Case background and facts The attorney general of California filed a case against Mazda Motor Vehicle Corporation after an accident that resulted in the killing of Thanh Williamson in 2002. Williamson was driving a Mazda MPV minivan model of 1993 and she was wearing a lap-only seat belt installed in the vehicle. The seat belt in this case was not effective since after a collision with another vehicle, it did not play a role in saving Williamson’s life. According to the petitioner in this case, the safety standard of Mazda MPV was poor because the driver’s life was not guaranteed for safety due to the installation of seat belts that were ineffective. But according to the respondent, vehicle safety standards were established by the federal regulations that protected automakers from law suits that were related to product reliability. In this case, the petitioner felt that it was not worth to plead guilty due to the protection provided by the federal regulations. The case was presented to two lower courts in California. After the petitioner presented the case, there were many factors to consider since according to the federal regulations governing the vehicle safety standards, the automakers were supposed to install lap-only seat belts. According to Hingson & Howland (2009) “the two California courts ruled that the plaintiffs’ lawsuit couldn’t proceed because it was preempted by a Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard under the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act that authorized automakers to install lap-only seat belts”. The national-traffic and motor-vehicle-safety act was established in the US in the year 1966 and it was meant to facilitate the federal government to provide and enforce safety standards meant to ensure that road safety is guaranteed for the motorists. One such safety measure introduced was the installation of lap-only safety belts in all vehicles. These safety standards were effective in that the caused a decrease of death from 18/100 million vehicle miles in the year 1924 to 1.7 per one hundred million vehicle miles traveled, this is equivalent to ninety percent decrease (Graham, 2008). According to the national traffic and motor vehicle safety act, each motor vehicle manufacturing company had to meet the set of the required safety standards before being awarded the license to carry people. Meeting these standards offered the automakers protection by the law. Graham (2008) added that “by the year 1970, motor-vehicle-related death rates were decreasing by both the public health measure and the traffic safety indicator.” However, in September 2007 the relevant regulations related to safety belt-installations changed and now vehicles that are meant for transporting passengers are required to install shoulder and lap seat-belts in the rear seating-positions which face the forward side (Graham, 2008). Court ruling The reference case could therefore not be decided easily at the lower courts and therefore had to be listened to by the Supreme Court. This was because there were conflicting laws on whether motor vehicle safety act offered protection to Mazda Motor Vehicle Corporation. Connor, Sabato &Yanus (2009) stated that “the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to decide whether federal regulations establishing vehicle safety standards should prevent prod