552
Opinion of Scalia, J.
R. Co. v. Train Dispatchers, where we construed a federal exemption "from the antitrust laws and from all other law," 49 U. S. C. § 11341(a), to include an exemption from contract obligations. We observed, in a passage flatly inconsistent with the plurality's analysis today, that "[a] contract has no legal force apart from the law that acknowledges its binding character." 499 U. S., at 130. Cf. id., at 139 (Stevens, J., dissenting). I would find petitioner's claim for breach of express warranty pre-empted by § 5(b) of the 1969 Act.
C Post-1969 Fraud and Misrepresentation Claims
According to the plurality, at least one of petitioner's intentional fraud and misrepresentation claims survives § 5(b) of the 1969 Act because the common-law duty underlying that claim is not "based on smoking and health" within the meaning of the Act. See ante, at 528-529. If I understand the plurality's reasoning, it proceeds from the implicit assumption that only duties deriving from laws that are specifically directed to "smoking and health," or that are uniquely crafted to address the relationship between cigarette companies and their putative victims, fall within § 5(b) of the Act, as amended. Given that New Jersey's tort-law "duty not to deceive," ante, at 529, is a general one, applicable to all commercial actors and all kinds of commerce, it follows from this assumption that § 5(b) does not pre-empt claims based on breaches of that duty.
This analysis is suspect, to begin with, because the plurality is unwilling to apply it consistently. As Justice Black-mun cogently explains, see ante, at 543 (opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part), if New Jersey's common-law duty to avoid false statements of material fact—as applied to the cigarette companies' behavior—is not "based on smoking and health," the same must be said of New Jersey's common-law duty to warn about a product's dangers. Each duty transcends the relationship between the cigarette com-
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