Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 436.0

529US2

Unit: $U45

[09-26-01 10:03:41] PAGES PGT: OPIN

Cite as: 529 U. S. 344 (2000)

361

Ginsburg, J., dissenting

spares the railroads from tort liability, even for the in-
adequacy of devices designed only to secure the “minimum”
protection Congress envisioned for all crossings. See 23
U. S. C. § 130(d). Counsel for petitioner Norfolk Southern
Railway correctly conceded at oral argument that the rele-
vant statutes do not compel releasing the railroads when the
devices installed, though meeting federal standards for “min-
imum” protection, see ante, at 350, fail to provide adequate
protection. The road is open for the Secretary of Transpor-
tation to enact regulations clarifying that point. See ante,
at 359–360 (Breyer, J., concurring).

As persuasively explained by the Court of Appeals for the
Seventh Circuit in Shots v. CSX Transp., Inc., 38 F. 3d 304
(1994) (Posner, C. J.), and reiterated by the Court of Ap-
peals for the Sixth Circuit in the instant case, 173 F. 3d 386
(1999), our prior decision in CSX Transp., Inc. v. Easter-
wood, 507 U. S. 658 (1993), does not necessitate the ouster of
state law the Court now commands. Easterwood, in which
the tort claimant prevailed, dispositively held only that fed-
eral funding was necessary to trigger preemption, not that
it was sufﬁcient by itself to do so. Because federal funds
did not in fact subsidize the crossing at issue in that case,
id., at 671–673, any statement as to the automatic pre-
emptive effect of federal funding should have remained open
for reconsideration in a later case where federal funds did
participate.
I do not read the admittedly unclear language
of 23 CFR §§ 646.214(b)(3) and (4) (1999) to dictate that Fed-
eral Highway Administration authorization of federal fund-
ing to install devices is tantamount to approval of each of
those devices as adequate to protect safety at every crossing
so funded. And I do not think a previous administration’s
argument to that effect as amicus curiae in Easterwood
I
estops the Government from taking a different view now.
agree with the sound reasoning in Shots and would afﬁrm
the Court of Appeals’ judgment.