Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 979

529US3

Unit: $U62

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GEIER v. AMERICAN HONDA MOTOR CO.

Stevens, J., dissenting

bility might accelerate the rate of increase would actually
further the only goal explicitly mentioned in the standard
itself: reducing the number of deaths and severity of injuries
of vehicle occupants. Had gradualism been independently
important as a method of achieving the Secretary’s safety
goals, presumably the Secretary would have put a ceiling as
well as a ﬂoor on each annual increase in the required per-
centage of new passive restraint installations. For similar
reasons, it is evident that variety was not a matter of inde-
pendent importance to the Secretary. Although the stand-
ard allowed manufacturers to comply with the minimum per-
centage requirements by installing passive restraint systems
other than airbags (such as automatic seatbelts), it encour-
aged them to install airbags and other nonbelt systems that
might be developed in the future. The Secretary did not act
to ensure the use of a variety of passive restraints by placing
ceilings on the number of airbags that could be used in com-
plying with the minimum requirements.20 Moreover, even
if variety and gradualism had been independently important
to the Secretary, there is nothing in the standard, the accom-
panying commentary, or the history of airbag regulation to
support the notion that the Secretary intended to advance
those purposes at all costs, without regard to the detrimen-
tal consequences that pre-emption of tort liability could have
for the achievement of her avowed purpose of reducing ve-
hicular injuries. See Silkwood v. Kerr-McGee Corp., 464
U. S., at 257.

My disagreement with Honda and the Government runs
In its brief, the Govern-
deeper than these ﬂaws, however.
ment concedes that “[a] claim that a manufacturer should
have chosen to install airbags rather than another type of

20 Of course, allowing a suit like petitioners’ to proceed against a manu-
facturer that had installed no passive restraint system in a particular vehi-
cle would not even arguably pose an “obstacle” to the auto manufacturers’
freedom to choose among several different passive restraint device op-
tions. Cf. ante, at 878, 881.