Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 961

529US3

Unit: $U62

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886

GEIER v. AMERICAN HONDA MOTOR CO.

Stevens, J., dissenting

tioners claimed. They have argued generally that, to be
safe, a car must have an airbag. See App. 4.

Regardless, the language of FMVSS 208 and the contem-
poraneous 1984 DOT explanation is clear enough—even
without giving DOT’s own view special weight. FMVSS
208 sought a gradually developing mix of alternative passive
restraint devices for safety-related reasons. The rule of
state tort law for which petitioners argue would stand as
an “obstacle” to the accomplishment of that objective. And
the statute foresees the application of ordinary principles
of pre-emption in cases of actual conﬂict. Hence, the tort
action is pre-empted.

The judgment of the Court of Appeals is afﬁrmed.

It is so ordered.

Justice Stevens, with whom Justice Souter, Justice

Thomas, and Justice Ginsburg join, dissenting.

Airbag technology has been available to automobile manu-
facturers for over 30 years. There is now general agree-
ment on the proposition “that, to be safe, a car must have an
Indeed, current federal law im-
airbag.” Ante this page.
poses that requirement on all automobile manufacturers.
See 49 U. S. C. § 30127; 49 CFR § 571.208, S4.1.5.3 (1998).
The question raised by petitioners’ common-law tort action
is whether that proposition was sufﬁciently obvious when
Honda’s 1987 Accord was manufactured to make the failure
to install such a safety feature actionable under theories of
negligence or defective design. The Court holds that an in-
terim regulation motivated by the Secretary of Transporta-
tion’s desire to foster gradual development of a variety of
passive restraint devices deprives state courts of jurisdiction
I respectfully dissent from that
to answer that question.
holding, and especially from the Court’s unprecedented ex-
tension of the doctrine of pre-emption. As a preface to an
explanation of my understanding of the statute and the regu-
lation, these preliminary observations seem appropriate.