Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 976.0

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Unit: $U62

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

901

Stevens, J., dissenting

through gradual implementation of a passive restraint re-
quirement making airbags only one of a variety of systems
that a manufacturer could install in order to comply, rather
than through a requirement mandating the use of one partic-
ular system in every vehicle.
In its brief supporting Honda,
It argued
the United States agreed with this submission.
that if the manufacturers had known in 1984 that they might
later be held liable for failure to install airbags, that risk
“would likely have led them to install airbags in all cars,”
thereby frustrating the Secretary’s safety goals and interfer-
ing with the methods designed to achieve them. Brief for
United States as Amicus Curiae 25.

There are at least three ﬂaws in this argument that pro-
vide sufﬁcient grounds for rejecting it. First, the entire ar-
gument is based on an unrealistic factual predicate. What-
ever the risk of liability on a no-airbag claim may have been
prior to the promulgation of the 1984 version of Standard
208, that risk did not lead any manufacturer to install airbags
in even a substantial portion of its cars.
If there had been
a realistic likelihood that the risk of tort liability would have
that consequence, there would have been no need for Stand-
ard 208. The promulgation of that standard certainly did
not increase the pre-existing risk of liability. Even if the
standard did not create a previously unavailable pre-emption
defense, it likely reduced the manufacturers’ risk of liability
by enabling them to point to the regulation and their compli-
ance therewith as evidence tending to negate charges of neg-
ligent and defective design. See Part II, supra. Given
that the pre-1984 risk of liability did not lead to widespread
airbag installation, this reduced risk of liability was hardly
likely to compel manufacturers to install airbags in all cars—
or even to compel them to comply with Standard 208 during
the phase-in period by installing airbags exclusively.

Second, even if the manufacturers’ assessment of their risk
of liability ultimately proved to be wrong, the purposes of
In light of the inevi-
Standard 208 would not be frustrated.