Opinion ID: 3195507
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Relevant Preemption Precedent

Text: We turn next to Appellees’ contention that the Supreme Court’s preemption jurisprudence compels us to find that federal law occupies the entire field of aircraft design and manufacture and that the issuance of a type certificate conclusively demonstrates compliance with the corresponding federal standard of care. Appellees argue that: (1) the Court has accorded broad field preemption to analogous statutory regimes governing oil tankers and locomotives; (2) the Court has given broad preemptive effect to analogous premarket 38 approval processes in the medical device context; and (3) other Courts of Appeals have recognized preemption of the field of aviation safety. For its part, the FAA argues that the mere issuance of a type certificate does not preempt all design defect claims concerning the certificated part but that specifications expressly embodied in a type certificate may, in a given case, preempt such claims under traditional conflict preemption principles. We address Appellees’ arguments below and conclude that the case law of the Supreme Court and our sister Circuits supports the application of traditional conflict preemption principles but not preemption of the entire field of aviation design and manufacture.
Regimes Although they acknowledge that the Supreme Court has not addressed whether the Federal Aviation Act preempts the field of aviation design and manufacture, Appellees argue on the basis of other Supreme Court precedent that we should affirm the reasoning of the District Court. First, Appellees point to the Supreme Court’s observation in City of Burbank, 411 U.S. at 639, that the Federal Aviation Act “requires a uniform and exclusive system of federal regulation if the congressional objectives underlying [it] are to be fulfilled” as evidence that the Supreme Court has concluded the FAA occupies the entire field of aviation safety. That begs the question, however, of the scope of the field in question. In City of Burbank, the Court held only that Congress had preempted the field of aircraft noise regulation. Id. at 633, 638-40. Even in interpreting the express preemption clause 39 of the Airline Deregulation Act, 15 the Court has taken a cautious approach, holding that plaintiffs’ claims under state consumer protection statutes are preempted but that related state law claims for breach of contract are not. See Am. Airlines, Inc. v. Wolens, 513 U.S. 219, 223, 227-33 (1995); Morales, 504 U.S. at 391. The Supreme Court also has observed in dicta that state tort law “plainly appl[ies]” to aviation tort cases and that Congress would need to enact legislation “[i]f federal uniformity is the desired goal with respect to claims arising from aviation accidents.” Exec. Jet Aviation, Inc. v. City of Cleveland, 409 U.S. 249, 273-74 (1972). The Court’s few pronouncements in the area of aviation preemption, in other words, offer little support for the broad field preemption Appellees seek. Appellees next compare aircraft to oil tankers and locomotives, urging that the broad scope of field preemption recognized by the Supreme Court in those industries should extend as well to aircraft design defect claims. As Appellees point out, the Supreme Court has found field preemption of oil tanker design, operation, and seaworthiness under Title II of the Ports and Waterways Safety Act and concluded state regulations that impose additional crew training requirements and mandate standard safety features on certain boats fall within this preempted field. United States v. Locke, 529 U.S. 15 The Airline Deregulation Act, Pub. L. No. 95-504, § 105(a)(1), 92 Stat. 1705, 1708 (1978), expressly preempted state law claims “relating to rates, routes, or services of any air carrier.” In light of nonsubstantive amendments by Congress, today’s iteration of the express preemption clause precludes state law claims “related to a price, route, or service of an air carrier.” 49 U.S.C. § 41713(b)(1). 40 89, 109-14 (2000); Ray, 435 U.S. at 158-68. Appellees also refer to decisions that have found field preemption of design defect claims in the railroad context, see Kurns v. R.R. Friction Prods. Corp., 132 S. Ct. 1261, 1267-68 (2012); Del. & Hudson Ry. Co. v. Knoedler Mfrs., Inc., 781 F.3d 656, 66162 (3d Cir. 2015). We do not find either of these analogies apt. As to tankers, the Supreme Court subsequently distinguished Ray and Locke on the grounds that both cases invalidated state regulations that created positive obligations, and neither of those cases “purported to pre-empt possible common law claims,” Sprietsma v. Mercury Marine, 537 U.S. 51, 69 (2002), such as the aviation tort claims at issue here. As to locomotives, the Supreme Court and our own Court were bound to find such design defect claims preempted by the Supreme Court’s ninety-year-old precedent in Napier v. Atlantic Coast Line Railway Co., 272 U.S. 605 (1926), which held that the Locomotive Inspection Act preempts “the field of regulating locomotive equipment used on a highway of interstate commerce,” including “the design, the construction, and the material of every part of the locomotive and tender and of all appurtenances.” Id. at 607, 611. Far more apropos in the transportation industry is the Supreme Court’s conflict preemption approach in the context of automobiles and boats, for just as the Federal Aviation Act directs the FAA to “prescrib[e] minimum standards required in the interest of safety for appliances and for the design, material, construction, quality of work, and performance of aircraft, aircraft engines, and propellers,” 49 U.S.C. § 44701(a)(1), the National Traffic and Motor Safety Act of 1966 (“NTMSA”) empowers the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to “prescribe motor vehicle safety 41 standards for motor vehicles and motor vehicle equipment,” 49 U.S.C. § 30101(1), and the Federal Boat Safety Act of 1971 (“FBSA”) authorizes the Secretary of Transportation to issue regulations “establishing minimum safety standards for recreational vessels and associated equipment,” 46 U.S.C. § 4302(a)(1).16 Moreover, like the Federal Aviation Act, the NTMSA and FBSA both contain savings clauses. 