## Facts

- Melissa Schafer received a live oral polio vaccine distributed by American Cyanamid Co.
- Lenita Schafer (Melissa’s mother) later developed paralytic polio, allegedly from exposure to vaccine virus shed by Melissa.
- Under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, Lenita, Mark Schafer (Lenita’s husband), and Melissa each filed compensation petitions in the Court of Federal Claims’ vaccine program.
- Mark and Melissa withdrew their vaccine petitions and filed a federal district court tort action under Massachusetts law seeking damages for loss of consortium/companionship caused by Lenita’s vaccine-related injuries.
- Lenita did not withdraw; she accepted a $750,000 vaccine-program award, which barred her from bringing her own tort suit for additional compensation.
- American Cyanamid moved to dismiss Mark’s and Melissa’s tort suit, arguing that Lenita’s acceptance of an award also barred related family-member tort actions.

## Issues

1. Whether the Vaccine Act’s bar on tort suits by a petitioner who accepts a vaccine-program award also bars family members from bringing their own state-law tort claims (e.g., loss of consortium/companionship) arising from the same vaccine-related injury.

## Decision

- The First Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial of American Cyanamid’s motion to dismiss.
- The court held that the Vaccine Act does not explicitly or implicitly bar family members’ state-law claims for their own related injuries, assuming state law otherwise recognizes those claims.
- The court concluded that Lenita’s acceptance of vaccine-program compensation foreclosed only her own tort remedy, not Mark’s and Melissa’s independent causes of action.

## Legal Principles

- Statutory election-of-remedies provisions are applied according to their text; the Vaccine Act’s bar targets the “petitioner” who accepts an award, not non-petitioning relatives.
- Absent clear congressional intent, federal vaccine-compensation legislation will not be read to displace state-law remedies for harms the federal scheme does not compensate (such as family members’ consortium-type injuries).
- Implied preclusion/preemption of state-law claims is disfavored where the federal statute is silent on the specific category of claims and does not supply an alternative remedy for them.
- The Vaccine Act reflects dual aims—compensating vaccine-injured persons and stabilizing vaccine markets—but those aims do not justify extending the acceptance bar beyond the compensated petitioner without a clear statement from Congress.

## Conclusion

The First Circuit held that the Vaccine Act’s tort-suit bar following acceptance of a vaccine-program award applies to the compensated petitioner only and does not, without clear statutory direction, extinguish family members’ independent state-law claims for related injuries such as loss of consortium or companionship.


Schafer v. Am. Cyanamid Co., 20 F.3d 1 (1st Cir. 1994)