Page 1 of 9 Mayer Brown's Appellate.net [Inside Litigation, October 1988, Volume 12, Number 105, page 1. Reproduced with permission granted by Aspen Law & Business/Panel Publishers (www.aspenpub.com).] Federal Preemption: Two Renditions of a Fundamental Theme It's a point of law of obviously crucial strategic importance: To what extent does federal jurisdiction override decisions in state courts in product liability cases? For defense counsel, preemption is a potent weapon. Not just conflicting laws, but the very absence of a federal statute can, in specific instances, support a contention that a defendant is in full compliance with existing regulation. The debate takes on a rather ironic twist when considered in the larger context of what is and what is not the proper balance, legally and politically, between branches of the government. "Liberals" with an abiding faith in federal activism suddenly find themselves zealously guarding the prerogatives of decentralized decision-making. "Conservatives" with their dread of Big Brother suddenly look Beltway-ward the moment states' rights threaten disaster for corporate clients. Below are two views of the subject from the opposing sides. First is an address given by Arthur H. Bryant, executive director of Trial Lawyers for Public Justice in Washington, D.C., to the Section on Toxic, Environmental and Pharmaceutical Torts of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America at ATLA's annual conference, on July 13, 1998. Inside Litigation has invited Kenneth Geller and John Sullivan to respond. They are members of the Supreme Court and Appellate Practice Group in the Washington office of Mayer, Brown & Platt. Geller is former Deputy Solicitor General of the United States and Sullivan is a former law clerk to Justice David H. Souter. Mayer, Brown represented the defendant in Lewis v. Brunswick Corp. The Trial Lawyer for Public Justice filed an amicus urging the Supreme Court to find no preemption in that case. The case was settled by the parties, however, before a decision was issued. First, Arthur H. Bryant...* It is black letter law in virtually every state that a defendant's compliance with applicable government regulations is evidence of, but does not irrefutably establish, lack of negligence. If a reasonable person in the defendant's shoes would have done more than the bare minimum required by applicable regulations, then the defendant can be held liable. Thus, for example, the manufacturer of a harm-inducing drug can be found liable for the harm caused by the drug even though the manufacturer and the drug complied with all applicable regulations. Bryant: 'Under the law, federal preemption turns... exclusively on what Congress intended when it enacted the legislation... at issue.' Despite this sound and well-established principle of state law, numerous manufacturers and other defendants are now arguing in toxic tort, environmental, pharmaceutical, and other cases that they cannot be found negligent â indeed, that they cannot be sued â because they complied with government regulations. The regulations that they point to are federal and the doctrine that they cite is federal preemption. Far too frequently, the courts are ruling in their favor. To reverse this unjust trend, plaintiffs' lawyers need to pay more attention to federal preemption issues and the constitutional implications they raise. While numerous factors come into play when arguing about federal preemption, there are two key factors that plaintiffs' lawyers frequently overlook. First, federal preemption is fundamentally an issue of the relative power of the federal and state governments. The question in a federal preemption case is whether the federal government has, by its actions, eliminated the power of the states to provide for compensation of their citizens. The central values of our federal system â a system of United States â are at stake. Second, in arguing these issues, the substantive views of the courts on the propriety of tort litigation are not supposed to matter. Under the law, federal preemption turns (or at least is supposed to turn) exclusively on what Congress intended when it enacted the legislation (or authorized the regulatory agency to adopt the regulation) at issue. The central question is: what did Congress intend?
