Business 8th Edition by Marianne Jennings

Exercise 13

Explosive Preemption Issues: Honda and Airbag Liability
Facts
In 1992, Alexis Geier (petitioner) collided with a tree while driving a 1987 Honda Accord and was seriously injured. The car was equipped with manual shoulder and lap belts, which Geier had buckled up at the time. The car was not equipped with airbags or other passive restraint devices.
Geier and her parents (also petitioners), sued the car's manufacturer, American Honda Motor Company, Inc., and its affiliates (hereinafter American Honda), under District of Columbia tort law. They claimed, among other things, that American Honda had designed its car negligently and defectively because it lacked a driver's-side airbag. The District Court dismissed the lawsuit. The court noted that Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) 208 gave car manufactured a choice as to whether to install airbags. The court concluded that the petitioners 7 lawsuit, because it sought to establish a different safety standard-i.e., an airbag requirement-was expressly preempted by a provision of the act that preempts "any safety standard" that is not identical to a federal safety standard applicable to the same aspect of performance [15 U.S.C. § 1392(d) (1988 ed.)]. The Court of Appeals agreed with the District Court, and Geier appealed.
Judicial Opinion
BREYER, Justice
FMVSS 208 required auto manufacturers to equip some but not all of their 1987 vehicles with passive restraints.
Several state courts have held to the contrary, namely, that neither the Act's express pre-emption nor FMVSS 208 pre-empts a "no airbag" tort suit. All of the Federal Circuit Courts that have considered the question, however, have found pre-emption. We now hold that this kind of "no airbag" lawsuit conflicts with the objectives of FMVSS 208, a standard authorized by the Act and is therefore pre-empted by the Act.
We first ask whether the Safety Act's express preemption provision pre-empts this tort action. The provision reads as follows:
"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 equipments 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 U. S. C. § 1392(d) (1988 ed. ).
The language of the pre-emption provision permits a narrow reading that excludes common-law actions.
Nothing in the language of the saving clause suggests an intent to save state-law tort actions that conflict with federal regulations. The words "[c]ompliance" and "does not exempt," 15 U.S.C. § 1397(k) (1988 ed.), sound as if they simply bar a special kind of defense, namely, a defense that compliance with a federal standard automatically exempts a defendant from state law, whether the Federal Government meant that standard to be an absolute requirement or only a minimum one.
On the one hand, the pre-emption provision itself reflects a desire to subject the industry to a single, uniform set of federal safety standards. Its pre-emption of all state standards, even those that might stand in harmony with federal law, suggests an intent to avoid the conflict, uncertainty, cost, and occasional risk to safety itself that too many different safety-standard cooks might otherwise create. This policy by itself favors pre-emption of state tort suits, for the rules of law that judges and juries create or apply in such suits may themselves similarly create uncertainty and even conflict, say, when different juries in different States reach different decisions on similar facts.
The basic question, then, is whether a common-law "no airbag" action like the one before us actually conflicts with FMVSS 208. We hold that it does. In petitioners' and the dissent's view, FMVSS 208 sets a minimum airbag standard. As far as FMVSS 208 is concerned, the more airbags, and the sooner, the better. But that was not the Secretary's view. DOT's comments, which accompanied the promulgation of FMVSS 208, make clear that the standard deliberately provided the manufacturer with a range of choices among different passive restraint devices. Those choices would bring about a mix of different devices introduced gradually over time; and FMVSS 208 would thereby lower costs, overcome technical safety problems, encourage technological development, and win widespread consumer acceptance-all of which would promote FMVSS 208's safety objectives.
DOT's own contemporaneous explanation of FMVSS 208 makes clear that the 1984 version of FMVSS 208 reflected the following significant considerations. First, buckled up seat belts are a vital ingredient of automobile safety. Second, despite the enormous and unnecessary risks that a passenger runs by not buckling up manual lap and shoulder belts, more than 80% of front seat passengers would leave their manual seat belts unbuckled. Third, airbags could make up for the dangers caused by unbuckled manual belts, but they could not make up for them entirely. Fourth, passive restraint systems had their own disadvantages, for example, the dangers associated with, intrusiveness of, and corresponding public dislike for, nondetachable automatic belts. Fifth, airbags brought with them their own special risks to safety, such as the risk of danger to out-of-position occupants (usually children) in small cars. Sixth, airbags were expected to be significantly more expensive than other passive restraint devices, raising the average cost of a vehicle price $320 for full frontal airbags over the cost of a car with manual lap and shoulder seat belts (and potentially much more if production volumes were low). And the agency worried that the high replacement cost-estimated to be $800- could lead car owners to refuse to replace them after deployment. Seventh, the public, for reasons of cost, fear, or physical intrusiveness, might resist installation or use of any of the then available passive restraint devices....
DOT explained why FMVSS 208 sought the mix of devices that it expected its performance standard to produce. It added that a mix of devices would help develop data on comparative effectiveness, would allow the industry time to overcome the safety problems and the high production costs associated with airbags, and would facilitate the development of alternative, cheaper, and safer passive restraint systems. And it would thereby build public confidence necessary to avoid another interlock-type fiasco.
The 1984 FMVSS 208 standard also deliberately sought a gradual phase-in of passive restraints. And it explained that the phased-in requirement would allow more time for manufacturers to develop airbags or other, better, safer passive restraint systems. It would help develop information about the comparative effectiveness of different systems, would lead to a mix in which airbags and other nonseatbelt passive restraint systems played a more prominent role than would otherwise result, and would promote public acceptance.
In effect, petitioners' tort action depends upon its claim that manufacturers had a duty to install an airbag when they manufactured the 1987 Honda Accord. Such a state law-i.e., a rule of state tort law imposing such a duty-by its terms would have required manufacturers of all similar cars to install airbags rather than other passive restraint systems, such as automatic belts or passive interiors. It thereby would have presented an obstacle to the variety and mix of devices that the federal regulation sought. It would have required all manufacturers to have installed airbags, even though FMVSS 208 at that time required only that 10% of a manufacturer's nationwide fleet be equipped with any passive restraint device at all. It thereby also would have stood as an obstacle to the gradual passive restraint phase-in that the federal regulation deliberately imposed. In addition, it could have made less likely the adoption of a state mandatory buckle-up law. Because the rule of law for which petitioners contend would have stood "as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of" the important means-related federal objectives that we have just discussed, it is pre-empted.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.
Was there a duty to install an airbag at the time Geier purchased her Honda?