Opinion ID: 2611859
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Preemption and Savings Clauses and Federal Preemption Doctrine

Text: When this court accepted jurisdiction, the relevant sections of the Safety Act appeared at 15 U.S.C. § 1392(d) (1994 supp.) (preemption clause) and § 1397(k) (1994 supp.) (savings clause). Congress revised the language and recodified these subsections at 49 U.S.C. § 30103(b) and (e), respectively, effective July 5, 1994. Because the parties' briefs referred to the prior sections and language, we use those citations. The original preemption clause provided in relevant part: 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. Nothing in this section shall be construed as preventing any State from enforcing any safety standard which is identical to a Federal safety standard. 15 U.S.C. § 1392(d) (1992 supp.) (emphasis added). [8] The applicable savings clause provided: Continuation of common law liability Compliance with any Federal motor vehicle safety standard issued under this subchapter does not exempt any person from any liability under common law. [9] 15 U.S.C. § 1397(k) (1992 supp.) (emphasis added). The Supremacy Clause allows Congress to make laws that supersede state law. [10] Federal regulations may also preempt state law. Hillsborough County v. Automated Medical Lab., Inc., 471 U.S. 707, 713, 105 S.Ct. 2371, 2375, 85 L.Ed.2d 714 (1985). In determining whether a federal law preempts a state's statute, the sole task is to ascertain the intent of Congress. California Fed. Sav. & Loan Ass'n v. Guerra, 479 U.S. 272, 280, 107 S.Ct. 683, 689, 93 L.Ed.2d 613 (1987). However, there is a strong presumption against preemption of a state's police power. Cipollone v. Liggett Group, Inc., 505 U.S. ___, ___, 112 S.Ct. 2608, 2617, 120 L.Ed.2d 407 (1992). Preemption analysis: [S]tart[s] with the assumption that the historic police powers of the States were not to be superseded by the Federal Act unless that was the clear and manifest purpose of Congress. This assumption provides assurance that the federal-state balance will not be disturbed unintentionally by Congress or unnecessarily by the courts. But when Congress has unmistakably ordained that its enactments alone are to regulate a part of commerce, state laws regulating that aspect of commerce must fall. This result is compelled whether Congress' command is explicitly stated in the statute's language or implicitly contained in its structure and purpose. Jones v. Rath Packaging Co., 430 U.S. 519, 525, 97 S.Ct. 1305, 1309, 51 L.Ed.2d 604 (1977) (citations and quotes omitted). Wherever possible we must divine intent from statutory text. State ex rel. Corbin v. Pickrell, 136 Ariz. 589, 594, 667 P.2d 1304, 1309 (1983) (The language of a statute is the most reliable evidence of its intent, and in the absence of a clearly expressed legislative intent to the contrary, that language must ordinarily be regarded as conclusive.). The text seems quite clear. Obviously, the preemption and savings clauses must be construed together. State regulatory action that conflicts with the Safety Act is prohibited, but state common-law tort claims are saved and survive. Textually, the two provisions have a clear and unambiguous meaning. Further, we presume against preemption of state common-law and refuse to find preemption absent an explicit textual statement of legislative intent. Hayes v. Continental Ins. Co., 178 Ariz. 264, 273, 872 P.2d 668, 677 (1994) (Arizona statute does not preempt state court jurisdiction over bad faith claims against workers' compensation carriers). Were we writing on a clean slate in 1966  before other courts began stirring the waters of the Safety Act's preemptive reach  we would find the claims asserted in this case expressly not preempted and would effectively end the opinion at this point. However, unlike Hayes, we deal not with a state statute but with an act of Congress. Thus, federal rather than state law must govern. Further, this is 1994 and we do not write on a clean slate. Since 1966, many courts have considered preemption under the Safety Act, often finding preemption on the issue before us. Although the United States Supreme Court has not decided the issue and we therefore are not constrained by binding authority, respect for federal circuit opinions interpreting a federal statute obviously compels us to consult federal authority. Notwithstanding the language of the savings clause, a number of federal courts have found implied preemption of state common-law tort claims against carmakers for not installing airbags in their cars. They found the Safety Act's preemption clause ambiguous because it did not expressly place such claims outside preemptive reach. Wood, 865 F.2d at 412. [11] The courts determined that a state law damage award could effectively establish a standard not identical to the federal standard for the same feature and thus thwart the intended flexibility of the options