Page 2 of 9 With these thoughts in mind, this paper will provide a brief overview of the law of federal preemption, highlight some important recent developments, and provide suggestions about what lawyers faced with preemption arguments should and should not do. Let me say at the outset, however, that, if your opponent files a motion arguing federal preemption, please do not hesitate to contact me or the other staff at Trial Lawyers for Public Justice. We have been briefing and arguing these issues all over the country for over a decade. We are committed to preserving injured victims' rights to their day in court. Preemption Doctrine: A Brief Overview In determining whether common law claims are preempted by federal law, the courts' "sole task is to ascertain the intent of Congress." California Federal Savings & Loan Assn. v. Guerra, 479 U.S. 272, 107 S. Ct. 683, 689 (1978). Because the federal and state governments share power under our system of law, moreover, the inquiry "starts with the basic assumption that Congress did not intend to displace state law." Maryland v. Louisiana, 451 U.S. at 746. "This assumption provides assurance that the federal-state balance," United States v. Bass, 404 U.S. 336, 349 (1971), will not be disturbed unintentionally by Congress or unnecessarily by the courts." Jones v. Rath Packing Co., 430 U.S. 519, 525 (1977). As the Ninth Circuit explained in Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Hammond, 726 F.2d 483, 488 (9th Cir. 1984): The justification for such caution is that Congress certainly has the power to "act so unequivocally as to make it clear that it intends no regulation but its own." Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator Corp., 331 U.S. [218, 236 (1947)]. Furthermore, if we are left with a doubt as to congressional purpose, we should be slow to find preemption," [f]or the state is powerless to remove the ill effects of our decision, while the national government, which has the ultimate power, remains free to remove the burden." Penn Dairies v. Milk Control Comm'n.,318 U.S. 261, 275 (1943). The strength of the presumption against preemption depends upon the subject matter being regulated. Chevron U.S.A., Inc., 726 F.2d at 487-488; Morseburg v. Balyon, 621 F.2d 972, 976 (9th Cir. 1980). The presumption is particularly strong in regard to subject matters "traditionally regarded as properly within the scope of state superintendence," Florida Lime & Avocado Growers Inc. v. Pauli, 373 U.S. 132, 144 (1963), including "state or local regulation of matters relating to health and safety," Hillsborough County, Florida, 471 U.S. 707 (1985), and "the provision of tort remedies to compensate for personal injuries." Ferebee v. Chevron Chemical Co., 736 F.2d 1529, 1542 (D.C. Cir.), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 1062 (1984). When such "historical police powers of the States" are at issue, preemption will not be found "unless that was the clear and manifest purpose of Congress." Rice, 331 U.S. at 230 (emphasis added). "The presumption against preemption is even stronger against preemption of state remedies, like tort recoveries, when no federal remedies exist." Abbot by Abbot v. American Cyanimid Co., 844 F.2d 1108, 1112 (4th Cir. 1988). Congressional intent to preempt a state law can be found in three separate ways. California Federal, 107 S.Ct. at 689. First, there is express preemption. Congress can explicitly state its intent to preempt the state law at issue. Id. If Congress' intention is clear from its express language, that is supposed to end the analysis and the courts are not supposed to look further. Cipollone v. Liggett Group Inc., 505 U.S. 504, 517 (1993); Freightliner Corp. v. Myrick, 115 S.Ct. 1483 (1995). Second, if Congress' intent is not clear from its express language, an intention to preempt can be implied when the legislation passed is so comprehensive that it leaves no room for the states to supplement federal law. California Federal, supra. Third, if Congress' intent is not clear from its express language, an intention to preempt a specific law can also be implied if the state law "actually conflicts" with the federal law. Id. Such "an actual conflict" will only be found where "compliance with both federal and state [law] is a physical impossibility" or "the state law stands as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes of Congress." Id. Throughout the preemption analysis, "the purpose of Congress is the ultimate touchstone." Id. Some Recent Preemption Developments Given the historic role of the States in compensating injury victims, the courts have generally been hesitant to find that Congress intended to preempt the States' power in this area. See, e.g., Silkwood v. Kerr-McGee Corp., 464 U.S. 238 (1984) Nevertheless, in recent years, manufacturers have increasingly been arguing â and the federal district and appeals courts, in particular, have increasingly been finding â that federal preemption bars injury victims' claims.
