Source: http://openjurist.org/505/us/504
Timestamp: 2015-09-04 06:29:20
Document Index: 133682855

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 5', '§ 4', '§ 4', '§ 5', '§ 4', '§ 5', '§ 5', '§ 5', '§ 5', '§ 5', '§ 5', '§ 5', '§ 5', '§ 1292', '§ 5', '§ 5', '§ 4', '§ 5', '§ 5', '§ 2', '§ 5', '§ 5', '§ 4', '§ 5', '§ 5', '§ 5', '§ 4', '§ 4406', '§ 5', '§ 5', '§ 5', '§ 5', '§ 5', '§ 5']

505 US 504 Cipollone v. Liggett Group Inc | OpenJurist
505 U.S. 504 - Cipollone v. Liggett Group Inc Home
505 US 504 Cipollone v. Liggett Group Inc 505 U.S. 504
112 S.Ct. 2608
120 L.Ed.2d 407
Thomas CIPOLLONE, Individually and as Executor of the Estate of Rose D. Cipollone, Petitionerv.LIGGETT GROUP, INC., et al.
Reargued Jan. 13, 1992.
Section 4 of the Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act (1965 Act) required a conspicuous label warning of smoking's health hazards to be placed on every package of cigarettes sold in this country, while § 5 of that Act, captioned "Preemption," provided: "(a) No statement relating to smoking and health, other than the [§ 4] statement . . ., shall be required on any cigarette package," and "(b) No [such] statement . . . shall be required in the advertising of any cigarettes the packages of which are labeled in conformity with" § 4. Section 5(b) was amended by the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act of 1969 (1969 Act) to specify: "No requirement or prohibition based on smoking and health shall be imposed under State law with respect to the advertising or promotion of any cigarettes the packages of which are [lawfully] labeled." Petitioner's complaint in his action for damages invoked the District Court's diversity jurisdiction and alleged, inter alia, that respondent cigarette manufacturers were responsible for the 1984 death of his mother, a smoker since 1942, because they breached express warranties contained in their advertising, failed to warn consumers about smoking's hazards, fraudulently misrepresented those hazards to consumers, and conspired to deprive the public of medical and scientific information about smoking, all in derogation of duties created by New Jersey law. The District Court ultimately ruled, among other things, that these claims were pre-empted by the 1965 and 1969 Acts to the extent that the claims relied on respondents' advertising, promotional, and public relations activities after the effective date of the 1965 Act. The Court of Appeals affirmed on this point.
Justice STEVENS delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I, II, III, and IV, concluding that § 5 of the 1965 Act did not preempt state law damages actions, but superseded only positive enactments by state and federal rulemaking bodies mandating particular warnings on cigarette labels or in cigarette advertisements. This conclusion is required by the section's precise and narrow prohibition of required cautionary "statement[s]"; by the strong presumption against pre-emption of state police power regulations; by the fact that the required § 4 warning does not by its own effect foreclose additional obligations imposed under state law; by the fact that there is no general, inherent conflict between federal pre-emption of state warning requirements and the continued vitality of common law damages actions; and by the Act's stated purpose and regulatory context, which establish that § 5 was passed to prevent a multiplicity of pending and diverse "regulations," a word that most naturally refers to positive enactments rather than common law actions. Pp. 517-520.
(a) The broad language of amended § 5(b) extends the section's pre-emptive reach beyond positive enactments to include some common law damages actions. The statutory phrase "requirement or prohibition" suggests no distinction between positive enactments and common law, but, in fact, easily encompasses obligations that take the form of common law rules, while the phrase "imposed under State law" clearly contemplates common law as well as statutes and regulations. This does not mean, however, that § 5(b) pre-empts all common law claims, nor does the statute indicate that any familiar subdivision of common law is or is not pre-empted. Instead, the precise language of § 5(b) must be fairly but—in light of the presumption against pre-emption—narrowly construed, and each of petitioner's common law claims must be examined to determine whether it is in fact pre-empted. The central inquiry in each case is straightforward: whether the legal duty that is the predicate of the common law damages action satisfies § 5(b)'s express terms, giving those terms a fair but narrow reading. Each phrase within the section limits the universe of common law claims pre-empted by the statute. Pp. 517-524.
