526
Opinion of Stevens, J.
manufacturer expressly promised to pay a smoker's medical bills if she contracted emphysema, the duty to honor that promise could not fairly be said to be "imposed under state law," but rather is best understood as undertaken by the manufacturer itself. While the general duty not to breach warranties arises under state law, the particular "requirement . . . based on smoking and health . . . with respect to the advertising or promotion [of] cigarettes" in an express warranty claim arises from the manufacturer's statements in its advertisements. In short, a common-law remedy for a contractual commitment voluntarily undertaken should not be regarded as a "requirement . . . imposed under State law" within the meaning of § 5(b).24
That the terms of the warranty may have been set forth in advertisements rather than in separate documents is irrelevant to the pre-emption issue (though possibly not to the state-law issue of whether the alleged warranty is valid and enforceable) because, although the breach of warranty claim is made "with respect to . . . advertising," it does not rest on a duty imposed under state law. Accordingly, to the extent that petitioner has a viable claim for breach of express war-generally such duty must arise by operation of law and not by mere agreement of the parties") with id., at 322 (defining "contract": "An agreement between two . . . persons which creates an obligation").
24 Justice Scalia contends that because the general duty to honor express warranties arises under state law, every express warranty obligation is a "requirement . . . imposed under State law," and that, therefore, the Act pre-empts petitioner's express warranty claim. Justice Scalia might be correct if the Act pre-empted "liability" imposed under state law (as he suggests, post, at 551); but instead the Act expressly pre-empts only a "requirement or prohibition" imposed under state law. That a "contract has no legal force apart from the [state] law that acknowledges its binding character," Norfolk & Western R. Co. v. Train Dispatchers, 499 U. S. 117, 130 (1991), does not mean that every contractual provision is "imposed under State law." To the contrary, common understanding dictates that a contractual requirement, although only enforceable under state law, is not "imposed" by the State, but rather is "imposed" by the contracting party upon itself.
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