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

Heading: Indicia of Congressional Intent

Text: As we have explained, although the federal government has overseen certain aspects of aviation, such as air traffic control and pilot certification, since the early days of flight, see Air Commerce Act of 1926, ch. 344, 44 Stat. 568, there was little question when the Civil Aeronautics Act was adopted in 1938 that common law standards governed tort claims arising from plane crashes, see, e.g., CurtissWright Flying Serv., 66 F.2d at 711-13 (applying the common law standard for negligence). It is therefore significant that the Federal Aviation Act, which succeeded the Civil Aeronautics Act and remains the foundation of federal aviation law today, contains no express preemption provision. In fact, it says only that the FAA may establish “minimum standards” for aviation safety, 49 U.S.C. § 44701—statutory language the Supreme Court has held in other contexts to be insufficient on its own to support a finding of clear and manifest congressional intent of preemption, see Fla. Lime & Avocado Growers, Inc. v. Paul, 373 U.S. 132, 145 (1963); see also Ray v. Atl. Richfield Co., 435 U.S. 151, 168 n.19 (1978); Abdullah, 181 F.3d at 373-74; Cleveland, 985 F.2d at 1445. Further, the Federal Aviation Act contains a “savings clause,” which provides that “[a] remedy under this part is in addition to any other remedies provided by law.”8 49 U.S.C. § 40120(c) (emphasis added). The Supreme Court observed 8 There is no question that state law provides remedies for products liability claims. See, e.g., Tincher v. Omega Flex, Inc., 104 A.3d 328 (Pa. 2014). 24 that this statutory scheme permits states to retain their traditional regulatory power over aspects of aviation. See Morales v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., 504 U.S. 374, 378-79 (1992) (noting that the Federal Aviation Act’s savings clause permitted the States to regulate intrastate airfares and enforce their own laws against deceptive trade practices prior to the 1978 enactment of the Airline Deregulation Act, which did expressly preempt state laws relating to the rates, routes, or services of an air carrier). While the inclusion of the savings clause “is not inconsistent” with a requirement that courts apply federal standards of care when adjudicating state law claims, Abdullah, 181 F.3d at 374-75, it belies Appellees’ argument that Congress demonstrated a clear and manifest intent to preempt state law products liability claims altogether. Whereas Appellees must show a clear and manifest congressional intent to overcome the presumption against preemption, they instead have mustered scant evidence and, at best, have demonstrated ambiguity. For example, they discuss § 601 of the Federal Aviation Act, which empowers the FAA to promulgate regulations “to promote safety of flight of civil aircraft in air commerce by prescribing . . . minimum standards governing the design, materials, workmanship, construction, and performance of aircraft, aircraft engines, and propellers as may be required in the interest of safety.” Federal Aviation Act of 1958, Pub. L. No. 85-726, § 601(a)(1), 72 Stat. 731, 775. Yet, that provision, along with § 603, which provides the statutory framework for the issuance of type certificates, was adopted verbatim from the 1938 Civil Aeronautics Act, id. § 603; see H.R. Rep. No. 85-2360, at 16 (1958), which clearly did not preempt state law products liability claims, see supra, Part III.B. Neither 25 the Federal Aviation Act nor subsequent amendments substantially changed this statutory framework. See Revision of Title 49, United States Code Annotated, “Transportation,” Pub. L. No. 103-272, 108 Stat. 745 (1994); see also H.R. Rep. No. 103-180, at 343-44 (1993) (discussing changes to the statutory provisions governing the issuance of type certificates as words “added for clarity” and “omitted as surplus”). Appellees thus present no evidence from the Federal Aviation Act’s text or extensive legislative history that plausibly suggests Congress intended these same provisions to have a different meaning in the 1958 Act than they had in the 1938 Act. Simply put, if Congress had wanted to change the preemptive effect of the type certification process, it would have done so—or at least given some indication of that intention. It did not. The Federal Aviation Act itself therefore does not signal an intent to preempt state law products liability claims.