(b) Insofar as claims under either of petitioner's failure to warn theories—i.e., that respondents were negligent in the manner that they tested, researched, sold, promoted, and advertised their cigarettes, and that they failed to provide adequate warnings of smoking's consequences—require a showing that respondents' post-1969 advertising or promotions should have included additional, or more clearly stated, warnings, those claims rely on a state law "requirement or prohibition . . . with respect to . . . advertising or promotion" within § 5(b)'s meaning and are pre-empted. Pp. 524-525.
(d) Because § 5(b) pre-empts "prohibition[s]" as well as "requirement[s]," it supersedes petitioner's first fraudulent misrepresentation theory, which is predicated on a state law prohibition against advertising and promotional statements tending to minimize smoking's health hazards, and which alleges that respondents' advertising neutralized the effect of the federally mandated warning labels. However, the claims based on petitioner's second fraudulent misrepresentation theory—which alleges intentional fraud both by false representation and concealment of material facts—are not pre-empted. The concealment allegations, insofar as they rely on a state law duty to disclose material facts through channels of communication other than advertising and promotions, do not involve an obligation "with respect to" those activities within § 5(b)'s meaning. Moreover, those fraudulent misrepresentation claims that do arise with respect to advertising and promotions are not predicated on a duty "based on smoking and health" but rather on a more general obligation—the duty not to deceive. Pp. 527-529.
"Warning: The Surgeon General Has Determined That Cigarette Smoking Is Dangerous to Your Health." A federal statute enacted in 1969 requires that warning (or a variation thereof) to appear in a conspicuous place on every package of cigarettes sold in the United States.1 The questions presented to us by this case are whether that statute, or its 1965 predecessor which required a less alarming label, pre-empted petitioner's common law claims against respondent cigarette manufacturers.
Petitioner is the son of Rose Cipollone, who began smoking in 1942 and who died of lung cancer in 1984. He claims that respondents are responsible for Rose Cipollone's death because they breached express warranties contained in their advertising, because they failed to warn consumers about the hazards of smoking, because they fraudulently misrepresented those hazards to consumers, and because they conspired to deprive the public of medical and scientific information about smoking. The Court of Appeals held that petitioner's state law claims were pre-empted by federal statutes, 893 F.2d 541 (CA3 1990), and other courts have agreed with that analysis.2 The highest courts of the States of Minnesota and New Jersey, however, have held that the federal statutes did not pre-empt similar common law claims.3 Because of the manifest importance of the issue, we granted certiorari to resolve the conflict, 500 U.S. ----, 111 S.Ct. 1386, 113 L.Ed.2d 443 (1991). We now reverse in part and affirm in part.
Petitioner's third amended complaint alleges several different bases of recovery, relying on theories of strict liability, negligence, express warranty, and intentional tort. These claims, all based on New Jersey law, divide into five categories. The "design defect claims" allege that respondents' cigarettes were defective because respondents failed to use a safer alternative design for their products and because the social value of their product was outweighed by the dangers it created (Count 2, App. 83-84). The "failure to warn claims" allege both that the product was "defective as a result of [respondents'] failure to provide adequate warnings of the health consequences of cigarette smoking" (Count 3, App. 85) and that respondents "were negligent in the manner [that] they tested, researched, sold, promoted, and advertised" their cigarettes (Count 4, App. 86). The "express warranty claims" allege that respondents had "expressly warranted that smoking the cigarettes which they manufactured and sold did not present any significant health consequences" (Count 7, App. 88). The "fraudulent misrepresentation claims" allege that respondents had wilfully "through their advertising, attempted to neutralize the [federally mandated] warnin[g]" labels (Count 6, App. 87-88), and that they had possessed, but had "ignored and failed to act upon" medical and scientific data indicating that "cigarettes were hazardous to the health of consumers" (Count 8, App. 89). Finally, the "conspiracy to defraud claims" allege that respondents conspired to deprive the public of such medical and scientific data (Count 8, App. 89).
