Choate v. Champion Home Builders Co.

• Decision Date: 25 July 2000
• Docket Number: 99-7001,Nos. 98-7190,s. 98-7190
• Citation: 222 F.3d 788
• Parties: (10th Cir. 2000) DUANE CHOATE, Individually, and PATSY SUE MADEWELL, as Personal Representative of the ESTATE OF CLINTON KEITH MADEWELL, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. CHAMPION HOME BUILDERS COMPANY, a Michigan corporation doing business in the State of Oklahoma, Defendant-Appellee, HERITAGE MOBILE HOMES, INC., d/b/a Siloam Springs Manufactured Home Center, an Arkansas corporation, doing business in the State of Oklahoma d/b/a Siloam Springs Manufactured Home Center, Defendant
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit

Page 788

222 F.3d 788 (10th Cir. 2000)

DUANE CHOATE, Individually, and PATSY SUE MADEWELL, as Personal Representative of the ESTATE OF CLINTON KEITH MADEWELL, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. CHAMPION HOME BUILDERS COMPANY, a Michigan corporation doing business in the State of Oklahoma, Defendant-Appellee, HERITAGE MOBILE HOMES, INC., d/b/a Siloam Springs Manufactured Home Center, an Arkansas corporation, doing business in the State of Oklahoma d/b/a Siloam Springs Manufactured Home Center, Defendant.

Nos. 98-7190, 99-7001

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS TENTH CIRCUIT

July 25, 2000

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma. D.C. No. 97-CV-564-S

[Copyrighted Material Omitted] Tony M. Graham, Feldman, Franden, Woodard & Farris, Tulsa, Oklahoma (Jody R. Nathan, Feldman, Franden, Woodard & Farris, Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Richard S. Toon, The Law Office of Rich Toon, P.C., Tulsa, Oklahoma, with him on the briefs), for Plaintiffs-Appellants.

Richard C. Ford, Crowe & Dunlevy, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (LeAnne Burnett, Crowe & Dunlevy, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Andrew T. Bayman and Amy M. Power, King & Spalding, Atlanta, Georgia, with him on the briefs), for Defendant-Appellee.

Before BALDOCK,EBEL, and KELLY, Circuit Judges.

EBEL, Circuit Judge.

Plaintiffs-Appellants Duane Choate ("Choate") and Patsy Sue Madewell ("Madewell") brought this products liability action against Defendant-Appellee Champion Home Builders Company ("Champion") and Defendant Heritage Mobile Homes, Inc., d/b/a Siloam Springs Manufactured Home Center ("Heritage"), on the basis of their failure to provide a smoke detector with a battery-powered backup, or failure to warn that the hard-wired smoke detector in Duane Choate's home would not work if there was a loss of power.¹ The parties did not dispute the material facts that the smoke detector lacked both a battery-powered backup and a warning that it would not function if the power went out; however, they disagreed on whether the plaintiffs' claim was preempted by federal law. The district court granted summary judgment to Champion and partial summary judgment to Heritage on preemption grounds, finding that plaintiffs' claim was both expressly and impliedly preempted by provisions of the National Manufactured Housing Construction and Safety Standards Act of 1974, 42 U.S.C. 5401-5426 ("the Manufactured Housing Act" or "the Act"). We hold that the plaintiffs' claim is neither expressly nor impliedly preempted by the Act and the regulations promulgated under it; therefore we REVERSE.

BACKGROUND

Duane Choate purchased a Champion manufactured home² from Heritage in 1997. Approximately a month and a half after he purchased the home, it caught fire in the middle of the night. The fire injured Choate and severely burned Clinton Keith Madewell, who had entered the home to rescue Choate. Clinton Keith Madewell eventually died from the burns.

Choate's manufactured home contained a hard-wired smoke detector with no battery backup and no warning that it would not function if there was a loss of power.³ According to Choate, the smoke detector did not function on the night of the fire because the fire caused a power loss. Choate and Madewell, representative of the estate of Clinton Keith Madewell, sued Champion and Heritage on a products liability theory, alleging that the failure to provide battery-powered smoke detection in the manufactured home, or to warn that the smoke detector would not work if there was a loss of power, made the home an unreasonably dangerous defective product. Choate and Madewell presented evidence that a smoke detector with a battery backup costs about five dollars more than a smoke detector with no battery backup.

