Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
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Unit: $U62

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

871

Opinion of the Court

favorable or unfavorable policy, toward the application of or-
dinary conﬂict pre-emption principles. On the one hand, the
pre-emption provision itself reﬂects a desire to subject the
industry to a single, uniform set of federal safety standards.
Its pre-emption of all state standards, even those that might
stand in harmony with federal law, suggests an intent to
avoid the conﬂict, uncertainty, cost, and occasional risk to
safety itself that too many different safety-standard cooks
might otherwise create. See H. R. Rep. No. 1776, 89th
Cong., 2d Sess., 17 (1966) (“Basically, this preemption subsec-
tion is intended to result in uniformity of standards so that
the public as well as industry will be guided by one set of
criteria rather than by a multiplicity of diverse standards”);
S. Rep. No. 1301, 89th Cong., 2d Sess., 12 (1966). This policy
by itself favors pre-emption of state tort suits, for the rules
of law that judges and juries create or apply in such suits
may themselves similarly create uncertainty and even con-
ﬂict, say, when different juries in different States reach dif-
ferent decisions on similar facts.

On the other hand, the saving clause reﬂects a congres-
sional determination that occasional nonuniformity is a small
price to pay for a system in which juries not only create, but
also enforce, safety standards, while simultaneously provid-
ing necessary compensation to victims. That policy by itself
disfavors pre-emption, at least some of the time. But we
can ﬁnd nothing in any natural reading of the two provisions
that would favor one set of policies over the other where a
jury-imposed safety standard actually conﬂicts with a federal
safety standard.

Why, in any event, would Congress not have wanted ordi-
nary pre-emption principles to apply where an actual conﬂict
with a federal objective is at stake? Some such principle is
needed.
In its absence, state law could impose legal duties
that would conﬂict directly with federal regulatory man-
dates, say, by premising liability upon the presence of the
very windshield retention requirements that federal law re-