New York City, New York (WiredPRNews.com) — There are some decisions from the Supreme Court, which in the ordinary course of events will not impact the daily lives of most citizens. Also most of us keep out of the way of the police, so rulings on criminal procedure may not affect us either. However, rulings on issues that look like only a law professor or a class of third year law school students could understand may have profound effects on our lives. The Supreme Court decided on one such issue called “pre-emption” and it involved heart devices.
Pre-emption is a legal doctrine that in essence means that in matters where the federal government legislates and regulates that there can be no interference by the States. What this means is that if a state law that allows you to bring a lawsuit to recover money damages for injuries clashes with a federal law – that under certain circumstances the federal law prevails and you lose.
In the Supreme Court case, the plaintiffs said the defibrillators that were inserted into their hearts had defective leads. The manufacturer said that you can’t sue them for any device flaws because in order to manufacture the defibrillators they had to obtain approval of their design from the federal agency responsible for issuing such approval. The Supreme Court agreed and said that the state law was “pre-empted” by the federal law and threw out the lawsuits.
What this means for you is that by political fiat the federal government, by regulation can take away your rights by saying that because they approved a product the states cannot interfere by allowing you to bring a claim under state law for damages.
But is it interfering if the federal regulation is only a minimum standard? Why can’t you bring a case that says just being minimally compliant with a regulation is not good enough when it comes to products which affect our health? In the past, lawsuits that were brought for defective products were seen as a supplement to the federal regulatory process. Now such lawsuits are viewed as interfering in the process.
I leave it to you to decide which is the correct approach but just remember that it was lawsuits based on state law that exposed asbestos, made manufactures put guards and warnings on machines and prodded manufactures to be mindful of our safety lest they be held responsible in a court of law for harming someone.
Contributors: Legal team of New York Personal Injury Lawyers