Legal News

Surprise! U.S. Supreme Court Says Words Matter

By Brian Harris

By Joshua Wolson
Special to the Legal

This week, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a pair of decisions about federal pre-emption that show how much statutory language matters. The cases are different, and the arguments among justices within each case are different. Together, though, the cases make an important point: When it comes to statutory interpretation, words must be parsed with care. 

On Tuesday, the court held in Bruesewitz v. Wyeth LLC that the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act pre-empts state tort actions claiming that a federally approved vaccine suffered from a defective design. Justice Antonin Scalia?s majority opinion and Justice Sonia Sotomayor?s dissent engage in a grammar-lover?s debate about the proper interpretation of the statute?s pre-emption clause.

The debate focuses on the meaning of the word ?if? and the phrase ?even though,? the grammatical structure of the pre-emption clause, including the use, structure and placement of the conditional clause introduced by the word ?if,? and the difference between ?coordinating junctions? and ?concessive subordinate clauses.? The majority also cautions against reading too much into the fact that Congress could have written statutory language more tersely, so long as the interpretation gives effect to all the words in the statute.

On Wednesday, the court held in Williamson v. Mazda Motor of America Inc. that the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act and Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 208 -- a federal regulation promulgated pursuant to that act -- do not pre-empt state tort actions claiming that cars complying with Standard 208 were defective.

The act contains two potentially conflicting provisions: a pre-emption provision that bars states from adopting any safety standard different from federal standards; and a savings provision that says that compliance with a federal standard does not exempt any person from liability under common law. Although eight justices agreed that the state tort claims at issue could move forward (Justice Elena Kagan did not participate), they had very different rationales. 

Justice Stephen G. Breyer?s majority opinion looked at the interrelationship between the savings clause and the pre-emption clause. The opinion explained that the pre-emption provision might bar a tort action but for the savings clause, but the savings clause demonstrates Congress?s intent to exempt tort suits from pre-emption. At the same time, the court concluded that the pre-emption provision nonetheless means that state laws that stand as an obstacle to the execution of federal policy must yield to the act.

The majority devoted the rest of its opinion to whether or not the particular suit would have interfered with the execution of Standard 208. In a concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas took a very different view of the act. According to Thomas, there is no reason to read the pre-emption provision in conjunction with the savings clause. Instead, Thomas made the savings clause the touchstone of his analysis. In his interpretation, the statute says that state law tort suits are not pre-empted, so they are not pre-empted. Nothing more is needed.

These back-to-back decisions both arise in the context of pre-emption. But they also provide a roadmap to interpreting all statutes -- and even many contracts -- based on the text and grammatical structure that was used. And they remind us all too clearly of a simple maxim: Words matter. 

Joshua D. Wolson is a partner in the litigation department at Dilworth Paxson. He can be reached at 215-575-7295 or jwolson@dilworthlaw.com.

Full post as published by The Legal Intelligencer Blog on February 24, 2011 (boomark / email).