488
Opinion of Stevens, J.
state "requirements" could also pre-empt common-law damages claims, see Cipollone, 505 U. S., at 521-522 (opinion of Stevens, J.), that statute did not sweep nearly as broadly as Medtronic would have us believe that this statute does.
The pre-emptive statute in Cipollone 8 was targeted at a limited set of state requirements—those "based on smoking and health"—and then only at a limited subset of the possible applications of those requirements—those involving the "advertising or promotion of any cigarettes the packages of which are labeled in conformity with the provisions of" the federal statute. See id., at 515. In that context, giving the term "requirement" its widest reasonable meaning did not have nearly the pre-emptive scope nor the effect on potential remedies that Medtronic's broad reading of the term would have in this suit. The Court in Cipollone held that the petitioner in that case was able to maintain some common-law actions using theories of the case that did not run afoul of the pre-emption statute. See id., at 524-530. Here, however, Medtronic's sweeping interpretation of the statute would require far greater interference with state legal remedies, producing a serious intrusion into state sovereignty while simultaneously wiping out the possibility of remedy for the
8 There were actually two pre-emptive statutes at issue: The first, enacted in 1965, provided that "[n]o statement relating to smoking and health . . . shall be required" on any cigarette package or in any cigarette advertising. See Cipollone v. Liggett Group, Inc., 505 U. S., at 514. That provision, the Court concluded, did not pre-empt any of the petitioner's common-law claims. Id., at 518-520. In 1969, Congress superseded the 1965 pre-emption statute with part of the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act of 1969, which provided that "[n]o requirement or prohibition based on smoking and health shall be imposed under State law with respect to the advertising or promotion of any cigarettes the packages of which are labeled in conformity with the provisions of this Act." Id., at 515. The bulk of Cipollone's analysis involved this later statute; unless otherwise stated, it is this statute to which we refer in subsequent references to the pre-emptive statute in Cipollone.
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