Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 985.0

529US3

Unit: $U62

[09-26-01 12:54:02] PAGES PGT: OPIN

910

GEIER v. AMERICAN HONDA MOTOR CO.

Stevens, J., dissenting

with agencies regarding pre-emption decisions ex ante
through the normal notice-and-comment procedures of the
Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U. S. C. § 553.

When the presumption and its underpinnings are properly
understood, it is plain that Honda has not overcome the pre-
sumption in this case. Neither Standard 208 nor its accom-
panying commentary includes the slightest speciﬁc indication
of an intent to pre-empt common-law no-airbag suits.
In-
deed, the only mention of such suits in the commentary tends
to suggest that they would not be pre-empted. See n. 5,
supra.
In the Court’s view, however, “[t]he failure of the
Federal Register to address pre-emption explicitly is . . . not
determinative,” ante, at 884, because the Secretary’s consist-
ent litigating position since 1989, the history of airbag regu-
lation, and the commentary accompanying the ﬁnal version
of Standard 208 reveal purposes and objectives of the Secre-
tary that would be frustrated by no-airbag suits. Pre-
empting on these three bases blatantly contradicts the pre-
sumption against pre-emption. When the 1984 version of
Standard 208 was under consideration, the States obviously
were not afforded any notice that purposes might someday
be discerned in the history of airbag regulation that would
support pre-emption. Nor does the Court claim that the no-
tice of proposed rulemaking that led to Standard 208 pro-
vided the States with notice either that the ﬁnal version of
the standard might contain an express pre-emption provision
or that the commentary accompanying it might contain a
statement of purposes with arguable pre-emptive effect.
Finally, the States plainly had no opportunity to comment
upon either the commentary accompanying the ﬁnal version
of the standard or the Secretary’s ex post litigating position
that the standard had implicit pre-emptive effect.

Furthermore, the Court identiﬁes no case in which we
have upheld a regulatory claim of frustration-of-purposes im-
plied conﬂict pre-emption based on nothing more than an
ex post administrative litigating position and inferences from