New Federal Rule Pre-empting State Tort Claims Relating to Seatbelts

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has issued a new final regulatory rule “amending the definition of ‘‘designated seating positions,’’ as used in the Federal motor vehicle safety standards (FMVSS), to indicate more clearly which areas within the interior of a vehicle meet that definition”

The amendments establish “a calculation procedure for determining the number of designated seating positions at a seat location for trucks and multipurpose passenger vehicles with a gross vehicle weight rating less than 10,000 lbs, passenger cars, and buses; and eliminates the existing exclusion of auxiliary seats (i.e., temporary or folding jump seats) from the definition.”

But Marcia Coyle, also notes in the National Law Journal, this morning, that “the rule also contains language that would specifically pre-empt state tort claims related to seat belt injuries.”