Perry v. Mercedes Benz of North America, Inc.

Citation957 F.2d 1257
Decision Date10 April 1992
Docket NumberNo. 91-3363,91-3363
Parties, Prod.Liab.Rep. (CCH) P 13,147, 39 A.L.R.5th 861 Lynda D. PERRY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. MERCEDES BENZ OF NORTH AMERICA, INC. and ABC Insurance Company, Defendants-Appellees.
CourtUnited States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (5th Circuit)

Michael C. Palmintier, Baton Rouge, La., for plaintiff-appellant.

Mark E. Van Horn, Stephen B. Lemann, Monroe & Lemann, New Orleans, La., for Mercedes-Benz of North America, Inc.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana.

Before REAVLEY, HIGGINBOTHAM and DeMOSS, Circuit Judges.

REAVLEY, Circuit Judge:

Lynda D. Perry contends that Mercedes Benz of North America (MBNA) defectively designed or defectively constructed the air bag system that was installed in Perry's automobile. The district court granted summary judgment for MBNA, 761 F.Supp. 437, holding that federal law preempts Perry's defective design claim and that Perry's evidence raised no genuine issues of material fact to support her claim of defective construction. We decide that summary judgment was proper on the defective construction claim. But we hold that federal law does not preempt Perry's design claim, and we remand the case for further proceedings.

I. BACKGROUND

Perry was injured in East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana, on March 4, 1986, when she lost control of her 1986 Mercedes Benz 190E and drove it into a ditch. Perry initially failed to notice a stop sign where the street that she was on dead-ended into another street, forming a "T" intersection. Once she saw the stop sign, Perry noticed a car approaching the intersection from her right. Thinking that she would not be able to stop in time to avoid the oncoming car, Perry decided to proceed through the intersection. The driver of the other car, deputy sheriff James Todd Morris, was able to avoid Perry's car, but Perry continued through the intersection and into the ditch on the other side. Perry's Mercedes was equipped with a driver's side air bag, but the air bag did not inflate on impact. Perry, who was not wearing a seat belt, struck the steering wheel or windshield and received facial lacerations and damage to her teeth and mouth. The parties dispute how fast Perry's car was traveling at the time of impact.

On February 27, 1987, Perry filed this suit against MBNA in Louisiana state court, alleging that the failure of the air bag to inflate caused Perry $500,000 in damages. MBNA removed this diversity case and moved for summary judgment. The district court granted MBNA's motion and held that: (1) federal law preempts Perry's defective design claim, and (2) Perry failed to raise an issue to support her claim of defective construction.

II. DISCUSSION
A. FEDERAL PREEMPTION OF THE DEFECTIVE DESIGN CLAIM

As the basis for her defective design claim, Perry alleges that MBNA designed its air bag systems with an unreasonably dangerous "deceleration velocity deployment threshold." 1 Under Louisiana products liability law as it existed when Perry filed this suit, 2 a product is considered unreasonably dangerous in design if the "danger-in-fact" of the product outweighs the utility of the product, or if the product could have been designed or replaced with an alternative product with less risk of harmful consequences. See Halphen v. Johns-Manville Sales Corp., 484 So.2d 110, 115 (La.1986). Essentially, Perry claims that MBNA is liable for her damages because it should have designed the air bag system to deploy upon the type of impact that Perry's vehicle sustained. MBNA argued, and the district court agreed, that federal regulations promulgated under the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966 (the Safety Act or the Act), 15 U.S.C. §§ 1381-1431, preempt Perry's state law defective design claim.

1. The Safety Act and the Regulatory Scheme.

Congress' express purpose for enacting the Safety Act over twenty-five years ago was "to reduce traffic accidents and deaths and injuries to persons resulting from traffic accidents." 15 U.S.C. § 1381. To achieve this purpose, the Act delegates to the Secretary of Transportation the authority to establish "motor vehicle safety standards" (MVSS) that provide practical and objective minimum standards for the performance of motor vehicles and their equipment. Id. §§ 1391(2), 1392(a). The Secretary, in turn, delegated this duty to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA). See 49 C.F.R. § 501.2. The NHTSA fulfilled its responsibility by promulgating the MVSS published at 49 C.F.R. §§ 571.1-.302.