allowed by Standard 208. These no-airbag claims would conflict with congressional intent to give manufacturers a choice of restraint system designs. Taylor, 875 F.2d at 827 ([A] state common law rule ... would, in effect, remove the element of choice authorized in Safety Standard 208 [and] would frustrate the federal regulatory scheme.); see also Pokorny, 902 F.2d at 1123; Wood, 865 F.2d at 408. Each of these courts concluded that the Savings Clause does not preserve common law damage actions that would subvert federal objectives and methods. One district judge concluded that courts have declared, almost with one voice, that the Safety Act impliedly preempts [conflicting common-law] liability, even though its express preemption clause may be insufficient to accomplish the task.  Gills v. Ford Motor Co., 829 F. Supp. 894, 896 (W.D.Ky. 1993) (first emphasis in original; second emphasis added). Thus, consulting federal decisions in the years following enactment of the Safety Act, we might have been constrained to adopt the view of the federal courts and find implied preemption of a class of state common-law actions, notwithstanding our reading of the text and consequent reluctance to do so. Hayes, 178 Ariz. at 273, 872 P.2d at 677. However, the Supreme Court decision in Cipollone casts an entirely different light on the issue of preemption. In Cipollone, the plaintiff sued a cigarette manufacturer for wrongful death of his mother. He claimed that the manufacturer breached express warranties contained in advertising, failed to warn consumers about the hazards of cigarette smoking, fraudulently misrepresented the hazards of smoking, and conspired to withhold from the public medical information about smoking. ___ U.S. at ___, 112 S.Ct. at 2613. The Court considered whether these claims could survive the Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act of 1965, [12] which required a specific and conspicuous health warning on all cigarette packages sold in this country. The question at issue was essentially that presented in this case: Did that Act's preemption provision  barring states from imposing other warning requirements related to advertising or promoting cigarettes  bar the plaintiff's common-law tort claims? The Supreme Court partly reversed the lower court's ruling that the Labeling Act preempted the state law claims. Id. at ___, 112 S.Ct. at 2625. Finding that the preemptive scope of the Labeling Act is governed entirely by its express language, the Court held that the preemption provision only prohibits state lawmakers from mandating particular warning labels. Cipollone changed federal preemption analysis by limiting the preemptive reach of a federal statute to its express terms: When Congress has considered the issue of preemption and has included in the enacted legislation a provision explicitly addressing that issue, and when that provision provides a reliable indicium of congressional intent with respect to state authority, there is no need to infer congressional intent to pre-empt state laws from the substantive provisions .... Therefore, we need only identify the domain expressly pre-empted by each of these sections. Id. at ___, 112 S.Ct. at 2618 (citations and quotes omitted). Cipollone thus limited preemption analysis to the express statutory language by holding that a correlative federal regulatory requirement does not by its own effect foreclose additional obligations imposed under state law. Id. In short, courts should avoid debating implied preemption if the text of the statute addresses preemption and thus reliably identifies congressional intent. In the wake of Cipollone, courts have narrowed their evaluation of a statute's preemptive reach. Almost all the federal circuits have addressed federal preemption since Cipollone and now consider expression of preemption in a statute's text the reliable indicium of congressional intent, no longer divining implied preemption. See Myrick v. Fruehauf Corp., 13 F.3d 1516, 1522 (11th Cir.1994) (citing cases [13] following Cipollone's instruction that preemption analysis should be limited to the domain expressly pre-empted by each of those sections), cert. granted, ___ U.S. ___, 115 S.Ct. 306, 130 L.Ed.2d 218 (1994). Significantly, since Cipollone, at least one circuit court has reevaluated its previous holding. In Taylor, a pre- Cipollone case acknowledging no express common-law pre-emption, the Eleventh Circuit held that a common-law tort claim based on a defect in a design complying with the Safety Act's standards was impliedly barred. After Cipollone a different panel of the same court ruled to the contrary in Myrick, a case concerning a liability claim against truck and trailer manufacturers for failing to install anti-lock brakes. 