Pugh MaureenMAUREEN PUGH (National): It has been quite an entertaining reading of the Private International Law (Choice of Law in Tort) Bill. I think it is always a good indication of how desperate we are for material when we start talking about reggae as part of international choice of law in tort. This bill here is in the name of Sarah Dowie the chair of the Justice and Electoral Committee and was first read in this House by the now very honourable David Bennett. As we learnt earlier today too Mr Bennett is the first Cabinet Minister from Hamilton in 33 years—so a proud moment for that electorate I imagine. A fine achievement indeed it is. Also I learnt tonight that this bill was first introduced into this House by the former member for West Coast - Tasman Chris Auchinvole. A fine upstanding gentleman he is as well. I imagine that he would have relished the opportunity of speaking to this very interesting bill himself.But I have to say I agree with my colleague David Clendon tonight. When I first started dealing with this bill at the Justice and Electoral Committee I was challenged. I first of all could not work out what on earth a tort was and for me Mr Clendon it sounded like something you would put in a pie dish and bake and serve with cream. But actually a tort is a wrongful act that results in civil liability but of course as we have heard tonight it does not apply to contracts.In common law jurisdictions it is a civil wrong that unfairly causes someone else to suffer loss or harm that results in legal liability for the person who commits the tortious act. The victim of the harm can recover their losses as damages in a lawsuit but in order to successfully take a case the plaintiff in the lawsuit commonly referred to as the injured party must show that the action or lack of action was the actual cause of the harm and that has to be able to be legally identified as the cause. If anyone was wondering what the person who commits the act is called they are called a tortfeasor—for reference.When an action is brought in New Zealand in a New Zealand court for a tort that happened outside of this country the common law rule of double actionability applies. We have heard a lot about that tonight. So what does it mean some may ask. It means that when a tort is committed outside of New Zealand the tort claim is successful only if it is actionable in both the New Zealand jurisdiction and the country where the tort took place. So the plaintiff must establish that the tort would have been actionable in New Zealand if it had been committed here and that the tort is actionable under the law of the country in which it was committed.If both of those are satisfied then the court applies New Zealand's law to the substance of that claim. But it does get complicated when one country has a more significant relationship with the event that led to the tort and with both parties involved in which case the substantive law of that country can be applied to the complete exclusion of the other law. An example of that situation could be where a New Zealand employee is say working overseas and suffers an injury due to the negligence of the employer in creating an unsafe workplace. So if it is the law in the country where the event took place is it New Zealand law or perhaps the country where the injury took place—so the law applies from that country—or if the employee was to sue say the parent company of that employer which may actually be residing in Australia which law would apply? So it does get very confusing and this bill does clarify this.We were told by submitters of whom we have heard there were only two that there is a huge consensus for the double actionability rule to torts claims to be removed. It is agreed that it was outdated and no longer fit for purpose. It has been abolished in the United Kingdom in Australia and in Canada. So this bill removes that double actionability and this aspect of the bill was supported by the New Zealand Law Society and other submitters.The Private International Law (Choice of Law in Tort) Bill is very similar to the UK Act which was seen by the New Zealand Law Society as providing a very valuable resource in creating a body of case law that is accrued in the United Kingdom. So that will help with the interpretation and the application of the law here in New Zealand.We did rely very heavily on the legal advisers to the Justice and Electoral Committee. It was a very technical bill and it did require the expertise of those legal minds to guide us through the process.I thought I would share with the House tonight one of the most famous tort law suits that has happened in recent history and it was the case of a 79-year-old woman who sued McDonald's when she spilt her coffee and was burnt. So the 79-year-old woman Stella Liebeck spilt a cup of McDonald's coffee on her lap and sustained third-degree burns and as a result of that Mrs Liebeck had to have skin grafts. So she had quite a lot of recovery and healing to do. And when she went to McDonald's and asked it to cover her medical bills it declined. So Mrs Liebeck filed a civil lawsuit. It was found during the case that McDonald's had been negligent because it had received thousands of complaints from other customers about the temperature of its coffee yet it had continued to instruct its staff to serve the coffee at this high temperature. So when Mrs Liebeck was burnt she could prove that McDonald's had been negligent because it was aware of the potential harm of the temperature of this coffee. In the end Mrs Liebeck was awarded damages—$200000 for her medical bills and then $2.7 million for punitive damages. That was later revised down to $640000 and then appealed and it was settled out of court.But the point of this is that had Mrs Liebeck been a Kiwi on holiday in the United States then she would have had to prove that there was a duty of care owed to her by McDonald's and that she had suffered actual loss injury or damage that was directly caused by McDonald's negligence which she obviously did. Under this bill wherever the events occurred that is the applicable law or in the event of damage to property it is deemed to be the country where the property was located. So if Mrs Liebeck was an American on holiday in New Zealand at the time of the incident the ability to apply a tort law is severely curtailed because of our Accident Compensation Act.So in summary actionability is in the place where the damage was done. If something happens in New Zealand it is dealt with under New Zealand law. If it occurs in another country it is that jurisdiction's law that will apply. This bill aligns us with similar jurisdictions internationally and therefore simplifies the law. I commend it to the House.