The federal aviation design regulations are likewise devoid of evidence of congressional intent to preempt state law products liability claims. The FAA, in the letter brief it submitted as amicus curiae in this case, takes the position that the Act and these regulations so pervasively occupy the field of design safety that, consistent with Abdullah, they require state tort suits that survive a conflict preemption analysis to proceed under “federal standards of care found in the Federal 26 Aviation Act and its implementing regulations.” Letter Br. of Amicus Curiae Fed. Aviation Admin. 11 (“FAA Ltr. Br.”). 9 We do not defer to an agency’s view that its regulations preempt state law, but we do recognize that agencies are well equipped to understand the technical and complex nature of the subject matter over which they regulate and thus have a “unique understanding of the statutes they administer and an attendant ability to make informed determinations about how state requirements may pose an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress.” Wyeth, 555 U.S. at 576-77 (quoting Hines v. Davidowitz, 312 U.S. 52, 67 (1941)) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Farina, 625 F.3d at 126. We therefore consider the FAA’s “explanation of state law’s impact on the federal scheme” governing aircraft design and manufacture, but “[t]he weight we accord [its] explanation . . . depends on its thoroughness, consistency, and persuasiveness.” Wyeth, 555 U.S. at 577 (citing United States v. Mead Corp., 533 U.S. 218, 234-35 (2001); Skidmore v. Swift & Co., 323 U.S. 134, 140 (1944)); Farina, 625 F.3d at 126-27 & n.27. Specifically, its views as presented in an 9 At our request, the FAA submitted a letter brief specifically to address the scope of field preemption, the existence and source of any federal standard of care for design defect claims, and the role of the type certificate in determining whether the relevant standard of care had been met. For the reasons set forth below, we are not persuaded by the FAA’s position on field preemption and the applicable standard of care. However, we do find persuasive its views on the relevance of the type certification process to a conflict preemption analysis. See infra Part III.D.2. 27 amicus brief are “‘entitled to respect’ only to the extent [they] ha[ve] the ‘power to persuade.’” See Gonzales v. Oregon, 546 U.S. 243, 255-56 (2006) (quoting Skidmore, 323 U.S. at 140); see also Farina, 625 F.3d at 126-27. Here, three fundamental differences between the regulations at issue in Abdullah and those concerning aircraft design, along with the agency’s inability to specifically identify or articulate the proposed federal standard of care, lead us to disagree with this aspect of the FAA’s submission. First, the regulations governing in-flight operations on their face “prescribe[] rules governing the operation of aircraft . . . within the United States.” 14 C.F.R. § 91.1(a); see also 14 C.F.R. § 121.1(e) (prescribing rules governing “[e]ach person who is on board an aircraft being operated under this part”). In contrast, the manufacturing and design regulations prescribe “[p]rocedural requirements for issuing and changing – (i) Design approvals; (ii) Production approvals; (iii) Airworthiness certificates; and (iv) Airworthiness approvals” and “[r]ules governing applicants for, and holders of” such approvals and certificates. 14 C.F.R. § 21.1(a). That is, these regulations do not purport to govern the manufacture and design of aircraft per se or to establish a general standard of care but rather establish procedures for manufacturers to obtain certain approvals and certificates from the FAA, see generally 14 C.F.R. § 21, and in the context of those procedures, to “prescribe[] airworthiness standards for the issue of type certificates,” 14 C.F.R. § 33.1(a) (aircraft engines) (emphasis added); see also 14 C.F.R. §§ 23.1(a), 25.1(a), 27.1(a), 29.1(a), 31.1(a), 35.1(a). Of course, the issuance of a type certificate is a threshold requirement for the lawful manufacture and production of component parts and, at least to that extent, arguably reflects nationwide 28 standards for the manufacture and design of such parts. But the fact that the regulations are framed in terms of standards to acquire FAA approvals and certificates—and not as standards governing manufacture generally—supports the notions that the acquisition of a type certificate is merely a baseline requirement and that, in the manufacturing context, the statutory language indicating that these are “minimum standards,” 49 U.S.C. § 44701, means what it says. Second, the standards that must be met for the issuance of type certificates cannot be said to provide the type of “comprehensive system of rules and regulations” we determined existed in Abdullah to promote in-flight safety “by regulating pilot certification, pilot pre-flight duties, pilot flight responsibilities, and flight rules.” Abdullah, 181 F.3d at 369 (footnotes omitted). Rather, many are in the nature of discrete, technical specifications that range from simply requiring that a given component part work properly, e.g., 14 C.F.R. § 33.71(a) (providing that a lubrication