A decision by the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals on April 19 this year has effectively narrowed the scope of federal preemption in aviation product liability claims. The Jill Sikkelee v. Precision Airmotive decision negated a long legislative history that allowed federal law, such as the Federal Aviation Act and the FAA regulations, to override individual state tort laws in the field of aviation. If not overturned on appeal, the Sikkelee decision could require aviation suppliers to defend claims against conflicting tort laws of individual states.
In Sikkelee, the plaintiff alleges that “faulty design of the lock tab washers as well as gasket set” on a 1969 Lycoming engine led to the crash of a Cessna 172N in 2005. During a 2004 overhaul, an MA-4SPA carburetor was installed per Lycoming’s type-certified design. The suit alleges that screws holding the carburetor’s throttle body to its float bowl vibrated loose, allowing fuel to leak into the engine and causing the crash.
Until now, courts ruling on aviation product liability cases generally referred to a 1999 Abdullah v. American Airlines decision in which the Third Circuit Court upheld an “implied federal preemption of the entire field of aviation safety.” This allowed manufacturers to argue that products receiving FAA type certificates met a federal standard of care and could not be tried under state product liability laws. As recently as this past January, a Colorado court upheld federal law preempting product design defect claims in two cases against helicopter EMS operator Air Methods.
However, nearly 17 years after Abdullah, the Third Circuit Court has reversed itself in Sikkelee: “[We] hold that neither the [Federal Aviation] Act nor the issuance of a type certificate per se preempts all aircraft design and manufacturing claims. Rather, subject to traditional principles of conflict preemption…aircraft product liability cases like [Sikkelee’s] may proceed using a state standard of care.”
During last month’s Aviation Insurance Association conference, Jeffrey Ellis, partner at law firm Clyde, used the Sikkelee allegations to illustrate the conundrum that aviation product manufacturers may soon face. “If a Pennsylvania jury finds an aircraft is designed ineffectively because it didn’t have the locktab washer…the Pennsylvania legislature may require all aircraft operating in Pennsylvania to have the locktab washer,” Ellis said. “Now there’s an accident in New Jersey, and a plaintiff’s attorney in New Jersey argues that the aircraft crashed because of the locktab washer. The New Jersey jury will now be the ultimate arbiter of aviation law, essentially determining whether or not that product is defective. And they could hold that any aircraft that operates in New Jersey with that locktab washer would be defective.”