As one of their defenses, respondents contended that the Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act, enacted in 1965, and its successor, the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act of 1969, protected them from any liability based on their conduct after 1965. In a pretrial ruling, the District Court concluded that the federal statutes were intended to establish a uniform warning that would prevail throughout the country and that would protect cigarette manufacturers from being "subjected to varying requirements from state to state," Cipollone v. Liggett Group, Inc., 593 F.Supp. 1146, 1148 (N.J.1984), but that the statutes did not pre-empt common law actions. Id., at 1153-1170.4 Accordingly, the court granted a motion to strike the pre-emption defense entirely.
The Court of Appeals accepted an interlocutory appeal pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b), and reversed. Cipollone v. Liggett Group, Inc., 789 F.2d 181 (CA3 1986). The court rejected respondents' contention that the federal Acts expressly pre-empted common law actions, but accepted their contention that such actions would conflict with federal law. Relying on the statement of purpose in the statutes,5 the court concluded that Congress' "carefully drawn balance between the purposes of warning the public of the hazards of cigarette smoking and protecting the interests of the national economy" would be upset by state law damages actions based on noncompliance with "warning, advertisement, and promotion obligations other than those prescribed in the [federal] Act." Id., at 187. Accordingly, the court held:
"the Act pre-empts those state law damage[s] actions relating to smoking and health that challenge either the adequacy of the warning on cigarette packages or the propriety of a party's actions with respect to the advertising and promotion of cigarettes. [W]here the success of a state law damage[s] claim necessarily depends on the assertion that a party bore the duty to provide a warning to consumers in addition to the warning Congress has required on cigarette packages, such claims are pre-empted as conflicting with the Act." Ibid. (footnote omitted).
This Court denied a petition for certiorari, 479 U.S. 1043, 107 S.Ct. 907, 93 L.Ed.2d 857 (1987), and the case returned to the District Court for trial. Complying with the Court of Appeals mandate, the District Court held that the failure to warn, express warranty, fraudulent misrepresentation, and conspiracy to defraud claims were barred to the extent that they relied on respondents' advertising, promotional, and public relations activities after January 1, 1966 (the effective date of the 1965 Act). Cipollone v. Liggett Group, Inc., 649 F.Supp. 664, 669, 673-675 (N.J.1986). The court also ruled that while the design defect claims were not pre-empted by federal law, those claims were barred on other grounds.6 Id., at 669-672. Following extensive discovery and a four-month trial, the jury answered a series of special interrogatories and awarded $400,000 in damages to Rose Cipollone's husband. In brief, it rejected all of the fraudulent misrepresentation and conspiracy claims, but found that respondent Liggett had breached its duty to warn and its express warranties before 1966. It found, however, that Rose Cipollone had "voluntarily and unreasonably encounter[ed] a known danger by smoking cigarettes" and that 80% of the responsibility for her injuries was attributable to her. See 893 F.2d, at 554 (summarizing jury findings). For that reason, no damages were awarded to her estate. However, the jury awarded damages to compensate her husband for losses caused by respondents' breach of express warranty.