Page 3 of 9 If there is a saving grace in this battle, it is that (at least, so far) the U.S. Supreme Court has been less likely to find federal preemption of such claims than the lower federal courts. Thus, for example, in Cipollone v. Liggett Group, Inc., 505 U.S. at 504, the Supreme Court rejected the near-unanimous position of the federal appeals courts and held (a) that a 1965 federal cigarette statute did not preempt any claims and (b) that a 1969 federal cigarette statute preempted only some warning-related claims, but not others. And, in Medtronic Inc. v. Lohr, 116 S. Ct. 2240 (1996), the Supreme Court found that the Medical Device Amendments of 1976 did not preempt any of the plaintiff's claims â even though most federal circuits had held otherwise. In the past several years, the Supreme Court has generally heard at least one case each year addressing federal preemption of injury victims' claims. As I write this paper, we await the Court's ruling in Lewis v. Brunswick Corp., 107 F.3d 1494 (11th Cir. 1997), cert. granted, No. 97-288 (argued March 2, 1998). In that case, a young woman fell out of a boat and died when she was repeatedly struck by the boat engine's unguarded propeller. The woman's parents sued the engine's manufacturer, charging that the engine was defectively designed because it lacked a propeller guard. The case, however, never got to trial. Both the district court and the Eleventh Circuit held (as did the Eighth Circuit before them) that, because the Coast Guard considered whether to issue a regulation requiring all manufacturers to install propeller guards on all boats â and decided not to do so â no injury victim could sue any boat manufacturer for failing to install a propeller guard on any boat! Trial Lawyers for Public Justice filed an amicus brief in Lewis urging the Supreme Court to find no preemption. We also met with the Solicitor General's Office and helped persuade the U.S. government to file an amicus brief urging the same result. The case... should provide more guidance on how to address preemption issues.... In the meantime, plaintiffs' lawyers must be aware of the threat of federal preemptionâ and work hard to avoid it. What You Should Do To avoid federal preemption, there are several things that you should and should not do: 1. Take the threat of federal preemption into account before you file your case. Whether a court finds preemption may turn entirely on what claims you assert or on how you frame your case. The very best way of dealing with federal preemption may literally be to avoid it, if you can still successfully pursue your clients' claims. 2. Do not underestimate the importance of the issue. If the court finds federal preemption of your clients' claims, that may not just end the case. It may also end your ability to file similar cases in the future. 3. Do not underestimate the work to be done. These motions require research and briefing of Congress' intent in enacting a particular statute and the interplay of federal and state law. Law students and inexperienced briefing attorneys are unlikely to do an adequate job. 4. Call for help. Contact Trial Lawyers for Public Justice for assistance and for information about other lawyers faced with similar motions. We and they may be able to save you a lot of work. At a minimum, we can guide and assist your research efforts. In an important enough case or appeal, we may be willing to brief and argue the issue ourselves. 5. Throughout your papers and argument, recognize and articulate the important constitutional issues at stake. The federal preemption issue is not simply about whether a particular set of victims will be able to obtain compensationâ as important as that question is. Rather, it is about whether Congress has taken away from the States the power to compensate victims whom the States deem worthy of compensation. In preemption cases, the defendant is arguing that, no matter how outrageously it acted, the States have no power to require it to pay compensation to its victims. The constitutional implications of that argument are important. 6. Recognize and take appropriate advantage of the fact that, because preemption involves the usurpation of state power by the federal government, certain judges and others that might not normally be receptive to your clients' interests may be extremely receptive to your arguments. "States' rights" advocates, State Attorneys General, and local government lawyers are your natural allies.
Page 4 of 9 7. Keep your eye on the ball. The question is what Congress intended. The strong presumption is that Congress did not intend to preempt state law. Bryant: '[B]ecause preemption involves the usurpation of state power by the federal government, certain judges... that might not normally be receptive to your clients' interests may be extremely receptive to your arguments.' 