Opinion ID: 660303
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the safety act and the taylor decision

Text: 13 The Safety Act authorizes the extensive regulation of commercial trucks, including the vehicles involved in these cases. Numerous safety standards have been established by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration pursuant to the Act, including a standard, applicable at the relevant times in these cases, that effectively gave manufacturers the choice of whether to install anti-lock brakes. The Safety Act includes a pre-emption clause which provides: 14 Whenever a Federal motor vehicle safety standard established under this subchapter is in effect, no State or political subdivision of a State shall have any authority either to establish, or to continue in effect, with respect to any motor vehicle or item of motor vehicle equipment any safety standard applicable to the same aspect of performance of such vehicle or item of equipment which is not identical to the Federal standard. 15 15 U.S.C. Sec. 1392(d). Additionally, the Safety Act contains a savings clause: 16 Compliance with any Federal motor vehicle safety standard issued under this subchapter does not exempt any person from any liability under common law. 17 Id. Sec. 1397(k). 18 In Taylor, a panel of this Court decided the question of whether the Safety Act pre-empts state common law causes of action arising out of the failure of automobile manufacturers to install air bags in their vehicles. We addressed the pre-emption question in two parts: first, express pre-emption, and then, implied pre-emption. We recognized that a successful state tort action based on the failure of a manufacturer to install air bags would have an effect similar to a state regulation requiring installation of air bags. 875 F.2d at 824 n. 16. Nonetheless, this Court held that such tort actions were not expressly pre-empted by the Safety Act. Id. at 825. We began by recognizing that a strong presumption exists against finding express pre-emption when the subject matter, such as the provision of tort remedies to compensate for personal injuries, is one that has traditionally been regarded as properly within the scope of the states' rights. Id. at 823. In view of that presumption, we recognized our task as being to determine whether the language of the Safety Act 'unmistakably' manifests an intent to pre-empt appellants' common law claims. Id. We held that it did not. 19 In the Taylor case, safety standards that had been established under the Act provided for the installation of either seat belts or air bags, giving manufacturers a choice between restraint systems. Id. at 822-23. The manufacturers argued that common law tort liability for failure to install air bags was expressly pre-empted by the Safety Act's pre-emption clause. This Court rejected that argument, because the Act's savings clause plainly stated that compliance with any safety standard did not exempt anyone from common law liability. Id. at 823-25. The manufacturers urged that the savings clause should be narrowly interpreted to preserve common law liability only for defects that were not specifically addressed by a safety standard promulgated under the Act. We rejected that argument, because such a construction would render the savings clause a mere redundancy since the pre-emption clause itself provides that where a federal standard does not govern 'the same aspect of performance' as the state standard, the state standard is not pre-empted. Id. at 824. Recognizing our duty to give effect to every clause of a statute, we rejected the manufacturers' proposed construction of the savings clause because it would render an entire section of the Safety Act superfluous. Id. 20 We also gave another reason for rejecting the manufacturers' argument that the Safety Act expressly pre-empted common law tort actions on defects that were addressed by a safety standard. We said: 21 An additional factor militating against a finding that the language of the Safety Act expressly pre-empts appellants' claims is that Congress did not make explicit reference to state common law in the Act's pre-emption clause as it has in the pre-emption clauses of many other statutes. Congress has long demonstrated an aptitude for expressly barring common law actions when it so desires. The absence of such an explicit reference to state common law in the Safety Act's pre-emption clause therefore counsels against a finding of express pre-emption. 22 Id. at 824-25 (citations omitted). We ended our discussion of the express pre-emption issue by stating our holding as follows: 23 Given the conflict between the language of the Safety Act's pre-emption and savings clauses, and the failure of Congress explicitly to include reference to state common law in the Act's pre-emption clause, we conclude that the Safety Act cannot be construed as unambiguously manifesting an intention to pre-empt appellants' common law claims. We therefore hold that appellants' claims are not expressly pre-empted by the Safety Act. 24 Id. at 825. In a footnote to that holding we said: 25 We conclude only that the language of the Safety Act is too ambiguous to manifest a Congressional intent to pre-empt appellants' common law claims under an express pre-emption analysis; we do not find to the contrary--that the Safety Act's savings clause unmistakably manifests an express intention on the part of Congress to preserve appellants' common law claims. 26 Id. at 825 n.18. 27 After holding in Taylor that state tort actions premised on a defect specifically addressed by a safety standard promulgated under the Safety Act were not expressly pre-empted, this Court turned to the question of implied pre-emption. The pertinent safety standard that had been established under the Act granted to manufacturers an option to install air bags or manual seat belts, and we held that a state common law rule that would, in effect, remove the element of choice authorized [by the Safety Act] would frustrate the federal regulatory scheme. Id. at 827. For that reason, we concluded that common law tort claims based on a failure to install air bags were impliedly pre-empted by the Safety Act because they would interfere with and frustrate the methods by which the federal regulations sought to accomplish their goals. Id. That is the way the law of this Circuit stood on pre-emption in general and pre-emption under the Safety Act in particular, until Cipollone was decided three years later. 28