In 1964, the advisory committee issued its report, which stated as its central conclusion: "Cigarette smoking is a health hazard of sufficient importance in the United States to warrant appropriate remedial action." U.S. Dept. of Health, Education, and Welfare, U.S. Surgeon General's Advisory Committee, Smoking and Health 33 (1964). Relying in part on that report, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which had long regulated unfair and deceptive advertising practices in the cigarette industry,7 promulgated a new trade regulation rule. That rule, which was to take effect January 1, 1965, established that it would be a violation of the Federal Trade Commission Act "to fail to disclose, clearly and prominently, in all advertising and on every pack, box, carton, or container [of cigarettes] that cigarette smoking is dangerous to health and may cause death from cancer and other diseases." 29 Fed.Reg. 8325 (1964). Several States also moved to regulate the advertising and labeling of cigarettes. See, e.g., 1965 N.Y.Laws, ch. 470; see also 111 Cong.Rec. 13900-13902 (1965) (statement of Sen. Moss). Upon a congressional request, the FTC postponed enforcement of its new regulation for six months. In July 1965, Congress enacted the Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act.8 The 1965 Act effectively adopted half of the FTC's regulation: the Act mandated warnings on cigarette packages (§ 5(a)), but barred the requirement of such warnings in cigarette advertising (§ 5(b)).9
Section 2 of the Act declares the statute's two purposes: (1) adequately informing the public that cigarette smoking may be hazardous to health, and (2) protecting the national economy from the burden imposed by diverse, nonuniform and confusing cigarette labeling and advertising regulations.10 In furtherance of the first purpose, § 4 of the Act made it unlawful to sell or distribute any cigarettes in the United States unless the package bore a conspicuous label stating: "Caution: Cigarette Smoking May Be Hazardous to Your Health." In furtherance of the second purpose, § 5, captioned "Preemption," provided in part:
As that termination date approached, federal authorities prepared to issue further regulations on cigarette advertising. The FTC announced the reinstitution of its 1964 proceedings concerning a warning requirement for cigarette advertisements. 34 Fed.Reg. 7917 (1969). The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced that it would consider "a proposed rule which would ban the broadcast of cigarette commercials by radio and television stations." 34 Fed.Reg. 1959 (1969). State authorities also prepared to take actions regulating cigarette advertisements.11
It was in this context that Congress enacted the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act of 1969,12 which amended the 1965 Act in several ways. First, the 1969 Act strengthened the warning label, in part by requiring a statement that cigarette smoking "is dangerous" rather than that it "may be hazardous." Second, the 1969 Act banned cigarette advertising in "any medium of electronic communication subject to [FCC] jurisdiction." Third, and related, the 1969 Act modified the pre-emption provision by replacing the original § 5(b) with a provision that reads:
Article VI of the Constitution provides that the laws of the United States "shall be the supreme Law of the Land; . . . any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any state to the Contrary notwithstanding." Art. VI, cl. 2. Thus, since our decision in M'Culloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. (4 Wheat.) 316, 427, 4 L.Ed. 579 (1819), it has been settled that state law that conflicts with federal law is "without effect." Maryland v. Louisiana, 451 U.S. 725, 746, 101 S.Ct. 2114, 2128, 68 L.Ed.2d 576 (1981). Consideration of issues arising under the Supremacy Clause "start[s] with the assumption that the historic police powers of the States [are] not to be superseded by . . . Federal Act unless that [is] the clear and manifest purpose of Congress." Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator Corp., 331 U.S. 218, 230, 67 S.Ct. 1146, 1152, 91 L.Ed. 1447 (1947). Accordingly, " '[t]he purpose of Congress is the ultimate touchstone' " of pre-emption analysis. Malone v. White Motor Corp., 435 U.S. 497, 504, 98 S.Ct. 1185, 1189, 55 L.Ed.2d 443 (1978) (quoting Retail Clerks v. Schermerhorn, 375 U.S. 96, 103, 84 S.Ct. 219, 222, 11 L.Ed.2d 179 (1963)).
The Court of Appeals was not persuaded that the pre-emption provision in the 1969 Act encompassed state common law claims.13 789 F.2d, at 185-186. It was also not persuaded that the labeling obligation imposed by both the 1965 and 1969 Acts revealed a congressional intent to exert exclusive federal control over every aspect of the relationship between cigarettes and health. Id., at 186. Nevertheless, reading the statute as a whole in the light of the statement of purpose in § 2, and considering the potential regulatory effect of state common law actions on the federal interest in uniformity, the Court of Appeals concluded that Congress had impliedly pre-empted petitioner's claims challenging the adequacy of the warnings on labels or in advertising or the propriety of respondents' advertising and promotional activities. Id., at 187.
