Cipollone v. Liggett Group, Inc.

[*508] Justice Stevens delivered the opinion of the Court, except as to Parts V and VI.

“Warning: The Surgeon General Has Determined That Cigarette Smoking Is Dangerous to Your Health.” A federal statute enacted in 1969 requires that warning (or a variation thereof) to appear in a conspicuous place on every package of cigarettes sold in the United States.[1] The questions presented to us by this case are whether that statute, or its 1965 predecessor which required a less alarming label, pre-empted petitioner’s common-law claims against respondent cigarette manufacturers.

Petitioner is the son of Rose Cipollone, who began smoking in 1942 and who died of lung cancer in 1984. He claims that respondents are responsible for Rose Cipollone’s death because they breached express warranties contained in their advertising, because they failed to warn consumers about the hazards of smoking, because they fraudulently misrepresented those hazards to consumers, and because they conspired to deprive the public of medical and scientific information about smoking. The Court of Appeals held that petitioner’s state-law claims were pre-empted by federal statutes, 893 F. 2d 541 (CA3 1990), and other courts have agreed with that analysis.[2] The highest court of the State of New Jersey, however, has held that the federal statutes [*509] did not pre-empt similar common-law claims.[3] Because of the manifest importance of the issue, we granted certiorari to resolve the conflict, 499 U. S. 935 (1991). We now reverse in part and affirm in part.