That is just the sort of thing could come down to the details of how the law was written. Example A: "Each model of this type of car must pass Test X with numb

That is just the sort of thing could come down to the details of how the law was written. Example A: "Each model of this type of car must pass Test X with numbers lower than listed in Table Y" Example B: "The cars must have emissions lower than listed in Table Y. The standard test may be Test X" If it is written like Example A, then sure, the entire specification is the test, they merely designed to the rule. But if it's more like Example B, then they are toast. The cars clearly don't ordinarily have emissions lower than Table Y, they are merely engineered to appear to do so during the specific conditions of Test X. If there is one thing I've learned about the law from the excellent attny who will soon also be my wife, it is that you cannot reason about the law without reading it. Logic and assumptions will not help you -- you have to look at the law itself. It is actually a lot like software. Our guesses about the behavior might be OK for very limited purposes, but we really don't know jack until we trace it in a debugger or read the source. (tracing & reading source might be considered analogous to reading the cases and reading the law & regs)