that the company warned Ms. Lyle before she was hired that the writing for the program would involve sexual themes and low-brow humor.

“I would never think that means some guy next to me is going to be drawing a woman’s vagina and making jokes about it,” Mr. Cummings said in court. He noted in his argument that nothing of that sort ever was displayed on the show.

Mr. Levin said the writing process often involves dead ends and it would be wrong to hold writers accountable for voicing ideas that never make it into the final product. “Freedom of expression and breathing space equals that the writers be permitted space to go down blind alleys,” the attorney said.

One judge suggested that the bland warning Ms. Lyle was given did not put her on notice for the crude remarks that permeated the “Friends” writing sessions.

“I’m not sure low-brow humor would have prepared her for what she ultimately, being in the room, was exposed to,” Judge Kathryn Werdegar said.

On balance, however, the judges’ questions expressed skepticism about Ms. Lyle’s claims. Several judges said there was no evidence that Ms. Lyle was the target of any of the sex-related comments. Some of the six judges in attendance suggested it was not evident why women would be more offended than men by the frank talk.

Judge Carlos Moreno asked if a man could file suit over the same sex-charged statements. Mr. Cummings suggested that such a suit would be permitted, but offered no explanation of the injury such a case would address.

“Is that the question, that women here ought to have a more genteel workplace because they have entered it?” Judge Carol Corrigan asked.

A number of judges seemed to fret that Ms. Lyle’s position verged on allowing a lawsuit anytime an employee takes offense at the mention of sex. That concern drove universities, newspaper publishers, and even bookstore operators, to file amicus briefs with the court. Mr. Levin told the judges that museums, college sociology classes, and even some law firms deal with sexual matters that could offend employees. He said a flood of lawsuits was possible if Ms. Lyle’s claim is allowed to proceed. Her case was brought under a California law against employment discrimination, but federal law contains similar provisions.

An attorney representing lawyers who bring employment-related cases, Jeffrey Winikow, told the judges that women remain a rare presence on writing staffs in the entertainment industry. Mr. Winikow, who was permitted to argue as a friend of the court, suggested that problem would grow worse if the court countenanced the behavior about which Ms. Lyle complained. “Part of the reason that we have a field that is dominated by young white men is because of these barriers,” he said.

Mr. Winikow said it would be folly to allow companies to escape liability just because they warned their employees that they could be subjected to sex-related talk. He said that the owners of an oil rig could tell their employees that there is a lot of lewd talk on the platform and then ignore complaints about harassment.

Ms. Lyle spent four months working at “Friends” before she was fired in October 1999. The company contends she was discharged because she did a poor job writing up the dialogue writers hashed out in discussion at their meetings. According to Warner Brothers, Ms. Lyle never complained about the work atmosphere until she was fired.

At that time, Ms. Lyle, who is African-American, also complained about racial discrimination, but that issue was alluded to only in passing yesterday.

One of the central legal issues in the “Friends” case is who should decide whether the raunchy talk was necessary to the writing process. Ms. Lyle’s lawyer wants a jury to make that judgment, while the Warner Brothers legal team has argued that the best way to protect the First Amendment interests at stake is to have a judge head off the case at an early stage.

In this instance, the state judge assigned to Ms. Lyle’s suit threw the case out before trial. An appeals court rejected that decision and reinstated the suit, but the California Supreme Court granted the company’s request to take up the matter.

During the hour-long arguments yesterday afternoon, the justices and the lawyers generally refrained from filling the historic Supreme Court chamber with the vulgarities allegedly used in the writing rooms and hallways at Warner Brothers. However, the judges and observers seemed a bit jarred by Mr. Cummings’s blunt use of anatomical language. At one juncture, Mr. Winikow speculated about how one description of women might support a case of sex discrimination.

Taken to an extreme, the company’s position might permit assaults and drug taking if they were helpful to the creative process. However, under questioning, Mr. Levin said that his First Amendment arguments would not excuse violations of the penal code.

“There are limits,” Mr. Levin said. He also conceded that frank sexual talk might not be legally protected for writers on movies like “Finding Nemo” or children’s TV series like “Sesame Street.”

A decision in the case is expected within three months.