49 U.S.C. § 30103(e); 46 U.S.C. § 4311(g). In assessing implied preemption under these statutory schemes, the Supreme Court has found that the statutory language and applicable regulations support not field preemption, but rather a traditional conflict preemption analysis. In the automobile context, for example, the Court held that a federal regulation governing air bag usage implicated a significant federal regulatory objective— maintaining manufacturer choice—and therefore preempted a state law tort claim, Geier v. Am. Honda Motor Co., 529 U.S. 861, 875, 886 (2000), while another regulation governing seatbelt usage did not reflect a similarly significant federal 16 Appellees argue that the Federal Aviation Act’s mandate that the FAA Administrator establish “minimum” standards in both Section 604 (pertaining to operations) and Section 601(a) (pertaining to aircraft design and manufacture) justifies the extension of Abdullah field preemption to both areas. Appellees’ Br. 34 (citing §§ 101(3), (10), (21); 601(a)(1)-(5)). In Abdullah, however, we observed that the reference to “minimum standards” did not preclude a finding of field preemption; we did not hold that it required or even supported it. See Abdullah, 181 F.3d at 373-74. 42 objective and thus did not preempt state law claims, Williamson, 562 U.S. at 336. Similarly, in Sprietsma, the Court held that the Federal Boat Safety Act did not preempt the field of “state common law relating to boat manufacture,” but nonetheless applied a conflict preemption analysis to determine whether petitioner’s tort law claims were preempted by the Federal Boat Safety Act (“FBSA”) or the Coast Guard’s decision not to promulgate a regulation requiring propeller guards on motorboats. 537 U.S. at 60-70. The Court held that the Coast Guard’s decision not to regulate did not preclude “a tort verdict premised on a jury’s finding that some type of propeller guard should have been installed on this particular kind of boat equipped with respondent’s particular type of motor” because the Coast Guard’s decision “does not convey an ‘authoritative’ message of a federal policy against propeller guards.” Id. at 67.17 17 We recognize that, unlike the Federal Aviation Act, the NTMSA and the FBSA also contain express preemption clauses. 49 U.S.C. § 30103(b)(1); 46 U.S.C. § 4306. Despite these clauses, however, the Supreme Court still conducted a conflict preemption analysis in Geier and Sprietsma rather than a field preemption analysis because it determined that, while an express preemption clause may indicate some congressional desire to “subject the industry to a single, uniform set of federal safety standards,” the presence of a savings clause simultaneously “reflects a congressional determination that occasional nonuniformity is a small price to pay for a system in which juries . . . enforce[] safety standards [and] . . . provid[e] necessary compensation to victims.” Geier, 529 U.S. at 867-71; see also Sprietsma, 537 43 In sum, the Supreme Court’s preemption cases in the transportation context support that aircraft design and manufacture claims are not field preempted, but remain subject to principles of conflict preemption.
Preemption Appellees also assert that because type certificates represent the FAA’s determination that a design meets federal safety standards, allowing juries to impose tort liability notwithstanding the presence of a type certificate would infringe upon the field of aviation safety as defined in Abdullah and would fatally undermine uniformity in the federal regulatory regime. Appellees’ Br. 44-45 (quoting City of Burbank, 411 U.S. at 639). In support of this argument, Appellees rely on Riegel v. Medtronic, Inc., 552 U.S. 312 (2008), in which state tort claims were deemed preempted by an express preemption clause where the plaintiff challenged the safety of a medical device that had received preapproval from the Food and Drug Administration. Id. at 330. Although there is no express preemption clause here, Appellees posit that the FAA’s type certification process should be accorded a similar field preemptive effect. The FAA, on the other hand, argues that type certification is relevant only to an analysis under “ordinary U.S. at 62-65. Because the Court has been willing to apply conflict rather than field preemption even in situations where an express preemption clause is at play, conflict preemption appears especially apt in a case like this one where there is no such clause to counsel in favor of field preemption. 44 conflict preemption principles.” 18 FAA Ltr. Br. 2. Thus, according to the FAA, “[i]t is . . . only where compliance with both the type certificate and the claims made in the state tort suit ‘is a physical impossibility[]’; or where the claim ‘stands as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress,’ that the type certificate will serve to preempt a state tort suit.” Id. at 10 (first quoting Fla. Lime & Avocado Growers, Inc., 373 U.S. at 142-43; then quoting Geier, 529 U.S. at 873). This, the FAA contends, strikes the right balance in the interests of federalism because: to the extent that a plaintiff challenges an aspect of an aircraft’s design that was expressly approved by the FAA as shown on the type certificate, accompanying operating limitations, underlying type certificate data sheet, or other form of FAA approval incorporated by reference into those materials, a plaintiff’s state tort suit arguing for an alternative design would be preempted under conflict preemption principles . . . . because a manufacturer is bound to manufacture its aircraft or aircraft part in compliance with the type certificate. Id. at 10-11. On the other hand, “to the extent that the FAA has not made an affirmative determination with respect to the challenged design aspect, and the agency has left that design 18 Even with regard to those claims not preempted by conflict preemption, the FAA contends that a federal standard of care should apply. FAA Ltr. Br. 11. For the reasons set forth above, we have rejected that contention. See supra Part