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

869

Opinion of the Court

III

We have just said that the saving clause at least removes
tort actions from the scope of the express pre-emption
clause. Does it do more?
In particular, does it foreclose or
limit the operation of ordinary pre-emption principles insofar
as those principles instruct us to read statutes as pre-
empting state laws (including common-law rules) that “actu-
ally conﬂict” with the statute or federal standards promul-
gated thereunder? Fidelity Fed. Sav. & Loan Assn. v. De
la Cuesta, 458 U. S. 141, 153 (1982). Petitioners concede, as
they must in light of Freightliner Corp. v. Myrick, 514 U. S.
280 (1995), that the pre-emption provision, by itself, does not
foreclose (through negative implication) “any possibility of
implied [conﬂict] pre-emption,” id., at 288 (discussing Cipol-
lone v. Liggett Group, Inc., 505 U. S. 504, 517–518 (1992)).
But they argue that the saving clause has that very effect.
We recognize that, when this Court previously considered
the pre-emptive effect of the statute’s language, it appeared
to leave open the question of how, or the extent to which,
the saving clause saves state-law tort actions that conﬂict
with federal regulations promulgated under the Act. See
Freightliner, supra, at 287, n. 3 (declining to address
whether the saving clause prevents a manufacturer from
“us[ing] a federal safety standard to immunize itself from
state common-law liability”). We now conclude that the sav-
ing clause (like the express pre-emption provision) does not
bar the ordinary working of conﬂict pre-emption principles.
Nothing in the language of the saving clause suggests an
intent to save state-law tort actions that conﬂict with federal
regulations. The words “[c]ompliance” and “does not ex-
empt,” 15 U. S. C. § 1397(k) (1988 ed.), sound as if they simply
bar a special kind of defense, namely, a defense that compli-
ance with a federal standard automatically exempts a de-
fendant from state law, whether the Federal Government
meant that standard to be an absolute requirement or only a
minimum one. See Restatement (Third) of Torts: Products