Opinion ID: 328550
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Subsequent History Clarifying Legislative Intent

Text: 48 Amendments to the Act contained in the Motor Vehicle and Schoolbus Safety Amendments of 1974 require manufacturers, in addition to furnishing defect notifications, to correct at their expense defects which relate to motor vehicle safety. The amendments neither alter the Act's definitions of defect and motor vehicle safety nor establish separate criteria for the manufacturer's notification and repair obligations. 72 The House Report on the amendments, issued approximately one month after the District Court's opinion, indicates that the cause of performance failure is relevant to the defect determination. 49 The remedy without charge requirement is intended to require manufacturers to correct at their expense defects in the performance, design, or construction of their products which relate to motor vehicle safety. It is not intended that manufacturers be required to make corrections if they can establish that the condition requiring correction results from the abuse of their products or the failure to adequately maintain them. 73 50 We are aware that subsequent congressional actions may provide a hazardous basis for inferring the intent of an earlier Congress. 74 But here we are dealing with provisions that must be applied together and in relation to each other. What Congress was making clear was that the defects required to be notified were defects that would have to be repaired at the expense of the manufacturer, not at the expense of the consumer. (There is an exception of no present consequence, removing the obligation to repair or replace as to defects covered by notifications or notification directives issued eight years after the first purchase.) 75 51 In general, the contours of the defects the manufacturer must remedy fairly delineate the defects that must be notified. We are on sound ground, then, in turning to the legislative understanding of those contours expressed at a time when it was not making any change in the provisions that define them. In this context, we deem the 1974 House Report, which provides for some defense of abuse, to be a reliable explication of the scope of the original defect notification section. 76 Aware of the tension between its recognition of an abuse defense and the need for prompt notification, Congress added a provisional notification section to permit the agency to effectuate prompt notification of the problem while the defense was being litigated. 77