Cipollone v. Liggett Group, Inc., 505 U.S. 504, 15 (1992)

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518

CIPOLLONE v. LIGGETT GROUP, INC.

Opinion of the Court

IV

In the 1965 pre-emption provision regarding advertising (§ 5(b)), Congress spoke precisely and narrowly: "No statement relating to smoking and health shall be required in the advertising of [properly labeled] cigarettes." Section 5(a) used the same phrase ("No statement relating to smoking and health") with regard to cigarette labeling. As § 5(a) made clear, that phrase referred to the sort of warning provided for in § 4, which set forth verbatim the warning Congress determined to be appropriate. Thus, on their face, these provisions merely prohibited state and federal rulemaking bodies from mandating particular cautionary statements on cigarette labels (§ 5(a)) or in cigarette advertisements (§ 5(b)).

Beyond the precise words of these provisions, this reading is appropriate for several reasons. First, as discussed above, we must construe these provisions in light of the presumption against the pre-emption of state police power regulations. This presumption reinforces the appropriateness of a narrow reading of § 5. Second, the warning required in § 4 does not by its own effect foreclose additional obligations imposed under state law. That Congress requires a particular warning label does not automatically pre-empt a regulatory field. See McDermott v. Wisconsin, 228 U. S. 115, 131- 132 (1913). Third, there is no general, inherent conflict between federal pre-emption of state warning requirements and the continued vitality of state common-law damages actions. For example, in the Comprehensive Smokeless Tobacco Health Education Act of 1986,14 Congress expressly pre-empted state or local imposition of a "statement relating to the use of smokeless tobacco products and health" but, at the same time, preserved state-law damages actions based on those products. See 15 U. S. C. § 4406. All of these considerations indicate that § 5 is best read as having super-14 Pub. L. 99-252, 100 Stat. 30, as codified, 15 U. S. C. §§ 4401-4408.

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