Hillsborough County v. Automated Medical Labs.

In Hillsborough County v. Automated Medical Laboratories, Inc., 471 U.S. 707 (1985), a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court held that federal regulations governing the collection of blood plasma from paid donors do not pre-empt certain local ordinances.

Justice Thurgood Marshall, writing for the Court, stated that:

In New York Dept. of Social Services v. Dublino, 413 U.S. 405 (1973), the Court stated that "[the] subjects of modern social and regulatory legislation often by their very nature require intricate and complex responses from the Congress, but without Congress necessarily intending its enactment [***724] as the exclusive means of meeting the problem." Id., at 415. There, in upholding state work-incentive provisions against a pre-emption challenge, the Court noted that the federal provisions "had to be sufficiently comprehensive to authorize and govern programs in States which had no . . . requirements of their own as well as cooperatively in States with such requirements." Ibid. But merely because the federal provisions were sufficiently comprehensive to meet the need identified by Congress did not mean that States and localities were barred from identifying additional needs or imposing further requirements in the field. See also De Canas v. Bica, 424 U.S. 351, 359-360 (1976).