system “must function properly in the flight altitudes and atmospheric conditions in which an aircraft is expected to operate”), to prescribing particular specifications for certain aspects (and not even all aspects) of that component part, e.g., 14 C.F.R. § 33.69 (providing that an electric engine ignition system “must have at least two igniters and two separate secondary electric circuits, except that only one igniter is required for fuel burning augmentation systems”). The regulation governing the fuel and induction system at issue in this case, for example, specifies that this part of the engine “must be designed and constructed to supply an appropriate mixture of fuel to the cylinders throughout the complete operating range of the engine under all flight and atmospheric conditions.” 14 C.F.R. § 33.35(a) (emphasis added). As the District Court 29 observed, the highly technical and part-specific nature of these regulations makes them exceedingly difficult to translate into a standard of care that could be applied to a tort claim. Third, the regulations governing in-flight operations “suppl[y] a comprehensive standard of care,” Abdullah, 181 F.3d at 371, that could be used to evaluate conduct not specifically prescribed by the regulations, i.e., that a person must not “operate an aircraft in a careless or reckless manner so as to endanger the life or property of another,” 14 C.F.R. § 91.13(a). We recognized in Abdullah that § 91.13(a) sounds in common law tort, making it appropriate and practical to incorporate as a federal standard of care in state law claims concerning in-flight operations and rendering existing state law standards of care duplicative (if not conflicting with them outright). Abdullah, 181 F.3d at 371, 374. Neither the FAA nor Appellees have pointed us to any analogous provision for aircraft manufacture and design, nor have we identified one.10 10 Although Appellees suggest 49 U.S.C. § 44701(a)(5) and CAR §§ 13.100-101, 13.104 (1964) as candidates for an equivalent to § 91.13(a), neither states a workable standard of care. The first simply describes what types of regulations the FAA is authorized to promulgate by directing the agency to prescribe “regulations and minimum standards for other practices, methods, and procedures the Administrator finds necessary for safety in air commerce and national security.” 49 U.S.C. § 44701(a)(5). The second establishes “standards with which compliance shall be demonstrated for the issuance of and changes to type certificates for engines used on aircraft.” CAR § 13.0 (1964). Neither provision purports to, 30 We therefore agree with the District Court that neither the Federal Aviation Act nor the associated FAA regulations “were [ever] intended to create federal standards of care” for manufacturing and design defect claims. Sikkelee, 45 F. Supp. 3d at 437 n.4 (internal quotation marks omitted) (describing the District Court’s reasoning in its earlier memorandum responding to proposed jury instructions and citing Pease, 2011 WL 6339833, at -23). However, the District Court proceeded from that accurate premise to a faulty conclusion (the one urged by Appellees), i.e., that because there is no federal standard of care for these claims in the statute or regulations, the issuance of a type certificate must both establish and satisfy that standard. Not so. In light of the presumption against preemption, absent clear evidence that Congress intended the mere issuance of a type certificate to foreclose all design defect claims, state tort suits using state standards of care may proceed subject only to traditional conflict preemption principles. Besides preserving principles of federalism, this conclusion avoids interpreting the Federal Aviation Act in a way that would have “the perverse effect of granting complete immunity from design defect liability to an entire industry that, in the judgment of Congress, needed more stringent regulation.” Medtronic, 518 U.S. at 487. Conversely, were we to adopt Appellees’ position, we would be holding, in effect, that the mere issuance of a type certificate exempts designers and manufacturers of defective airplanes from the bulk of liability for both individual and large-scale air catastrophes. While Appellees answer that nor could, practically function as a general standard of care for products liability claims. 31 “failure to report defects” claims could still proceed under state law, as the District Court permitted here, even Appellees acknowledge that, at best, only some “percentage of claims that are theoretically available would be left under [their] interpretation . . . .” Oral Arg. at 35:01, 42:54 (argued June 24, 2015).11 In short, like the manufacturer in Medtronic, Appellees would have us adopt the position that “because there is no explicit private cause of action against manufacturers contained in the [Act], and no suggestion that the Act created an implied private right of action, Congress would have barred most, if not all, relief for persons injured by defective [aircraft parts].” Medtronic, 518 U.S. at 487. Like the Supreme Court in Medtronic, however, we find it “to say the least, ‘difficult to believe that Congress would, without comment, remove all means of judicial recourse for those injured by illegal conduct.’” Id. (quoting Silkwood v. KerrMcGee Corp., 464 U.S. 238, 251 (1984)). These observations lead us to conclude that the Federal Aviation Act and its implementing regulations do not indicate a clear and manifest congressional intent to preempt state law products liability claims; Congress has not created a federal standard of care for persons injured by defective airplanes; and the type certification process cannot as a categorical matter displace the need for compliance in this context with state standards of care. 11 An audio recording of the oral argument is available online, at http://www2.ca3.uscourts.gov/oralargument/audio/144193JillSilleleev.PrecisionAirmotiveCorp.mp3. 32
