Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 936

529US3

Unit: $U62

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OCTOBER TERM, 1999

861

Syllabus

GEIER et al. v. AMERICAN HONDA MOTOR CO., INC.,
et al.

certiorari to the united states court of appeals for
the district of columbia circuit

No. 98–1811. Argued December 7, 1999—Decided May 22, 2000

Pursuant to its authority under the National Trafﬁc and Motor Vehicle
Safety Act of 1966, the Department of Transportation (DOT) promul-
gated Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) 208, which re-
quired auto manufacturers to equip some but not all of their 1987 vehi-
cles with passive restraints. Petitioner Alexis Geier was injured in an
accident while driving a 1987 Honda Accord that did not have such re-
straints. She and her parents, also petitioners, sought damages under
District of Columbia tort law, claiming, inter alia, that respondents
(hereinafter American Honda) were negligent in not equipping the Ac-
cord with a driver’s side airbag. Ruling that their claims were ex-
pressly pre-empted by the Act, the District Court granted American
In afﬁrming, the Court of Appeals con-
Honda summary judgment.
cluded that, because petitioners’ state tort claims posed an obstacle to
the accomplishment of the objectives of FMVSS 208, those claims con-
ﬂicted with that standard and that, under ordinary pre-emption princi-
ples, the Act consequently pre-empted the lawsuit.

Held: Petitioners’ “no airbag” lawsuit conﬂicts with the objectives of
FMVSS 208 and is therefore pre-empted by the Act. Pp. 867–886.

(a) The Act’s pre-emption provision, 15 U. S. C. § 1392(d), does not ex-
pressly pre-empt this lawsuit. The presence of a saving clause, which
says that “[c]ompliance with” a federal safety standard “does not exempt
any person from any liability under common law,” § 1397(k), requires
that the pre-emption provision be read narrowly to pre-empt only state
statutes and regulations. The saving clause assumes that there are a
signiﬁcant number of common-law liability cases to save. And reading
the express pre-emption provision to exclude common-law tort actions
gives actual meaning to the saving clause’s literal language, while leav-
ing adequate room for state tort law to operate where, for example,
federal law creates only a minimum safety standard. Pp. 867–868.

(b) However, the saving clause does not bar the ordinary working of
conﬂict pre-emption principles. Nothing in that clause suggests an in-
tent to save state tort actions that conﬂict with federal regulations.
The words “[c]ompliance” and “does not exempt” sound as if they simply