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ARTICLE · 01 MAY 2018

Ensuring That The Presumption Against Express Preemption Stays Dead

Not quite two years ago, the United States Supreme Court did something that we liked a lot – it abolished the so-called "presumption against preemption" in express preemption cases.

United StatesConsumer Protection

Not quite two years ago, the United States Supreme Court did something that we liked a lot – it abolished the so-called "presumption against preemption" in express preemption cases. It did that in a bankruptcy case, Puerto Rico v. Franklin-California Tax-Free Trust, 136 S. Ct. 1938 (2016) ("Franklin"), so it took a little while before we found out about it. Once we did, we immediately let the word be known:

The plain text of the [preemption clause] begins and ends our analysis. Resolving [the question] for purposes of the pre-emption provision begins "with the language of the statute itself," and that "is also where the inquiry should end," for "the statute's language is plain." And because the statute "contains an express pre-emption clause," we do not invoke any presumption against pre-emption but instead "focus on the plain wording of the clause, which necessarily contains the best evidence of Congress' pre-emptive intent."

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