Our conclusion is solidified by the General Aviation Revitalization Act of 1994 (“GARA”), Pub L. No. 103-298, 108 Stat. 1552 (codified at 49 U.S.C. § 40101 note). In that statute, Congress created a statute of repose that, with certain exceptions, bars suit against an aircraft manufacturer arising from a general aviation accident brought more than eighteen years after the aircraft was delivered or a new part was installed.12 49 U.S.C. § 40101 note § 3(3). GARA was adopted to limit the “long tail of liability” imposed on manufacturers of general aviation aircraft. Blazevska v. Raytheon Aircraft Co., 522 F.3d 948, 951 (9th Cir. 2008) (quoting Lyon v. Agusta S.P.A., 252 F.3d 1078, 1084 (9th Cir. 2001)). By barring products liability suits against manufacturers of these older aircraft parts, GARA necessarily implies that such suits were and are otherwise permitted. Indeed, GARA’s eighteen-year statute of repose would be superfluous if all aviation products liability claims are preempted from day one. Because we must “interpret a statute so as to ‘give effect to every word of a statute wherever possible,’” Shalom Pentecostal Church v. Acting Sec’y U.S. Dep’t of Homeland Sec., 783 F.3d 156, 165 (3d Cir. 2015) (quoting Leocal v. Ashcroft, 543 U.S. 1, 12 12 “General aviation aircraft” is defined in GARA as any aircraft with a maximum seating capacity of fewer than 20 passengers that was not engaged in scheduled passengercarrying operations at the time of the accident. 49 U.S.C. § 40101 note § 2(c). In other words, general aviation is distinct from larger-scale commercial aviation. 33 (2004)), GARA reinforces what is now apparent: Federal law does not preempt state design defect claims. Rather, Congress left state law remedies in place when it enacted GARA in 1994, just as it did when it enacted the Civil Aeronautics Act in 1938 and the Federal Aviation Act in 1958. Appellees argue that GARA would not be entirely superfluous because general aviation manufacturers would “remain subject to state tort remedies for actual violations of federal aviation safety standards,” Appellee’s Br. 51, such as the failure to disclose defects discovered after a type certificate has been issued or the failure to comply with an airworthiness directive, Oral Arg. at 35:20, 37:00. Those kinds of claims, however, are already expressly exempted in § 2(b)(1) from GARA’s statute of repose.13 In sum, if GARA 13 In full, this exception provides that GARA’s statute of repose does not apply if the claimant pleads with specificity the facts necessary to prove, and proves, that the manufacturer with respect to a type certificate or airworthiness certificate for, or obligations with respect to continuing airworthiness of, an aircraft or a component, system, subassembly, or other part of an aircraft knowingly misrepresented to the Federal Aviation Administration, or concealed or withheld from the Federal Aviation Administration, required information that is material and relevant to the performance or the maintenance or operation of such aircraft, or the component, system, 34 and its § 2(b)(1) carveout are to serve their stated purpose, the state law claims to which GARA’s statute of repose applies must not be preempted. Our interpretation of the Federal Aviation Act is only bolstered by GARA’s legislative history. We are mindful, of course, that “the authoritative statement is the statutory text, not the legislative history or any other extrinsic material,” as legislative history can be “murky, ambiguous, and contradictory.” Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Allapattah Servs., Inc., 545 U.S. 546, 568 (2005). Here, however, the legislative history is none of those things. GARA’s legislative history states explicitly what is implied by the statutory text: Aviation products liability claims are governed by state law. See H.R. Rep. No. 103-525, pt. 2, at 3-7 (1994). The House Report begins by stating that “[t]he liability of general aviation aircraft manufacturers is governed by tort law” that “is ultimately grounded in the experiences of the legal system and values of the citizens of a particular State.” Id. at 3-4. In enacting GARA, Congress “voted to permit, in this exceptional instance, a very limited Federal preemption of subassembly, or other part, that is causally related to the harm which the claimant allegedly suffered. 