Sometimes there can be a conflict between a state and a federal law, and the courts are asked to determine if the state’s law is overruled or negated by the federal law. In legal terms this is called “preemption.” As a court reviews the potential conflict, generally there is a presumption against preemption, in other words the state law is normally permitted to apply. In some cases, however, the federal law may be considered supreme. A common example relates to laws affecting interstate commerce and state laws that might interfere. Washington State has a law which forbids the making of solicitation robocalls, either to businesses or homes. Federal law permits business to business calls so long as two or more lines of the called business are not tied up. Robocallers have tried, without success, to “preempt” our state’s law so their calls to businesses would be permitted. For a more in-depth explanation of about this topic see this article by Rob Williamson in the Washington State Association for Justice’s June 2010 edition of Trial News.