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(Preemption from page 1)
and two city officials in United States District Court to enjoin enforcement of the City's tow-truck regulations, claiming preemption under § 14501(c)(1). The District Court agreed and issued an injunction.
The Sixth Circuit affirmed the District Court, in Ours Garage & Wrecker Serv. v. City of Columbus, 257 F.3d 506 (6th Cir. Ohio 2001), joining the Fifth, Ninth and Eleventh Circuits to hold that § 14501(c)(1) preempts regulation of motor carrier safety and insurance at the local level, a holding at odds with the Second Circuit's ruling to the contrary. The Supreme Court granted the City's petition for cert. in order to resolve the split in circuits.
A 7-2 majority of the Court reversed the 6th Circuit, holding that § 14501(c) does not bar a State from delegating to municipalities and other local units the State's authority to establish safety regulations governing motor carriers of property, including tow trucks.
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The Court acknowledged that two other savings clauses, one pertaining to cargo liability and one to nonconsenual towing, expressly apply to both States and their political subdivisions. The Court agreed that normally whenCongress includes particular language in one section of a statute but omits it in another section of the same Act, it is generally presumed that Congress acts intentionally and purposely in the disparate inclusion or exclusion. In this case, however, the presumption was weakened by the presence of a fourth savings provision for regulation of household goods carriers that mentioned neither States nor subdivisions but clearly applied to both.
The Court relied on its earlier opinion in Wisconsin Public Intervenor v. Mortier, 501 U.S. 597 (1991), which held that a statute expressly granting regulatory authority to States but omitting any such expression with regard to localities did not establish a clear and manifest purpose to preempt local authority because States have histori
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cally relied on local governments to enforce traditional State police powers. Finding Ohio no exception in that regard, the Court determined that the savings clause's mandate that section 14501(c)(1) "shall not restrict the safety regulatory authority of a State," should be read to encompass the authority of a State to delegate safety regulation to its constituent subdivisions. The Court found it "unlikely that Congress would preserve States' power to enact safety rules and, at the same time, bar the ordinary method by which States enforce such rules -- through their local instrumentalities." Moreover, this construction of the statute would not defeat Congress's purpose in passing the FAAAA and the ICCTA, because the evil these statutes were designed to address was economic regulation, not safety regulation.
The Court remanded the case for a determination of whether the regulations in Columbus qualify as exercises of "safety regulatory authority."
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