Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 978.0

529US3

Unit: $U62

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

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

903

Stevens, J., dissenting

potential tort liability would not frustrate the Secretary’s
desire to encourage both experimentation with better pas-
sive restraint systems and public acceptance of airbags.

Third, despite its acknowledgment that the saving clause
“preserves those actions that seek to establish greater safety
than the minimum safety achieved by a federal regulation
intended to provide a ﬂoor,” ante, at 870, the Court com-
pletely ignores the important fact that by deﬁnition all of the
standards established under the Safety Act—like the British
regulations that governed the number and capacity of life-
boats aboard the Titanic 19—impose minimum, rather than
ﬁxed or maximum, requirements.
15 U. S. C. § 1391(2); see
Norfolk Southern R. Co. v. Shanklin, ante, at 359 (Breyer,
J., concurring) (“[F]ederal minimum safety standards should
not pre-empt a state tort action”); Hillsborough County v.
Automated Medical Laboratories, Inc., 471 U. S. 707, 721
(1985). The phase-in program authorized by Standard 208
thus set minimum percentage requirements for the installa-
tion of passive restraints, increasing in annual stages of 10,
25, 40, and 100%. Those requirements were not ceilings,
and it is obvious that the Secretary favored a more rapid
increase. The possibility that exposure to potential tort lia-

have reduced the foreseeable risks of harm posed by the product. See
Restatement (Third) of Torts: Products Liability § 2(b), and Comment d
(1997); id., § 1, Comment a (noting that § 2(b) is rooted in concepts of both
negligence and strict liability). Such a verdict obviously does not fore-
close the possibility that more than one alternative design exists the use
of which would render the vehicle reasonably safe and satisfy the manufac-
turer’s duty of due care. Thus, the Court is quite wrong to suggest that,
as a consequence of such a verdict, only the installation of airbags would
enable manufacturers to avoid liability in the future.

19 Statutory Rules and Orders 1018–1021, 1033 (1908). See Nader &
Page, Automobile-Design Liability and Compliance with Federal Stand-
ards, 64 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 415, 459 (1996) (noting that the Titanic “com-
plied with British governmental regulations setting minimum require-
ments for lifeboats when it left port on its ﬁnal, fateful voyage with boats
capable of carrying only about [half] of the people on board”); W. Wade,
The Titanic: End of a Dream 68 (1986).