8. With your eye on the ball, carefully research and fully brief the issues. Make sure you review all of the sources usually examined to determine what Congress intended. Focus first on the specific language in question. What does it mean in light of the purpose for which it was passed? Then turn to the legislative history. Did Congress or the bill's sponsors say they intended to preempt tort law claims? If not, what basis is there for saying they intended to do so? Review the position, if any, the federal agency involved has taken on the issue. In many cases, the agency has said there is no preemption. Then turn to the case law interpreting the statuteâ not simply in your specific factual context, but in all relevant cases. Don't forget to look at law reviews and other commentaries, too. 9. Recognize and stress the distinction between state regulations and state tort law. Congress often preempts the former and leaves the latter intact, particularly in the field of consumer protection. The reason is the different purposes of the two bodies of law. Regulatory law is forward-looking. It is primarily intended to change future conduct. Tort law looks back in time. It is primarily intended to compensate victims. Note that, in many areas, if tort law is preempted, criminal law may be preempted, too. Its purpose is punishing wrongful conduct, but it also affects future conduct. See if there are any cases examining the preemptive effect of the federal law in question on state criminal law and argue that, too. 10. Keep fighting. Justice is on our side. The manufacturers are generally relying on federal legislation intended to increase consumer protection. Congress did not intend this legislature to immunize manufacturers from liability and leave injured consumers with no remedy at all. Geller and Sullivan Respond... In response to the flood of product liability claims against a broad range of manufacturers in recent decades, defendants have often successfully interposed the affirmative defense of federal preemption of state tort law. The gist of the defense is that, where the government â either Congress or a federal agency â has adopted a policy or regulatory program that addresses the safety issue implicated by a product liability suit, the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution prohibits state tort law from imposing duties that are inconsistent with or frustrate the purpose of the federal safety program. Federal preemption of state law is as old as the Constitution. The Supremacy Clause resolves any conflict between federal law and state law in favor of federal law. U.S. Const. art. VI, cl. 2; Louisiana Pub. Serv. Comm'n v. FCC, 476 U.S. 355, 362 (1986); Fidelity Fed. Sav. & Loan Ass'n v. de la Cuesta, 458 U.S. 141, 153 (1982). Plaintiffs in product liability suits have, not surprisingly, resisted federal preemption vigorously, raising numerous legal objections. In Lewis v. Brunswick Corp., 107 F.3d 1494 (11th Cir. 1997), cert. dismissed, 118 S. Ct. 878 (1998), the Supreme Court was presented with many of the legal issues on federal preemption now raised by plaintiff's counsel in state and federal courts across the country. We represented Brunswick Corporation before the Supreme Court in Lewis. Although no decision was rendered in the case because the parties settled, Lewis is a useful vehicle for reviewing some of the common arguments for and against federal preemption. In response to petition's assertion in Lewis that a boat manufactured by Brunswick was defective under Georgia tort law because it did not have a propeller guard, Brunswick interposed a federal preemption defense. This defense relied on the Boat Safety Act of 1971, 46 U.S.C. Â Â 4301-4311, which established a comprehensive federal boat safety program to be administered by the Coast Guard and implemented, in large measure, by the states. Over one aspect of boat safety, Congress reserved exclusive regulatory authority to the Coast Guard: "the establishment of national construction and performance standards for boats and associated equipment." Senate Report on the Boat Safety Act of 1971 at 15. Congress sought to promote uniform national standards so that "interstate commerce" would not be "impeded" by equipment and design requirements that varied from state to state. Id. at 14.
Page 5 of 9 Exercising its authority under this federal regulatory scheme, the Coast Guard conducted an 18-month investigation that culminated in a decision that propeller guards should not be required on recreational boats. The lengthy administrative proceedings revealed that propeller guards often make boats less safe and are not economically feasible. Bryant: 'Recognize and stress the distinction between state regulations and state tort law. Congress often preempts the former and leaves the latter intact...' Relying on this legislative and administrative record, Brunswick argued that the petitioners in Lewis sought to undermine the Coast Guard's decision, as well as the congressional goal of uniform national design standards and requirements, by bringing suit to enforce a requirement under Georgia common law that recreational boats be equipped with propeller guards. The petitioners responded that neither the text of the Boat Safety Act, nor any federal safety policy, precluded their suit. Express Preemption The focus in any product liability action is on express and implied preemption. First, express preemption. The preemption analysis of any state law claim must begin with the text of the federal statute at issue. See Medtronic, Inc. v. Lohr, 116 S. Ct. 2240, 2251 (1996). In the Lewis case, Section 4306 of the Boat Safety Act, stated that (emphases added): [A] State may not establish, continue in effect, or enforce a law or regulation establishing a recreational vessel or associated equipment performance or other safety standard or imposing a requirement for associated equipment...that is not identical to a regulation prescribed under section 4302 of this title. Brunswick argued that the petitioners' state law claims in Lewis were expressly preempted by this language in the Boat Safety Act. It was undisputed that the petitioners sought to "establish, continue