Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 972.0

529US3

Unit: $U62

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

Cite as: 529 U. S. 861 (2000)

897

Stevens, J., dissenting

amendment that “[n]o requirement or prohibition . . . shall
be imposed under State law” did include certain common-law
Id., at 548–549 (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment
claims.
in part and dissenting in part).13
In CSX Transp., Inc. v.
Easterwood, where the pre-emption clause of the Federal
Railroad Safety Act of 1970 expressly provided that federal
railroad safety regulations would pre-empt any incompatible
state “ ‘law, rule, regulation, order, or standard relating to
railroad safety,’ ” 14 we held that a federal regulation govern-
ing maximum train speed pre-empted a negligence claim that
a speed under the federal maximum was excessive. And in
Medtronic, Inc. v. Lohr, we recognized that the statutory
reference to “any requirement” imposed by a State or its
political subdivisions may include common-law duties. 518
U. S., at 502–503 (plurality opinion); id., at 503–505 (Breyer,
J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment); id., at
509–512 (O’Connor, J., concurring in part and dissenting in
part).

The statutes construed in those cases differed from the
Safety Act in two signiﬁcant respects. First, the language
in each of those pre-emption provisions was signiﬁcantly
broader than the text of § 1392(d). Unlike the broader lan-
guage of those provisions, the ordinary meaning of the term
“safety standard” includes positive enactments, but does not
include judicial decisions in common-law tort cases.

Second, the statutes at issue in Cipollone, CSX, and Med-
tronic did not contain a saving clause expressly preserving
common-law remedies. The saving clause in the Safety Act

13 The full text of the 1969 provision read: “ ‘No requirement or prohibi-
tion based on smoking and health shall be imposed under State law with
respect to the advertising or promotion of any cigarettes the packages of
505
which are labeled in conformity with the provisions of this Act.’ ”
U. S., at 515 (quoting Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act of 1969, 84
Stat. 88).

14 507 U. S., at 664 (quoting § 205, 84 Stat. 972, as amended, 45 U. S. C.

§ 434 (1988 ed. and Supp. II)).