11-3577 S.C. Johnson & Son, Inc. v. Transport Corporation of America, Inc.

10-879 Kurns v. Railroad Friction Products Corp.

2010AP178 Adams Outdoor Advertising, L.P., v. County of Dane

11-1382 & 11-1492 ATA Airlines, Inc., v. Federal Express Corp.

The justices of the U.S. Supreme Court are set to decide whether a state law tort suit involving a railroad worker who died from on-the-job asbestos exposure is preempted by a federal railroad inspection law.

Transportation Railroads; preemption

Natural Resources Preemption

Torts Preemption

Immigration Preemption A state law requiring employers to verify the immigration status of job applicants is not preempted by federal law.  Arizona’s licensing law falls well within the confines of the authority Congress chose to leave to the States and therefore is not expressly preempted. While IRCA prohibits States from imposing “civil or criminal sanctions” on those who employ unauthorized ...

Banking Preemption Where a federal directive ordered the exchange of stock, the exchange can’t be challenged as a fraudulent transfer. “We do not agree with M&I that the OTS guidance materials provide a basis for concluding that OTS selected an improperly formatted or procedurally defective vehicle to accomplish its unambiguous objective. OTS gave unambiguous direction, which was mandatory on its ...

Civil Procedure Arbitration; preemption A state rule that mandatory arbitration is unconscionable, because it does not permit classwide proceedings, is preempted by the Federal Arbitration Act. Class arbitration, to the extent it is manufactured by Discover Bank rather than consensual, interferes with fundamental attributes of arbitration. The switch from bilateral to class arbitration sacrifices arbitration’s informality and makes the process ...

Torts Seat belts; preemption Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 208 does not pre-empt state tort suits claiming that manufacturers should have installed lap-and-shoulder belts, instead of lap belts, on rear inner seats. Like the regulation in Geier, the instant regulation leaves the manufacturer with a choice, and the tort suit here would restrict that choice. But in contrast to Geier, ...

Torts Vaccines; preemption The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 preempts all design-defect claims against vaccine manufacturers brought by plaintiffs seeking compensation for injury or death caused by a vaccine’s side effects. Section 300aa–22(b)(1)’s text suggests that a vaccine’s design is not open to question in a tort action. If a manufacturer could be held liable for failure to ...

Labor RLA; preemption The Railway Labor Act does not completely preempt retaliatory-discharge claims under state law. “Graf’s holding that the RLA completely preempts retaliatory-discharge suits under state law is overruled. (Other parts of Graf are unaffected by this conclusion.) Because this conclusion is compelled by decisions of the Supreme Court after Graf, circulation under Circuit Rule 40(e) is unnecessary. This ...

Civil Procedure Jurisdiction; preemption; Class III medical device; dismissal with prejudice In a diversity action where plaintiff alleges injury by a hip replacement, a Class III medical device under the federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act, under Illinois common law for negligence and strict liability for a defective product, the trial court erred when it held that her common-law claims ...