Opinion ID: 660303
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: the cipollone decision and its effect on taylor

Text: 29 The Supreme Court in Cipollone added a new wrinkle to the fabric of pre-emption law by holding that where a federal statute contains an express pre-emption clause, and that clause provides a 'reliable indicium of congressional intent with respect to state authority,'  a court should not consider implied theories of pre-emption. Cipollone v. Liggett Group, Inc., --- U.S. ----, ----, 112 S.Ct. 2608, 2618, 120 L.Ed.2d 407 (1992). (citation omitted). The Cipollone Court held that the enactment by Congress of such a provision addressing the pre-emptive scope of the statute in which it is contained, indicates an intent that all matters beyond the reach of the provision are not pre-empted. Therefore, where there is an express pre-emption provision a court need only identify the domain expressly pre-empted by the statutory provisions. Id. The Cipollone Court reasoned that if Congress had intended further pre-emption it would have said so in the pre-emption provision it included in the act. 30 It is the law of this Circuit that we are bound by a prior panel's decision except to the extent it is altered by a supervening Supreme Court decision, which we will, of course, follow instead. E.g., Footman v. Singletary, 978 F.2d 1207, 1211 (11th Cir.1992); Lufkin v. McCallum, 956 F.2d 1104, 1107 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 113 S.Ct. 326, 121 L.Ed.2d 246 (1992). We are bound by the Taylor panel's holding, unchanged by Cipollone, that the Safety Act does not expressly pre-empt common law liability for a safety defect that is addressed by a safety standard established under the Safety Act. Taylor is indistinguishable from this appeal with regard to that holding. The plaintiffs in Taylor asserted tort claims sounding in negligence and strict liability, as do the Plaintiffs here. In both cases, the claims were premised on a failure of the manufacturers to install specific safety devices in their vehicles, and in both cases a safety standard established under the Act effectively gave the manufacturers the option of not installing the device. Exactly the same pre-emption clause and savings clause are involved in both cases. Thus, we are bound to conclude that the claims presented by the Myricks and Jack Lindsey in this appeal are not expressly pre-empted by the Safety Act, just as similar claims were held not to be expressly pre-empted by the same act in the Taylor case. 31 Because of the Supreme Court's Cipollone decision, however, we are bound not to follow the second part of Taylor, which held that claims similar to the ones here were barred under the implied pre-emption doctrine. Cipollone's clear instruction that when there is an express pre-emption provision we should not consider implied pre-emption supersedes the second part of Taylor. Factoring Cipollone into Taylor produces a net result of no pre-emption in this case. 32