## Facts

- Karen Silkwood worked as a laboratory analyst at Kerr-McGee’s federally licensed nuclear fuel fabrication facility in Oklahoma.
- Over three days in November 1974, Silkwood was repeatedly found contaminated with plutonium at work, including contamination detected on her body and in biological samples.
- A decontamination team later found plutonium contamination in multiple areas of her apartment, and personal items were destroyed.
- Silkwood was evaluated for internal contamination at Los Alamos.
- Silkwood died soon thereafter in an automobile accident unrelated to the contamination.
- Her estate brought an Oklahoma tort action (in federal court on diversity grounds) seeking damages for personal injury and property damage caused by the plutonium contamination.

## Issues

1. Whether the Atomic Energy Act and the Price–Anderson Act preempt a state-law punitive damages award arising from plutonium contamination at a federally licensed nuclear facility.
2. Whether a state punitive damages award constitutes impermissible state regulation of nuclear safety or conflicts with federal nuclear regulatory objectives.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the court of appeals and held that Oklahoma’s punitive damages award was not preempted.
- The Court reinstated the jury’s punitive damages award.
- The Court reasoned that, although federal law occupies the field of nuclear safety regulation, Congress did not clearly displace traditional state tort remedies for radiation-related injuries.
- The Court found no irreconcilable conflict between federal regulation (including federal penalties) and the availability of state punitive damages.

## Legal Principles

- Federal occupation of the field of nuclear safety regulation does not, by itself, eliminate state common-law remedies for injuries caused by radiation from federally licensed facilities.
- State-law punitive damages are not preempted absent clear congressional intent to bar them or a direct conflict making compliance with both state and federal requirements impossible or frustrating federal objectives.
- The Atomic Energy Act and the Price–Anderson Act proceed on the assumption that state tort law supplies substantive rules of liability and damages for nuclear-incident injuries unless expressly supplanted.
- Incidental deterrent effects of state tort damages on nuclear operators do not transform damages awards into forbidden state safety regulation.

## Conclusion

The Court held that Congress left traditional state tort remedies in place for radiation injuries at federally licensed nuclear facilities, and that punitive damages may be awarded under state law unless Congress clearly forbids them or they directly conflict with federal nuclear regulatory objectives.


Silkwood v. Kerr-McGee Corp., 464 U.S. 238 (1984)