Cipollone v. Liggett Group, Inc.

Pre-emption begins with the presumption that Congress does not displace traditional state police powers unless that is Congress's clear and manifest purpose. Congress's purpose remains the ultimate touchstone, and it may be expressed in statutory text or inferred from a statute's structure and purposes.

Here, however, Congress specifically enacted provisions titled and directed to pre-emption. Those provisions supplied a reliable indication of how far Congress intended federal law to displace state authority. The Court therefore rejected the Third Circuit's reliance on implied conflict pre-emption drawn from the Acts' broader purposes and instead identified the domain expressly pre-empted by each version of § 5.

The 1965 Act provided that no statement relating to smoking and health, other than the federal warning, could be required on cigarette packages or in advertising. Read in context, that language referred to governmentally mandated cautionary statements like the specific warning prescribed by the Act itself.

The statutory setting reinforced this narrow reading. Congress enacted the 1965 Act in response to proposed warning requirements from the FTC and state governments, and its purpose was to prevent diverse and confusing labeling and advertising regulations. That concern most naturally covered legislative and administrative mandates, not common-law damages suits.

A federal requirement of one package warning does not itself establish exclusive federal control over all smoking-and-health claims. Applying the presumption against pre-emption, the Court held that the 1965 Act did not bar any of Cipollone's state-law damages claims.

The 1969 Congress substantially broadened the earlier provision. It replaced the narrower bar on required 'statement[s]' with a bar on any state-law 'requirement or prohibition' and extended coverage from advertising alone to advertising or promotion.

Common-law damages actions rest on legal duties. Because damages can be a potent means of regulating conduct, a common-law rule may impose a requirement or prohibition just as a statute or regulation can. The phrase 'State law' includes state common law as well as positive enactments.

That conclusion did not make all cigarette-related tort claims pre-empted. The Court instructed lower courts to identify the precise duty underlying each claim and ask whether it is a state-law requirement or prohibition, based on smoking and health, imposed with respect to cigarette advertising or promotion.

A failure-to-warn theory requires proof that the manufacturer had a duty to give a warning adequate to make the product reasonably safe. When the alleged duty is to add or improve health warnings in cigarette advertising or promotion, it is a state-law requirement based on smoking and health with respect to advertising or promotion.

That is precisely the kind of obligation the 1969 Act forbade states from imposing. Thus, a plaintiff could not use state tort law to require more or different post-1969 warnings in cigarette advertisements or promotional materials.

The statutory clause did not reach every claim connected with a manufacturer's knowledge of health risks. Claims based solely on deficient testing, research, or other conduct independent of advertising and promotion did not necessarily impose a prohibited advertising-or-promotion duty.

An express warranty is measured by the promise the manufacturer chose to make. Although state law supplies the remedy for breach, the particular obligation to honor the representation arises from the warrantor's own voluntary undertaking, not from a state-imposed smoking-and-health requirement.

The fact that a warranty appears in advertising does not change that conclusion. Enforcing a manufacturer's self-imposed promise does not require the manufacturer to include a particular warning or impose a state-created rule governing the content of cigarette advertising.

The Court therefore held that the 1969 Act did not shield cigarette manufacturers from liability for express warranties they voluntarily made, assuming those warranties were otherwise viable under state law.

A claim that cigarette advertising neutralized the federally required warning effectively seeks to prohibit advertising that downplays smoking risks. That prohibition is the converse of requiring additional warnings in advertising, so it is a state-law requirement or prohibition based on smoking and health and is pre-empted.

By contrast, a claim based on intentional false statements rests on the general duty not to deceive. That duty is not itself based on smoking and health, even when the alleged deception concerns smoking. Congress gave no indication that it meant to immunize cigarette makers from traditional fraud rules, and it expressly preserved the FTC's authority over deceptive cigarette advertising.

A concealment claim also survives insofar as it rests on a duty to disclose information through channels other than advertising or promotion. The Act's text reaches obligations imposed with respect to advertising or promotion, not every possible state-law duty to disclose material facts.

The predicate duty for the conspiracy claim was the duty not to conspire to commit fraud. As with intentional fraud, that duty is a general prohibition on deception rather than a smoking-and-health-specific requirement governing advertising or promotion.

Because the claim did not depend on imposing a state-law warning requirement or other prohibited smoking-and-health rule concerning advertising or promotion, § 5(b) of the 1969 Act did not pre-empt it.