Medtronic, Inc. v. Lohr, 518 U.S. 470, 29 (1996)

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498

MEDTRONIC, INC. v. LOHR

Opinion of the Court

peals recognized, the FDA will enforce these general requirements against manufacturers that violate them. See 56 F. 3d, at 1350-1351. While admitting that these requirements exist, the Lohrs suggest that their general nature simply does not pre-empt claims alleging that the manufacturer failed to comply with other duties under state common law. In support of their claim, they note that § 360k(a)(1) expressly states that a federal requirement must be "applicable to the device" in question before it has any pre-emptive effect. Because the labeling and manufacturing requirements are applicable to a host of different devices, they argue that they do not satisfy this condition. They further argue that because only state requirements "with respect to a device" may be pre-empted, and then only if the requirement "relates to the safety or effectiveness of the device or to any other matter included in a requirement applicable to the device," § 360k(a) mandates pre-emption only where there is a conflict between a specific state requirement and a federal requirement "applicable to" the same device.

The Lohrs' theory is supported by the FDA regulations, which provide that state requirements are pre-empted "only" when the FDA has established "specific counterpart regulations or . . . other specific requirements applicable to a particular device." 21 CFR § 808.1(d) (1995).18 They fur-§ 820.25, and to have buildings, environmental controls, and equipment of a quality adequate to produce a safe product, see §§ 820.40, 820.46, 820.60.

18 FDA's narrow understanding of the scope of § 360k(a) is obvious from the full text of the regulation, which provides, in relevant part:

"(d) State or local requirements are preempted only when the Food and Drug Administration has established specific counterpart regulations or there are other specific requirements applicable to a particular device under the act, thereby making any existing divergent State or local requirements applicable to the device different from, or in addition to, the specific Food and Drug Administration requirements. There are other State or local requirements that affect devices that are not preempted by

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