For a long time here at the Injuryboard, many of us have looked at the issues surrounding preemption. Basically, the use of the federal government to override state laws. The Bush administration made it a practice to change administrative rules to preempt consumer protection laws of individual states.
Earlier this year, the Supreme Court gave the consumer significant relief by ruling that the laws of Vermont weren’t preempted in the pharmaceutical lawsuit of Wyeth v. Levine . The same issue is being addressed by congress concerning product liability.
This past week, President Obama gave the consumer another lift with the following statement:
Throughout our history, State and local governments have frequently protected health, safety, and the environment more aggressively than has the national Government… The purpose of this memorandum is to state the general policy of my Administration that preemption of State law by executive departments and agencies should be undertaken only with full consideration of the legitimate prerogatives of the States and with a sufficient legal basis for preemption… As Justice Brandeis explained more than 70 years ago, “[i]t is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.
This is a clear sign that states are free to protect their citizens as they see fit.
