Cite as: 529 U. S. 861 (2000)
Opinion of the Court
III
We have just said that the saving clause at least removes tort actions from the scope of the express pre-emption clause. Does it do more? In particular, does it foreclose or limit the operation of ordinary pre-emption principles insofar as those principles instruct us to read statutes as preempting state laws (including common-law rules) that "actu-ally conflict" with the statute or federal standards promulgated thereunder? Fidelity Fed. Sav. & Loan Assn. v. De la Cuesta, 458 U. S. 141, 153 (1982). Petitioners concede, as they must in light of Freightliner Corp. v. Myrick, 514 U. S. 280 (1995), that the pre-emption provision, by itself, does not foreclose (through negative implication) "any possibility of implied [conflict] pre-emption," id., at 288 (discussing Cipol-lone v. Liggett Group, Inc., 505 U. S. 504, 517-518 (1992)). But they argue that the saving clause has that very effect.
We recognize that, when this Court previously considered the pre-emptive effect of the statute's language, it appeared to leave open the question of how, or the extent to which, the saving clause saves state-law tort actions that conflict with federal regulations promulgated under the Act. See Freightliner, supra, at 287, n. 3 (declining to address whether the saving clause prevents a manufacturer from "us[ing] a federal safety standard to immunize itself from state common-law liability"). We now conclude that the saving clause (like the express pre-emption provision) does not bar the ordinary working of conflict pre-emption principles.
Nothing in the language of the saving clause suggests an intent to save state-law tort actions that conflict with federal regulations. The words "[c]ompliance" and "does not exempt," 15 U. S. C. § 1397(k) (1988 ed.), sound as if they simply bar a special kind of defense, namely, a defense that compliance with a federal standard automatically exempts a defendant from state law, whether the Federal Government meant that standard to be an absolute requirement or only a minimum one. See Restatement (Third) of Torts: Products
869
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