The MVSS that is relevant to this case is 49 C.F.R. § 571.208 (Standard 208), which is entitled "Occupant Crash Protection." In Standard 208, the NHTSA set forth mandatory minimum "performance requirements" for automobile crash protection systems, without requiring the use of any single particular system or design. 3 The NHTSA has considered requiring the installation of air bags and the use of particular designs in all vehicles, but has chosen not to do so. See 49 Fed.Reg. 28,982, 29,001 (1984). Instead, Congress and the NHTSA sought to ensure the minimum protection of occupants while allowing manufacturers to develop better systems through competition in the automobile industry. See S.REP. No. 1301, 89th Cong., 2d Sess. 1, 4 (1966), reprinted in 1966 U.S.C.C.A.N. 2709, 2712.

To meet the performance requirements of Standard 208, a manufacturer may choose from options that include both manual restraints (which require the occupant to act in some way to receive the protection) and passive restraints (which require no action by the occupant). Air bags and automatic seat belts are the most common forms of passive restraints. Standard 208 S4.1.2, which applies to the vehicle that Perry was driving, requires the manufacturer to choose one of three occupant restraint systems: (1) a complete passive protection system for frontal and lateral crashes (e.g., automatic seat belts with or without air bags); (2) passive protection for frontal crashes (e.g., an air bag) plus lap belts for lateral crashes and rollovers with a seat belt warning system; or (3) manual lap and shoulder belts with a seat belt warning system. See Kitts v. General Motors Corp., 875 F.2d 787, 788 n. 2 (10th Cir.1989), cert. denied, 494 U.S. 1065, 110 S.Ct. 1781, 108 L.Ed.2d 783 (1990). If a manufacturer chooses an option that includes the use of air bags or other passive restraints, the vehicle must meet the protection requirements set forth in Standard 208 S5.1-.3 for frontal, lateral, and rollover crashes. These requirements mandate that, following an "impact ... up to and including 30 mph, into a fixed collision barrier," an anthropomorphic test dummy must meet or exceed certain "Injury Criteria" specified in Standard 208 S6.

The system that MBNA chose to install in the vehicle that Perry was driving included both an air bag and a lap and shoulder seat belt. Thus, federal law required MBNA to design the system to meet the protection requirements and injury criteria of Standard 208 S5 and S6. Perry does not allege that the vehicle she was driving failed to meet these requirements. Instead, she claims that the vehicle was defectively designed because the likelihood of the injuries that she suffered outweighed the burden that adopting a safer system would place on the manufacturer, and thus it was unreasonably dangerous under Louisiana products liability law.

The Safety Act includes two sections that are particularly important to our determination of whether the Act and its regulations preempt Perry's state law design claim. The first is the "Preemption Clause," which provides:

Whenever a Federal motor vehicle safety standard established under this subchapter is in effect, no State or political subdivision of a State shall have any authority either to establish, or to continue in effect, with respect to any motor vehicle or item of motor vehicle equipment any safety standard applicable to the same aspect of performance of such vehicle or item of equipment which is not identical to the Federal standard.

15 U.S.C. § 1392(d) (emphasis added). The second important section is the "Savings Clause," which states:

Compliance with any Federal motor vehicle safety standard issued under this subchapter does not exempt any person from any liability under common law.

Id. § 1397(k) (emphasis added). We must determine whether the Preemption Clause prohibits Perry's claim or the Savings Clause allows it.

2. The Federal Preemption Doctrine.

The Supreme Court has "held repeatedly that state laws can be pre-empted by federal regulations as well as by federal statutes." Hillsborough County v. Automated Medical Lab., Inc., 471 U.S. 707, 713, 105 S.Ct. 2371, 2375, 85 L.Ed.2d 714 (1985). The question of whether federal statutes or regulations preempt state law under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution is essentially a question of congressional intent. California Fed. Sav. and Loan Ass'n v. Guerra, 479 U.S. 272, 280, 107 S.Ct. 683, 689, 93 L.Ed.2d 613 (1987). The Court in Guerra summarized the three ways that Congress may express its intent to preempt state law:

First, when acting within constitutional limits, Congress is empowered to pre-empt state law by so stating in express terms. Second, congressional intent to pre-empt state law in a particular area may be inferred where the scheme of federal regulation is sufficiently comprehensive to make reasonable the inference that Congress "left no room" for supplementary state regulation.... As a third alternative, in those areas where Congress has not completely displaced state regulation, federal law may nonetheless pre-empt state law to the extent it actually conflicts with federal law. Such a conflict occurs either because "compliance with both federal and state regulations is a physical impossibility," or because the state law stands "as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full...

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