Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 957.0

529US3

Unit: $U62

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882

GEIER v. AMERICAN HONDA MOTOR CO.

Opinion of the Court

67; see also Ouellette, 479 U. S., at 493; De la Cuesta, 458
U. S., at 156 (ﬁnding conﬂict and pre-emption where state
law limited the availability of an option that the fed-
eral agency considered essential to ensure its ultimate
objectives).

Petitioners ask this Court to calculate the precise size of
the “obstacle,” with the aim of minimizing it, by considering
the risk of tort liability and a successful tort action’s
incentive-related or timing-related compliance effects. See
Brief for Petitioners 45–50. The dissent agrees. Post, at
900–905. But this Court’s pre-emption cases do not ordi-
narily turn on such compliance-related considerations as
whether a private party in practice would ignore state legal
obligations—paying, say, a ﬁne instead—or how likely it
is that state law actually would be enforced. Rather, this
Court’s pre-emption cases ordinarily assume compliance
with the state-law duty in question. The Court has on occa-
sion suggested that tort law may be somewhat different, and
that related considerations—for example, the ability to pay
damages instead of modifying one’s behavior—may be rele-
vant for pre-emption purposes. See Goodyear Atomic Corp.
v. Miller, 486 U. S. 174, 185 (1988); Cipollone, 505 U. S., at
536–539 (Blackmun, J., concurring in part, concurring in
judgment in part, and dissenting in part); see also English,
496 U. S., at 86; Silkwood v. Kerr-McGee Corp., 464 U. S. 238,
256 (1984).
In other cases, the Court has found tort law to
conﬂict with federal law without engaging in that kind of
an analysis. See, e. g., Ouellette, supra, at 494–497; Kalo
Brick, 450 U. S., at 324–332. We need not try to resolve
these differences here, however, for the incentive or compli-
ance considerations upon which the dissent relies cannot, by
themselves, change the legal result. Some of those consid-
erations rest on speculation, see, e. g., post, at 901 (predicting
risk of “no airbag” liability and manufacturers’ likely re-
sponse to such liability); some rest in critical part upon the
dissenters’ own view of FMVSS 208’s basic purposes—a view