Ray Andraka wrote:
From CNN:
The U.S. Supreme Court, in an 8-1 ruling Wednesday, said federal
medical-device regulations prevent patients from bringing state
product-liability lawsuits unless a medical-device company violated U.S.
Food and Drug Administration regulations.

That's clear enough...

"This decision shows that the extensive degree and nature of FDA
regulation necessarily means that its scientific decisions may not be
second-guessed by unscientific state juries," said Daniel Troy, a
partner at Sidney Austin LLP and a former FDA legal counsel.

That's one lawyer's opinion and I think you have to
accept it as-such. I would speculate that the decision
was more about keeping medical-device manufacturers
from going broke from lawsuits. Remember that sick
people are using the device and sick people sometimes
die.

It would seem to me that the manufacturers of certificated aircraft
could argue for a similar protection since the aircraft must meet
stringent tests and design parameters in order to recieve a type
certificate from the FAA. Heck, they could even use this ruling in favor
of Medtronic to support their case. Piper, Cessna, Lycoming, Textron,
anybody out there listening?

I don't think you can take it that far. Some people
*need* to have pacemakers. If all the pacemaker
companies are sued out of existence, many more people
will die. Based on that, perhaps a pacemaker company
deserves an extra level of protection in order to
keep the greater number of people alive. I don't
think the argument follows for aviation.