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Page Number: 15

12 

BRUESEWITZ v. WYETH LLC 

Opinion of the Court 

Petitioners and the dissent contend that the interpreta-
tion  we  propose  would  render  part  of  §300aa–22(b)(1)
superfluous:  Congress  could  have  more  tersely  and  more 
clearly preempted design-defect claims by barring liability 
“if . . . the vaccine was properly prepared and was accom-
panied by proper directions and warnings.”  The interven-
ing passage (“the injury or death resulted from side effects 
that were unavoidable even though”) is unnecessary.  True 
enough.  But  the  rule  against  giving  a  portion  of  text  an
interpretation  which  renders  it  superfluous  does  not  pre-
scribe  that  a  passage  which  could  have  been  more  terse 
does not mean what it says.  The rule applies only if ver-
bosity and prolixity can be eliminated by giving the offend-
ing  passage,  or  the  remainder  of  the  text,  a  competing
interpretation.    That  is  not  the  case  here.48  To  be  sure,  
petitioners’  and  the  dissent’s  interpretation  gives  inde-
pendent meaning to the intervening passage (the supposed
meaning of comment k); but it does so only at the expense 
of  rendering  the  remainder  of  the  provision  superfluous. 
Since a vaccine is not “quite incapable of being made safer 
for [its] intended use” if manufacturing defects could have 
been  eliminated  or  better  warnings  provided,  the  entire 
“even  though”  clause  is  a  useless  appendage.49    It  would  
suffice  to  say  “if  the  injury  or  death  resulted  from  side
effects that were unavoidable”—full stop. 

—————— 

performed  by  “and.”  No,  we  think  “even  though”  has  a  distinctive 
concessive, subordinating role to play. 

48 Because  the  dissent  has  a  superfluity  problem  of  its  own,  its  reli-
ance  on  Bates  v.  Dow  Agrosciences  LLC,  544  U. S.  431  (2005),  is  mis-
placed.  See  id.,  at  449  (adopting  an  interpretation  that  was  “the  only
one that makes sense of each phrase” in the relevant statute). 

49 That  is  true  regardless  of  whether  §300aa–22(b)(1)  incorporates 
comment k.  See Restatement §402A, Comment k, pp. 353, 354 (noting
that  “unavoidably  unsafe  products”  are  exempt  from  strict  liability
“with  the  qualification  that  they  are  properly  prepared  and  marketed,
and proper warning is given”).