49 U.S.C. § 40101 note § 2(b)(1). This provision would exempt from the statute of repose claims that are based on a manufacturer’s misrepresentations and omissions with regard to a type certificate or the continuing airworthiness of a plane or its component part, such as a manufacturer’s failure to comply with a type certificate or failure to report required information to the FAA. 35 State law,” that is, only where GARA’s statute of repose has run are state law claims preempted. Id. at 4-7. “[I]n cases where the statute of repose has not expired, State law will continue to govern fully, unfettered by Federal interference.”14 Id. at 7. 14 Appellant notes that, as indicated in the House Report accompanying GARA, prior legislative efforts to explicitly federalize aviation tort law failed to get off the ground. H.R. Rep. No. 103-525, pt. 2, at 6 & n.11 (referencing failed bill H.R. 5362, 102d Cong. (1992)); see Appellant’s Br. 9. For example, H.R. 5362 would have explicitly preempted state tort claims against aircraft manufacturers arising out of general aviation accidents, put in place substantive legal rules for such actions (e.g., applying principles of comparative responsibility in such cases), and imbued federal courts with original, concurrent jurisdiction to adjudicate such claims. Although Appellant seems to be suggesting that such proposed bills reflect Congress’s belief at the time that the field of aviation products liability was not preempted—and, thus, remains so today absent legislation to the contrary—we take no confidence in the reading of tea leaves left behind by failed legislative efforts. For, while on rare occasion the Supreme Court has described legislative inaction as “instructive” but “not conclusive,” Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. v. Bruch, 489 U.S. 101, 114 (1989) (internal quotation marks omitted), it far more often, and with good reason, has emphasized its “reluctan[ce] to draw inferences from Congress’[s] failure to act,” Schneidewind v. ANR Pipeline Co., 485 U.S. 293, 306 (1988); see also FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 529 U.S. 120, 155 (2000) (declining to “rely on Congress’[s] failure to act”). 36 Appellees attempt to discount GARA’s significance, arguing that the views of Congress in 1994 “form a hazardous basis for inferring the intent” of the 1958 Congress that enacted the Federal Aviation Act. Appellee’s Br. 41 (quoting United States v. Price, 361 U.S. 304, 313 (1960)). It is true that “the weight given subsequent legislation and whether it constitutes a clarification or a repeal is a context- and factdependent inquiry,” Bd. of Trs. of IBT Local 863 Pension Fund v. C & S Wholesale Grocers, Inc., 802 F.3d 534, 546 (3d Cir. 2015), but there are circumstances where its consideration is appropriate. Indeed, the Supreme Court relied on precisely this type of analysis in determining congressional intent in the preemption context in Silkwood v. Kerr-McGee Corp., 464 U.S. 238 (1984). There, the Court considered the question of whether state law actions for punitive damages were subject to field preemption under the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2011-2284. Silkwood, 464 U.S. at 241. The Atomic Energy Act itself was silent on the preemption of state tort claims, but, when it was subsequently amended by the Price-Anderson Act, Pub. L. No. 85-256, 71 Stat. 576 (1957), the accompanying Joint Committee Report reflected an assumption that state law would apply in the absence of subsequent legislative action. Id. at 251-54. The Supreme Court found this legislative history to be persuasive in concluding that Congress did not intend to foreclose state remedies for those injured by nuclear accidents by way of field preemption. Id. at 256. More recently, in Texas Department of Housing & Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project, Inc., 135 S. Ct. 2507 (2015), the Supreme Court held that disparate impact claims were cognizable under the 1968 Fair Housing Act (“FHA”), relying in part on the “crucial[ly] importan[t]” 37 fact that Congress had adopted amendments to the Act in 1988 that assumed the existence of such claims. Id. at 251920. Because the amendments would make sense only if disparate impact liability existed under the FHA, the Court reasoned that the most logical conclusion was that Congress presupposed the existence of disparate impact claims under the FHA as it had been enacted in 1968. Id. at 2520-21. Consistent with the Supreme Court’s approach and our recent guidance in Board of Trustees of IBT Local 863 Pension Fund, we may pay heed to the significance of subsequent legislation when it is apparent from the facts and context that it bears directly on Congress’s own understanding and intent. Here, the Federal Aviation Act itself neither states nor implies an intent to preempt state law products liability claims, and GARA confirms that Congress understood and intended that Act to preserve such claims. Thus, despite Appellees’ exhortations, we cannot infer a clear and manifest congressional purpose to preempt these claims where the indicia of congressional intent, including in this case the assumptions underlying subsequent legislation, point overwhelmingly the other way.