The Supreme Court dismissed this case on May 15, 1998. The lower court decision stands.The case arose out of a boating accident and concerns whether plaintiffs’ common law fraud and products liability claims are preempted by the Federal Boat Safety Act, 46 U.S.C. §§ 4301-4311 ("Act"). The specific question was whether a boat manufacturer, Brunswick, could be held liable for failing to equip a recreational boat with a propeller guard. The Act requires the Coast Guard to promulgate regulations to contribute to the safety of recreational vessels. The Coast Guard had explicitly considered and rejected a propeller guard requirement following hearings on the subject. Thus, the Eleventh Circuit held that plaintiffs’ claims in this case were preempted.
The Act contains an express preemption clause, which the Eleventh Circuit held preempted common law as well as statutory claims. The Act also contains a savings clause that appears to preserve state common law claims. As a result of this confusion, the Eleventh Circuit held that the plaintiffs’ claims were not expressly preempted.
Nevertheless, the court held that the claims were impliedly preempted. The court found that in light of the Act’s intention to create a uniform system of regulation, the Coast Guard’s explicit rejection of the propeller guard requirement mandated the absence of any similar federal or state requirement. The court determined that the savings clause preserved common law product liability claims for defective or negligent design of components already required by the Coast Guard, but could not preserve claims that would impose additional manufacturing requirements.
Finally, the court found that plaintiffs’ fraud claim was preempted. The court stated that allowing such a "regulatory fraud" claim would permit juries to second-guess the actions of virtually any federal agency in state courts.
Questions presented:
- The Federal Boat Safety Act of 1971, 46 U.S.C. § 4301-4311 (‘Boat Safety Act’) has both an express preemption clause and an express ‘savings clause’ in respect to state authority. In light of recent Supreme Court holdings on pre-emption, is it constitutionally permissible to imply the federal pre-emption of state common law claims into the Boat Safety Act when that act expressly provides a reliable indicium of congressional intent with respect to state authority, and when no federal agency has issued an applicable pre-emptive ‘regulation’ as expressly required by the Act?
- The Boat Safety Act provides that ‘[c]ompliance with [the Act] does not relieve a person from liability at common law or under state law.’ 46 U.S.C. § 4311(g). Was it error to hold that torts of omission are impliedly pre-empted under the [Act] while torts of commission are simultaneously expressly saved from pre-emption, when such a differentiation between types of torts is not made in the [Act’s] pre-emption or ‘savings’ clauses?"
Lower court opinion: 107 F.3d 1494 (11th Cir.)