Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/10pdf/09-152.pdf
Page Number: 20.0

Cite as:  562 U. S. ____ (2011) 

17 

Opinion of the Court 

syllogism ignores unhelpful statements in the Report and
relies upon a term of art that did not exist in 1986. 

Immediately  after  the  language  quoted  by  the  dissent, 
the  1986  Report  notes  the  difficulty  a  jury  would  have  in 
faithfully  assessing  whether  a  feasible  alternative  design
exists when an innocent “young child, often badly injured
or  killed”  is  the  plaintiff.69   Eliminating  that  concern  is
why  the  Report’s  authors  “strongly  believ[e]  that  Com-
ment k is appropriate and necessary as the policy for civil
actions seeking damages in tort.”70  The dissent’s interpre-
tation  of  §300aa–22(b)(1)  and  its  version  of  “the  principle
in  Comment  K”  adopted  by  the  1986  Report  leave  that
concern unaddressed. 

The dissent buries another unfavorable piece of legisla-
tive  history.  Because  the  Report  believes  that  §300aa–
22(b)(1)  should  incorporate  “the  principle  in  Comment  K”
and because the Act provides a generous no-fault compen-
sation  scheme,  the  Report  counsels  injured  parties  who
cannot prove a manufacturing or labeling defect to “pursue 
recompense  in  the  compensation  system,  not  the  tort
system.”71    That  counsel  echoes  our  interpretation  of 
§300aa–22(b)(1). 

Not to worry, the dissent retorts, a Committee Report by
a later Congress “authoritative[ly]” vindicates its interpre-
tation.72   Post-enactment  legislative  history  (a  contradic-
tion in terms) is not a legitimate tool of statutory interpre-
tation.  See  Jones  v.  United  States,  526  U. S.  227,  238 

—————— 

69 1986 Report, at 26; see ibid. (“[E]ven if the defendant manufacturer 
may have made as safe a vaccine as anyone reasonably could expect, a
court  or  jury  undoubtedly  will  find  it  difficult  to  rule  in  favor  of  the 
‘innocent’  manufacturer  if  the  equally  ‘innocent’  child  has  to  bear  the
risk of loss with no other possibility of recompense”). 

70 Ibid. 
71 Ibid. 
72 Post, at 12.  This is a courageous adverb since we have previously
held that the only authoritative source of statutory meaning is the text 
that has passed through the Article I process.  See Exxon Mobil Corp. v. 
Allapattah Services, Inc., 545 U. S. 546, 568 (2005).