Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 956.0

529US3

Unit: $U62

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

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

881

Opinion of the Court

In the end, two-thirds of the States did not enact mandatory
buckle-up laws, and the passive restraint requirement re-
mained in effect.

In sum, as DOT now tells us through the Solicitor General,
the 1984 version of FMVSS 208 “embodies the Secretary’s
policy judgment that safety would best be promoted if manu-
facturers installed alternative protection systems in their
ﬂeets rather than one particular system in every car.” Brief
for United States as Amicus Curiae 25; see 49 Fed. Reg.
28997 (1984). Petitioners’ tort suit claims that the manufac-
turers of the 1987 Honda Accord “had a duty to design, man-
ufacture, distribute and sell a motor vehicle with an effective
and safe passive restraint system, including, but not limited
to, airbags.” App. 3 (Complaint, ¶ 11).

In effect, petitioners’ tort action depends upon its claim
that manufacturers had a duty to install an airbag when they
manufactured the 1987 Honda Accord. Such a state law—
i. e., a rule of state tort law imposing such a duty—by its
terms would have required manufacturers of all similar cars
to install airbags rather than other passive restraint sys-
It
tems, such as automatic belts or passive interiors.
thereby would have presented an obstacle to the variety and
mix of devices that the federal regulation sought.
It would
have required all manufacturers to have installed airbags in
respect to the entire District-of-Columbia-related portion of
their 1987 new car ﬂeet, even though FMVSS 208 at that
time required only that 10% of a manufacturer’s nationwide
It
ﬂeet be equipped with any passive restraint device at all.
thereby also would have stood as an obstacle to the gradual
passive restraint phase-in that the federal regulation delib-
erately imposed.
In addition, it could have made less likely
the adoption of a state mandatory buckle-up law. Because
the rule of law for which petitioners contend would have
stood “as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution
of ” the important means-related federal objectives that we
have just discussed, it is pre-empted. Hines, 312 U. S., at