Alexis Geier, et al. v. American Honda Motor Company, Inc., et al. (529 U.S. 861)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided May 22, 2000 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 529 U.S. 861 · 120 S. Ct. 1913
- Decided
- May 22, 2000
- Term
- October Term 1999
- Vote
- 5–4
- Majority author
- Justice Breyer
- Issue area
- Federalism
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Justice Breyer delivered the opinion of the Court. This case focuses on the 1984 version of a Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard promulgated by the Department of Transportation under the authority of the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966,80 Stat. 718,15 U. S. C. §1381 et seq. (1988 ed.). The standard, FMVSS 208, required auto manufacturers to equip some but not all of their 1987 vehicles with passive restraints. We ask whether the Act pre-empts a state common-law tort action in which the plaintiff claims that the defendant auto manufacturer, who was in compliance with the standard, should nonetheless have equipped a 1987 automobile with airbags. We conclude that the Act, taken together with FMVSS 208, pre-empts the lawsuit. I In 1992, petitioner Alexis Geier, driving a 1987 Honda Accord, collided with a tree 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. App. 3. The District…
Excerpt of a 44,079-character opinion. The full text and citation network load in the interactive viewer above.