Automobile-design liability and compliance with federal standards

The proper role of auto-design product liability suits in public efforts to reduce the number of traffic accidents and the severity of injuries once accidents occur depends in part upon the allocation of responsibilities between common law courts and federal law, as enacted by Congress and administered by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. This Article argues that the Congress which passed the original Traffic Safety Act meant for courts to have the ability to hold manufacturers liable for failing to do more than comply with standards promulgated under the Act, and that nothing that subsequent Congresses have done has changed this original understanding. The authors criticize courts that have found that federal standards preempt auto-design product liability suits when defendants assert a compliance defense, as has often occurred when plaintiffs claim that the manufacturer should have installed an air bag. They assert that tort law is an essential supplement to federal regulation, and that as a matter of sound policy, as well as statutory interpretation, courts should permit factfinders in product liability suits to make their own judgments about the reasonableness or defectiveness of a vehicle's design, whether or not federal regulators have also mandated minimum standards relating to the same aspect of design.