in effect, or enforce" a rule of state law requiring propeller guards (which constitute "associated equipment") on a "recreational vessel" and that this state law rule was "not identical to" a Coast Guard regulation. In fact, the Coast Guard made a conscious decision not to issue a regulation requiring that boats be equipped with propeller guards. There can be no doubt that a Georgia statute or regulation requiring that recreational boats be equipped with proper guards would be preempted by the Boat Safety Act. Express Preemption of Common Law Claims The petitioners in Lewis nonetheless sought to distinguish an identical state common law requirement by arguing that the preemption provision of the Boat Safety Act does not provide that "common law" actions are preempted. Their position was ultimately premised on the notion that Congress intended the States to supplement the Coast Guard's regulatory scheme, not through their legislatures or expert administrative agencies, but rather through lay juries acting on a case-by-case basis. Geller and Sullivan: 'If Congress were intent on creating uniform national standards and requirements, why would it preempt a state administrative regulation but not a common law rule on the same subject?' This argument, which is commonly advanced in opposition to federal preemption, is belied by the text of Section 4306 of the Boat Safety Act. That text preempts a "State or political subdivision of a State" from adopting or enforcing a "law or regulation establishing a recreational vessel or associated equipment performance or other safety standard or imposing a requirement for associated equipment... that is not identical to a [Coast Guard] regulation." There is no basis for reading the broad phrases "state law or regulation," "safety standard," and "requirement" to exclude mandatory duties or requirements imposed by state common law. The contrary argument was explicitly rejected by the Supreme Court in Cipollone v. Liggett Group, Inc., 505 U.S.
Page 6 of 9 504 (1992). The Cipollone Court held that the express preemption provision at issue in that case included common law duties even though it spoke only in terms of " 'requirement[s] or prohibition[s]... imposed under State law.' " 505 U.S. at 519-524 (plurality opinion) (citation omitted); id. at 548-549 (Scalia, J., concurring). The Court stated that it made no difference that the preemption clause "fail[ed] to include a specific" reference to common law claims (id. at 521): The phrase "[n]o requirement or prohibition" sweeps broadly and suggests no distinction between positive enactment and common law. To the contrary, those words easily encompass obligations that take the form of common-law rules. See id. at 548-549 (" 'requirement[s] or prohibition[s]' " and " 'State law' "...embrace[] state common law") (Scalia, J., concurring). The Court applied the same analysis in CSX Transp., Inc. v. Easterwood, 507 U.S. 658, 664 (1993) to the express preemption clause in the Federal Railroad Safety Act, under which "applicable federal regulations may preempt any state 'law, rule, regulation, order, or standard relating to railroad safety.' " Relying on Cipollone. the court held that "[l]egal duties imposed.. by the common law fall within the scope of these broad phrases." Ibid. This holding was entirely consistent with the 's prior interpretation and usage o the same "broad phrases" in other contexts. See, e.g., Norfolk & W.R. Co. v. American Train Dispatchers Ass'n, 499 U.S. 117, 128 (1991) (preemption of all " 'all other law, including State and municipal law' is clear, broad and unqualified. It does not admit of the distinction... between positive enactments and common law rules of liability"); Illinois v. City of Milwaukee, 406 U.S. 91, 100 (1972) (giving the word "laws," as used in 28 U.S.C. Â 1331, its "natural meaning" to include common law claims). The holdings in Cipollone and Easterwood were recently reaffirmed in Medtronic, where a majority of the Court endorsed the proposition that the word "requirement" encompasses state law tort claims for purposes of federal preemption. 116 S. Ct. at 2259-2260 (Breyer, J., concurring in part and concurring in the judgment); id. at 2262-264 (O'Connor, J., Rehnquist, C.J., and Scalia and Thomas, JJ., concurring in part and dissenting in part). As Justice O'Connor observed, "[w]hether relating to the labeling of cigarettes [Cipollone] or the manufacture of medical devices [Medtronic], state common-law damages actions operate to require manufacturers to comply with common law duties," and are therefore expressly preempted by a federal statute that bars state "requirements." Id. at 2262-2263; see id. at 2259 ("One can reasonably read the word 'requirement' as including the legal requirements that grow out of the application, in particular circumstances, of a State's tort law") (Breyer, J.). The Court's approach in Cipollone, Easterwood, and Medtronic is ultimately premised on its longstanding recognition that "[state] regulation can be as effectively exerted through an award of damages as through some form of preventive relief." San Diego Bldg. Trades Council v. Garmon, 359 U.S. 236, 247 (1959); see New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 277-278 (1964) (holding that common law claims are " 'a form of regulation.' " Where â as here â Congress has expressed a strong interest in creating uniform national standards and in preempting inconsistent state duties, it would be irrational to read broad and generic phrases such as "law," "regulation," "standard," or "requirement" in a grudging and artificial way so as to exclude requirements imposed by a State's common law. See Chicago & N.W. Transp. Co. v. Kalo Brick & Tile Co., 450 U.S. 311, 326 (1981) (a "system under which each State could, through its courts, impose... its own... requirements could hardly be more at odds with the uniformity contemplated by Congress"); see also International Paper Co. v. Ouellette, 479 U.S. 481, 498-499 n. 19 (1987) (rejecting the contention that compensatory damages only require the [defendant] to pay... and thus do not 'regulate' "). Indeed, as Justice Breyer noted in Medtronic, "a contrary holding would have anomalous consequences." 