In the 1965 pre-emption provision regarding advertising (§ 5(b)), Congress spoke precisely and narrowly: "No statement relating to smoking and health shall be required in the advertising of [properly labeled] cigarettes." Section 5(a) used the same phrase ("No statement relating to smoking and health") with regard to cigarette labeling. As § 5(a) made clear, that phrase referred to the sort of warning provided for in § 4, which set forth verbatim the warning Congress determined to be appropriate. Thus, on their face, these provisions merely prohibited state and federal rule-making bodies from mandating particular cautionary statements on cigarette labels (§ 5(a)) or in cigarette advertisements (§ 5(b)).
Beyond the precise words of these provisions, this reading is appropriate for several reasons. First, as discussed above, we must construe these provisions in light of the presumption against the pre-emption of state police power regulations. This presumption reinforces the appropriateness of a narrow reading of § 5. Second, the warning required in § 4 does not by its own effect foreclose additional obligations imposed under state law. That Congress requires a particular warning label does not automatically pre-empt a regulatory field. See McDermott v. Wisconsin, 228 U.S. 115, 131-132, 33 S.Ct. 431, 434-435, 57 L.Ed. 754 (1913). Third, there is no general, inherent conflict between federal pre-emption of state warning requirements and the continued vitality of state common law damages actions. For example, in the Comprehensive Smokeless Tobacco Health Education Act of 1986,14 Congress expressly pre-empted State or local imposition of a "statement relating to the use of smokeless tobacco products and health" but, at the same time, preserved state law damages actions based on those products. See 15 U.S.C. § 4406. All of these considerations indicate that § 5 is best read as having superseded only positive enactments by legislatures or administrative agencies that mandate particular warning labels.15
The regulatory context of the 1965 Act also supports such a reading. As noted above, a warning requirement promulgated by the FTC and other requirements under consideration by the States were the catalyst for passage of the 1965 Act. These regulatory actions animated the passage of § 5, which reflected Congress' efforts to prevent "a multiplicity of State and local regulations pertaining to labeling of cigarette packages," H.R.Rep. No. 89-449, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., 4 (1965), and to "pre-empt [all] Federal, State, and local authorit[ies] from requiring any statement . . . relating to smoking and health in the advertising of cigarettes." Id., at 5 (emphasis supplied).16
For these reasons, we conclude that § 5 of the 1965 Act only pre-empted state and federal rulemaking bodies from mandating particular cautionary statements and did not pre-empt state law damages actions.17
Compared to its predecessor in the 1965 Act, the plain language of the pre-emption provision in the 1969 Act is much broader. First, the later Act bars not simply "statements" but rather "requirement[s] or prohibition[s] . . . imposed under State law." Second, the later Act reaches beyond statements "in the advertising" to obligations "with respect to the advertising or promotion" of cigarettes.
Notwithstanding these substantial differences in language, both petitioner and respondents contend that the 1969 Act did not materially alter the pre-emptive scope of federal law.18 Their primary support for this contention is a sentence in a Committee Report which states that the 1969 amendment "clarified" the 1965 version of § 5(b). S.Rep. No. 91-566, p. 12 (1969). We reject the parties' reading as incompatible with the language and origins of the amendments. As we noted in another context, "[i]nferences from legislative history cannot rest on so slender a reed. Moreover, the views of a subsequent Congress form a hazardous basis for inferring the intent of an earlier one." United States v. Price, 361 U.S. 304, 313, 80 S.Ct. 326, 332, 4 L.Ed.2d 334 (1960). The 1969 Act worked substantial changes in the law: rewriting the label warning, banning broadcast advertising, and allowing the FTC to regulate print advertising. In the context of such revisions and in light of the substantial changes in wording, we cannot accept the parties' claim that the 1969 Act did not alter the reach of § 5(b).19
Petitioner next contends that § 5(b), however broadened by the 1969 Act, does not pre-empt common law