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

Heading: gara

Text: 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.