116 S. Ct. at 2259. If Congress were intent on creating uniform national standards and requirements, why would it preempt a state administrative regulation concerning a piece of equipment, such as a ventilation system, but not a common law rule on the same subject? "The effects of the state agency regulation and the state tort suit are identical," and it makes no sense "[t]o distinguish between them for pre-emption purposes." Ibid. To do so would be to "grant greater power... to a single jury than to state officials acting through state administrative or legislative lawmaking processes." Ibid. The 'Savings Provision' To blunt the force of the foregoing precedents, the petitioners in Lewis also relied on Section 4311(g) of the Boat Safety Act, the statute's "Savings Provision," which is a common feature in federal health and safety statutes. That section provides that "[c]ompliance with this chapter or standards, regulations, or orders prescribed under this chapter does not relieve a person from liability at common law or under State law." The petitioners focused
Page 7 of 9 heavily on the reference to "common law," but completely ignored the inclusion of the phrase "State law." Congress' explicit reference to "State law," however, undermined the petitioners' reliance on this provision to limit federal preemption. If, as the petitioners argued, Section 4311(g) must be construed to limit the scope of express preemption in Section 4306, then the Savings Provision would completely nullify the preemption provision. The text of Section 4311(g) draws no distinction between state common law claims and other state law claims. Under the petitioners' reading of Section 4311(g), a manufacturer could be held liable under a "state law" â including a state statute or administrative regulation â that imposed boat design or equipment requirements that are not identical to (or even flatly inconsistent with) a federal regulation issued under the Act. That result is, of course, plainly contrary to the preemptive provision in Section 4306. Indeed, it robs that carefully crafted section of the Act of any purpose. Moreover, contrary to the petitioners' arguments, the text, structure, and legislative history of Section 4311(g) demonstrates that the Savings Provision was not designed to limit the scope of federal preemption under Section 4306 at all. The provision was added as a "technical" amendment to the end of the statute in a section wholly apart from â and without any reference in the legislative history to â the preemption provision. Section 4311(g) merely clarifies that Congress, in enacting the Boat Safety Act, did not intend to provide an affirmative defense of compliance with government standards in areas where Section 4306 allows suit to be brought under state law. That is what the provision quite literally says: "Compliance with [a federal standard or regulation] does not relieve a person from liability at common law or under State law." The explanation in the Senate Report (at 32 [emphasis added]) is fully in accord with this language: The "purpose of the section is to assure that in a product liability suit mere compliance by a manufacturer with the minimum standards promulgated under the Act will not be a complete defense to liability." Thus, rather than limiting federal preemption, the Savings Provision precludes manufacturers from relying on compliance with federal standards as a defense to state law liability in areas where state law still has a role to play, e.g., in areas unrelated to design, construction, and performance standards or equipment requirements. A manufacturer could not, for example, avoid liability for breach of warranty by relying on its compliance with Coast Guard standards. Implied Preemption Whether or not there is an express preemption provision in the federal statute at issue in a case, the question of implied preemption inevitably arises. In Lewis, the implied preemption defense was compelling. After an 18- month investigation of propeller guards and propeller-strike incidents, which included nationwide public hearings, a review of voluminous documentary and video evidence, and several physical demonstrations, an expert federal advisory committee produced a lengthy Report recommending that there should be "no regulatory action to require propeller guards." The Coast Guard, after reviewing the Report and all of the underlying evidence, independently concluded that "[a]vailable propeller guard accident data do not support imposition of a regulation requiring propeller guards on motorboats." In light of this record, Brunswick argued that the petitioners' common law claims were implicitly preempted under the Boat Safety Act by operation of the Supremacy Clause. If allowed to proceed with their tort claims, the petitioners proposed to hold Brunswick