538
Opinion of Blackmun, J.
"direct state regulation" of safety matters from "the incidental regulatory effects" of damages awarded pursuant to a state workers' compensation law. 486 U. S., at 185. Relying in part on its earlier decision in Silkwood v. Kerr-McGee Corp., 464 U. S. 238, 256 (1984),4 the Court stated that "Congress may reasonably determine that incidental regulatory pressure is acceptable, whereas direct regulatory authority is not." 486 U. S., at 186. Even more recently, the Court declined in English v. General Electric Co., 496 U. S., at 86, to find state common-law damages claims for emotional distress pre-empted by federal nuclear energy law. The Court concluded that, although awards to former employees for emotional distress would attach "additional consequences" to retaliatory employer conduct and could lead employers to alter the underlying conditions about which employees were complaining, ibid., such an effect would be "neither direct nor substantial enough" to warrant pre-emption. Id., at 85.
In light of the recognized distinction in this Court's jurisprudence between direct state regulation and the indirect regulatory effects of common-law damages actions, it cannot be said that damages claims are clearly or unambiguously "requirements" or "prohibitions" imposed under state law.
4 The Court in Silkwood declined to find state punitive damages awards pre-empted by federal nuclear safety laws, explaining: "It may be that the award of damages based on the state law of negligence or strict liability is regulatory in the sense that a nuclear plant will be threatened with damages liability if it does not conform to state standards, but that regulatory consequence was something that Congress was quite willing to accept." 464 U. S., at 256. Although the Court has noted that the decision in Silkwood was based in "substantial part" on affirmative evidence in the legislative history suggesting that Congress did not intend to include common-law damages remedies within the pre-empted field, see English v. General Electric Co., 496 U. S. 72, 86 (1990), Silkwood's discussion of the regulatory effects of the common law is instructive and has been relied on in subsequent cases. See, e. g., Goodyear, 486 U. S., at 186.
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