13 F.3d at 1521-22. Finding the plaintiffs' tort claims not expressly preempted by the Safety Act's preemption clause and expressly protected by the savings clause, Myrick partly overruled Taylor by following  Cipollone 's clear instruction that when there is an express pre-emption provision we should not consider implied pre-emption .... Id. at 1522. At least one state appellate court has followed Myrick 's lead by finding no preemption of an airbag liability claim. Loulos v. Dick Smith Ford Inc., 882 S.W.2d 149 (Mo. Ct. App. 1994), transfer denied (the savings clause is a reliable indicium of congressional intent to save a common-law airbag claim). Not all post- Cipollone no-airbag cases agree that these claims survive. One federal district court stated that: The mere presence of express preemption language does not necessarily prohibit an implied preemption analysis under the Cipollone rule .... A court may ... search a statute for implied preemptive intent if that statute's express language fails to provide a reliable indicium of the legislature's preemptive wishes. Gills, 829 F. Supp. at 897-98 (citations omitted). Finding that a common-law claim could have a conflicting regulatory effect if it would establish a state safety standard different from the federal standard but covering the same aspect of performance, the court granted partial summary judgment for the defendant carmaker on the grounds that the Safety Act had impliedly preempted the airbag claim because such a claim would interfere with the manufacturer's approved options. Id. at 899. The court, however, distinguished airbag claims from common-law claims that a safety device [presumably including a seatbelt assembly], though in compliance with minimum federal standards, failed to meet higher performance requirements. Id. Although a claim based on the absence of an airbag would effectively reduce a carmaker's choice of Standard 208 options, a claim based on a defective though federally approved design would not. The latter claim would force the carmaker to either satisfy a higher standard for its system design or face the risk of damages claims, a result not necessarily in conflict with the inherent flexibility of the Safety Act. [14] Another district court has concluded that the preemption clause  expressly preempt[s] all state tort claims that are `applicable to the same aspect of performance of such vehicle or item of equipment which is not identical to the Federal standard.' Montag v. Honda Motor Co., Ltd., 856 F. Supp. 574, 577 (D.Colo. 1994) (emphasis added). On the other hand, the court held that the savings clause does not express any specific congressional intent to preserve state common law actions that effectively circumvent the preemption clause. Id. With all due respect, the district judge seems to suggest that Congress could not have meant what it said when in the savings clause it stated that compliance would not exempt any persons from any liability under common law. Like those pre- Cipollone opinions that ignored the explicit language of federal statutes while searching for unarticulated congressional motives, we believe the district court analyses in Gills and Montag are incorrect. Cipollone commands courts to follow a textual path in ascertaining a statute's meaning, making it unnecessary either to search for unarticulated legislative intent or engage in a balancing process that may result in a conclusion of implied preemption. As we read Justice Stevens' words in Cipollone, in which Congress addressed the preemption question, as in the Safety Act, preemptive reach is determined not by a search for unexpressed congressional intent but by the words of the text itself. Thus, the text provides the reliable indicium of congressional intent to preempt state authority. Cipollone, ___ U.S. at ___, 112 S.Ct. at 2618. The application of that rule ends the need to infer congressional intent to preempt state laws from the [other] substantive provision[s] of the legislation. Id.; CSX Transp., Inc. v. Easterwood, ___ U.S. ___, ___, 113 S.Ct. 1732, 1737, 123 L.Ed.2d 387 (1993) (If the statute contains an express pre-emption clause, the task of statutory construction must in the first instance focus on the plain wording of the clause, which necessarily contains the best evidence of Congress' pre-emptive intent.). Thus, when the statute addresses preemption, its text defines preemptive reach and implies that matters beyond that reach are not preempted. Cipollone, ___ U.S. at ___, 112 S.Ct. at 2618. For what it is worth, we believe that this rule is by far the best policy. If a legislative body wishes to preempt, it knows the language that will accomplish that result. Taylor, 875 F.2d at 824. [15] If the legislature seeks to preempt a cause of action or to deprive the courts of jurisdiction, the law's text ... should say so explicitly. Hayes, 178 Ariz. at 273, 872 P.2d at 677. Such a rule transfers the decision about preemption and its reach from the post-hoc speculation of lawyers to the forum where it should be argued: the legislature, where the competing interests may be reconciled before the statute is passed. Id.