liable for potentially massive compensatory and punitive damages for failing to do what the Coast Guard had decided Brunswick should not be required to do: install propeller guards on its boat engines. This state law requirement would conflict and frustrate the purposes of the federal regulatory scheme both by countermanding the Coast Guard's decision that there should not be a propeller guard requirement for safety reasons, and by undermining the national uniformity of standards and equipment requirements mandated by Congress. The Supremacy Clause will not permit that result. Congress and the Coast Guard have acted to eliminate any conflicting state laws by adopting "national construction and performance standards for boats and associated equipment." Senate Report at 15. Any state law that conflicts with or frustrates the purposes of this comprehensive federal program is preempted. See Hines v. Davidowitz, 312 U.S. 52, 67 (1941); Freightliner, 514 U.S. at 287. Particularly where the Coast Guard has focused on an item of equipment and decided that it should not be required, a state may not impose a contrary requirement on manufacturers.
Page 8 of 9 Geller and Sullivan: 'The Supreme Court has disposed of the petitioners' argument that the mere presence of an express preemption clause precluded implied preemption.' Relying on the Supreme Court's preemption analysis in Cipollone, 505 U.S. at 517-518, the petitioners responded that the text of the Boat Safety Act provides a "reliable indicium of Congressional intent" to preclude implied conflict preemption of all common law claims. Thus, they asserted that the absence of a reference to common law duties in Section 4306, and the language of the "Savings Provision" in Section 4311(g), combine to show an intent of Congress not to imply further preemption. Implied Preemption Analysis is Fully Applicable The Supreme Court has already disposed of the petitioner's argument that the mere presence of an express preemption clause in the Boat Safety Act precluded implied preemption. In Freightliner Corp. v. Myrick, 514 U.S. 280 (1995), the Court emphatically rejected the proposition "that implied pre-emption cannot exist when Congress has chosen to include an express preemption clause in a statute." Id. at 287. The Court dismissed this contention as premised on a plain misreading of a single sentence in Cipollone, in which the Court had observed that (505 U.S. at 517): When Congress has considered the issue of preemption and has included in the enacted legislation a provision explicitly addressing that issue, and when that provision provides a 'reliable indicium of congressional intent with respect to state authority,' Malone v. White Motor Corp., 435 U.S. at 505, 'there is no need to infer congressional intent to pre-empt state laws from the substantive provisions' of the legislation. The Freightliner Court rejected as entirely "without merit" any interpretation of this sentence that would preclude an implied preemption inquiry in the face of an express preemption clause. 514 U.S. at 287. "The fact that an express definition of the pre-emptive reach of a statute 'implies' â i.e., supports a reasonable inference â that Congress did not intend to pre-empt other matters does not mean that the express clause entirely forecloses any possibility of implied preemption." Id. at 288. Indeed, the Court in Freightliner then proceeded to engage in a traditional implied preemption analysis of the common law claims at issue. Â Id. at 289-290. It is, in the final analysis, bizarre in the extreme to attribute to Congress any intent to permit state law to destroy a comprehensive federal safety program merely because it includes an express preemption provision in a federal statute. Why would Congress, by precluding one area of state action, thereby want to implicitly authorize other areas of state action that would make the federal scheme ineffective? If that were the law, "only the most sporting of Congresses would dare say anything about preemption." Cipollone, 505 U.S. at 548 (Scalia, J., concurring in part). Â The 'Savings Provision' Does Not Alter the Implied Preemption Analysis The petitioners in Lewis also relied on the Boat Safety Act's Savings Provision to try to defeat implied preemptive. Even if Section 4311(g) were viewed as a limitation on preemption (which, as we discussed above, it is not), it indicates, at most, Congress' intent not to occupy the entire field of boat safety, so that state law claims could proceed in areas unrelated to "construction and performance standards for boats and associated equipment." Senate Report at 15. In the absence of the Savings Provision, defendants in such suits might have argued that the comprehensiveness of the federal scheme ousted the states from the field of boat safety entirely. Faced with "savings clauses" in other statutes, the Supreme Court has consistently interpreted them in like fashion. In Chicago & N.W. Transp. Co. v. Kalo Brick & Tile Co., 450 U.S. 311 (1981), for example, which held that a broadly worded savings clause was inapplicable where the plaintiff sought to impose common law liability for acts expressly permitted by a federal agency, the Court explained that general savings clauses do not allow states to enforce state law claims that conflict with or frustrate federal law. Id. at 328. Rather, such provisions are included in federal statutes because, without them. it might have been claimed that, Congress having entered the field, the whole subject of liability...
