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8 

BRUESEWITZ v. WYETH LLC 

Opinion of the Court 

A  further  textual  indication  leads  to  the  same  conclu-
sion.   Products-liability  law  establishes  a  classic  and  well
known  triumvirate  of  grounds  for  liability:  defective
manufacture,  inadequate  directions  or  warnings,  and 
defective  design.36   If  all  three  were  intended  to  be  pre-
served,  it  would  be  strange  to  mention  specifically  only 
two,  and  leave  the  third  to  implication.  It  would  have 
been much easier (and much more natural) to provide that
manufacturers would be liable for “defective manufacture, 
defective  directions  or  warning,  and  defective  design.”    It 
seems  that  the  statute  fails  to  mention  design-defect 
liability  “by  deliberate  choice,  not  inadvertence.”  Barn-
hart  v.  Peabody  Coal  Co.,  537  U. S.  149,  168  (2003).    Ex-
pressio unius, exclusio alterius. 

B 
The  dissent’s  principal  textual  argument  is  mistaken.
We  agree  with  its  premise  that  “ ‘side  effects  that  were 
unavoidable’  must  refer  to  side  effects  caused  by  a  vac-
cine’s  design.”37    We  do  not  comprehend,  however,  the 
second  step  of  its  reasoning,  which  is  that  the  use  of
the conditional term “if” in the introductory phrase “if the 
injury  or  death  resulted  from  side  effects  that  were  un-
avoidable”  “plainly  implies  that  some  side  effects  stem-
ming  from  a  vaccine’s  design  are  ‘unavoidable,’  while 

—————— 

We  doubt  that  Congress  would  introduce  such  an  amorphous  test  by
implication  when  it  otherwise  micromanages  vaccine  manufacturers. 
See  infra,  at  13–14.    We  have  no  idea  how  much  more  expensive  an
alternative  design  can  be  before  it  “compromis[es]”  a  vaccine’s  cost  or 
how much efficacy an alternative design can sacrifice to improve safety. 
Neither does the dissent.  And neither will the judges who must rule on
motions  to  dismiss,  motions  for  summary  judgment,  and  motions  for 
judgment as a matter of law.  Which means that the test would proba-
bly have no real-world effect. 

36 W. Keeton, D. Dobbs, R. Keeton, & D. Owen, Prosser and Keeton on 
Law of Torts 695 (5th ed. 1984); Restatement (Third) of Torts §2 (1999). 

37 Post, at 3.