Judicial Politics and the Medical Device Preemption after Riegel
Recent Supreme Court rulings on the scope of federal preemption of state tort law have sparked passionate debate in legal circles and among lower courts. Tort preemption implicates powerful is-sues related to federalism, since it suggests that federal agencies are the proper locus for regulation rather than states and state courts. In this Note, I examine lower court cases decided after the Supreme Court’s opinion in Riegel v. Medtronic, which interpreted the 1976 Medical Device Amendments (MDA), to see whether structural factors and judicial politics influence determinations of preemption. After examination of these extralegal factors, I summarize the sub-stance of surviving tort claims, and attempt to harmonize the findings with well-supported normative theories of judicial behavior. I conclude by critiquing a recent argument favoring further narrowing of medical device claims, and point to broader principles of federalism that best serve both consumers and manufacturers.
This paper seeks to answer a highly salient question about judicial behavior regarding preemption. Legal academics and philosophers have pointed to a number of factors beyond statutes and precedent that influence judges, like locus of the court, ideology, and biographical factors like race and gender. These factors are particularly prominent in the context of preemption, especially the preemption of state tort law. Commentators have suggested that some preemption decisions and the resulting public reaction are motivated by ideology, and scholars have carefully researched whether federal courts are more likely to find preemption than state courts.