Page 9 of 9 had been withdrawn from the jurisdiction of the state courts, so [the savings clause] was added to make plain that the Act was not intended to deprive the state courts of their general and concurrent jurisdiction. Ibid. Similarly, in Pennsylvania R.R. v. Puritan Coal Mining Co., 237 U.S. 121, 129 (1915), the Court found that a savings clause "was added at the end of the statute, not to nullify other parts of the Act, or to defeat rights or remedies given by preceding sections, but to preserve all existing rights which were not inconsistent with those created by the statute." And, in Texas & Pac. Ry. v. Abilene Cotton Oil Co., 204 U.S. 426, 446 (1907), the Court held that a broad savings clause ("[n]othing in this act contained shall in any way abridge or alter [common law] remedies" [internal quotations omitted]) could not be read to save common law rights "the continued existence of which would be absolutely inconsistent with the provisions of the act." Such a reading, the Court instructed, would cause the federal statute to "destroy itself." Ibid. Geller and Sullivan: 'Section 4311(g) was added to the Boat Safety Act not to defeat the goal of uniform national standards and requirements, but to evidence Congress' intent not to preempt the remainder of the field of boat safety.' As these precedents indicate, Section 4311(g) was added to the Boat Safety Act not to defeat the statutory goal of creating uniform national boat construction and performance standards and equipment requirements, but rather to evidence Congress' intent not to preempt the remainder of the field of boat safety. The Savings Provision did not, however, save petitioners' common law claims from implied preemption, because they would have frustrated the Coast 's clear determination that propeller guards should not be required on recreational boats. At the end of the day, the petitioners in Lewis, like the plaintiffs in many product liability cases, failed to provide any answer to the dispositive question of congressional intent: Why would Congress have given the Coast Guard plenary authority to craft a program of uniform national boat construction standards and equipment requirements, and have expressly precluded the Georgia legislature and administrative agencies from playing any role in that process, yet at the same time allowed Georgia courts and lay juries to reject the federal standards and to create a regime of non-uniform state law equipment requirements? The incoherence of such a scheme is a convincing rebuttal to the arguments against federal preemption. Copyright  1999 Mayer, Brown & Platt. This article provides information and comments on legal issues and developments of interest to our clients and friends. The foregoing is not a comprehensive treatment of the subject matter covered and is not intended to provide legal advice. Readers should seek specific legal advice before taking any action with respect to the matters discussed herein. Copyright 2012. Mayer Brown LLP, Mayer Brown International LLP, Mayer Brown JSM and/or Tauil & Chequer Advogados, a Brazilian law partnership with which Mayer Brown is associated. All rights reserved. Mayer Brown is a global legal services provider comprising legal practices that are separate entities (the Mayer Brown Practices ). The Mayer Brown Practices are: Mayer Brown LLP and Mayer Brown Europe Brussels LLP, both limited liability partnerships established in Illinois USA; Mayer Brown International LLP, a limited liability partnership incorporated in England and Wales (authorized and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority and registered in England and Wales number OC 303359); Mayer Brown, a SELAS established in France; Mayer Brown JSM, a Hong Kong partnership and its associated entities in Asia; and Tauil & Chequer Advogados, a Brazilian law partnership with which Mayer Brown is associated. Mayer Brown and the Mayer Brown logo are the trademarks of the Mayer Brown Practices in their respective jurisdictions.