Champion and Heritage moved for summary judgment on the ground that provisions of the Manufactured Housing Act and regulations promulgated under it expressly and impliedly preempt Choate and Madewell's claim. Specifically, they pointed to the fact that HUD regulations provided for a hard-wired smoke detector to be installed in homes such as Choate's,⁴ and that a preemption clause in the Manufactured Housing Act precludes states from establishing or continuing in effect any standard regarding construction or safety that is not identical to the federal standard. See 42 U.S.C. 5403(d). Choate and Madewell responded that a "saving" clause in the Manufactured Housing Act at 42 U.S.C. 5409(c) preserved their claim from preemption.

The district court agreed with Champion and Heritage that provisions of the Manufactured Housing Act preempt Choate and Madewell's claim, and granted the motion for summary judgment. Relying on cases construing similar provisions in the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966 ("the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act"), 80 Stat. 718, 15 U.S.C. 1381 et. seq. (1988 ed.), the district court held that "[r]egardless of whether the preemption analysis is characterized as express . . . or implied . . ., Plaintiffs' state law claim based on Champion and Heritage's failure to install battery powered smoke detectors is preempted by federal law." See Choate v. Champion Home Builders, Co., No. 97-564-S, at 10 (E.D. Okla. Aug. 4, 1998) (internal quotation omitted). Choate and Madewell appeal, arguing that their claim is neither expressly nor impliedly preempted by the Manufactured Housing Act or the regulations promulgated under the Act.

DISCUSSION

The district court had jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 1332(a). We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. 1291.

We review the grant or denial of summary judgment de novo, applying the same legal standard used by the district court pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c). Summary judgment is appropriate if the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. When applying this standard, we examine the factual record and reasonable inferences therefrom in the light most favorable to the party opposing summary judgment. If there is no genuine issue of material fact in dispute, then we next determine if the substantive law was correctly applied by the district court.

Kaul v. Stephan, 83 F.3d 1208, 1212 (10th Cir. 1996).

Congress has the power to preempt state law under Article VI of the Supremacy Clause.⁵ See Meyer v. Conlon 162 F.3d 1264, 1268 (10th Cir. 1998). "[A]n agency's preemption regulations, promulgated pursuant to Congressional authority, have the same preemptive effect as statutes." Id. at 1268. The Supreme Court has held that federal law preempts state law in three circumstances:

First, Congress can define explicitly the extent to which its enactments pre-empt state law. Pre-emption fundamentally is a question of congressional intent, and when Congress has made its intent known through explicit statutory language, the courts' task is an easy one.

Second, in the absence of explicit statutory language, state law is pre-empted where it regulates conduct in a field that Congress intended the Federal Government to occupy exclusively. Such an intent may be inferred from a scheme of federal regulation . . . so pervasive as to make reasonable the inference that Congress left no room for the States to supplement it, or where an Act of Congress touch[es] a field in which the federal interest is so dominant that the federal system will be assumed to preclude enforcement of state laws on the same subject. . . . Where . . . the field which Congress is said to have pre-empted includes areas that have been traditionally occupied by the States, congressional intent to supersede state laws must be clear and manifest.

Finally, state law is pre-empted to the extent that it actually conflicts with federal law. Thus, the Court has found pre-emption where it is impossible for a private party to comply with both state and federal requirements, or where state law stands as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress.

English v. General Elec. Co., 496 U.S. 72, 78-79, 110 S.Ct. 2270, 2275, 110 L.Ed.2d 65 (1990) (internal quotations and citations omitted). The first category is considered "express preemption," while the second category ("occupation of the field preemption") and the third category ("conflict preemption") fall under the rubric of "implied preemption." Conflict preemption includes both situations in which "it is impossible for a private party to comply with both state and federal requirements" and situations in which state law "stands as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress." Id. at 79 (internal quotations omitted).

1. Express Preemption

We first ask whether Choate and Madewell's claim is expressly preempted. The Manufactured Housing Act contains an express preemption provision that reads as follows:

Whenever a Federal manufactured home construction and safety standard established under this chapter is in effect, no State or political subdivision of a State shall have any authority either to establish, or continue in effect, with respect to any manufactured home covered, any standard regarding construction or safety applicable to the same aspect of performance of such manufactured home which is not identical to the Federal manufactured home construction and safety standard.

42 U.S.C. 5403(d). A majority of the Supreme Court has indicated, in considering similar statutory provisions in different federal statutes that use the word "requirement" instead of "standard," that obligations taking the form of common law rules might be expressly preempted by such language. See Medtronic, Inc. v. Lohr, 518 U.S. 470, 481, 502-03, 116 S.Ct. 2240, 2248, 2258-2259, 135 L.Ed.2d 700 (1996) (plurality opinion); id. at 503-04 (Breyer, J., concurring in part and concurring...