Case Name: PROPRIETORS INSURANCE COMPANY, Deland Aviation, Inc., O.R. Hunt, and Dean V. West, Appellants, v. John and Janet VALSECCHI, individually and as personal representatives of the Estate of Robert J. Valsecchi and Ann and Richard Scileppi, individually and as personal representatives of the Estate of Richard William Scileppi, and Caetano da S. Vital, administrator of the Estate of Lawrence J. Vital, Deceased, Appellees
Court: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1983-06-28
Citations: 435 So. 2d 290
Docket Number: Nos. 80-739, 80-740, 80-744, 80-752, 80-753 and 80-2216
Parties: PROPRIETORS INSURANCE COMPANY, Deland Aviation, Inc., O.R. Hunt, and Dean V. West, Appellants, v. John and Janet VALSECCHI, individually and as personal representatives of the Estate of Robert J. Valsecchi and Ann and Richard Scileppi, individually and as personal representatives of the Estate of Richard William Scileppi, and Caetano da S. Vital, administrator of the Estate of Lawrence J. Vital, Deceased, Appellees.
Judges: Before SCHWARTZ, C.J., and NESBITT and BASKIN, JJ.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 435
Pages: 290–303

Head Matter:
PROPRIETORS INSURANCE COMPANY, Deland Aviation, Inc., O.R. Hunt, and Dean V. West, Appellants, v. John and Janet VALSECCHI, individually and as personal representatives of the Estate of Robert J. Valsecchi and Ann and Richard Scileppi, individually and as personal representatives of the Estate of Richard William Scileppi, and Caetano da S. Vital, administrator of the Estate of Lawrence J. Vital, Deceased, Appellees.
Nos. 80-739, 80-740, 80-744, 80-752, 80-753 and 80-2216.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, Third District.
June 28, 1983.
Rehearing Denied Aug. 15, 1983.
Daniels & Hicks, Miami, Dolan, Fertig & Curtis, Fort Lauderdale, Kimbrell, Hamann, Jennings, Womack, Carlson & Kniskern and Arthur C. Miller, III and R. Owen Ricker, Jr., Miami, for appellants.
Podhurst, Orseck, Parks, Josefsberg, Eaton, Meadow & Olin, Rossman & Baumber-ger and Robert D. Peltz, Broad & Cassel, Miami, and F. Vernon Bennett, Wells, Gat-tis, Hallowes, Holbrook & Conway, Orlando, for appellees.
Before SCHWARTZ, C.J., and NESBITT and BASKIN, JJ.

Opinion:
BASKIN, Judge.
The issues presented in this appeal arose in the context of wrongful death claims resulting from an airplane crash. The primary issue questions the choice of law to be applied to the determination of liability and damages under conflict-of-law tests. This court must decide whether the trial court should have applied Florida or North Carolina law in determining liability and awarding damages. We have carefully analyzed conflict-of-law rules pertaining to the selection of applicable law and conclude that the trial court erred in applying the law of North Carolina, the site of the crash, rather than the law of Florida, the state with the most significant relationships. Accordingly, we reverse.
The crash of a Cessna airplane in North Carolina caused the deaths of Lawrence Vital, Robert Valsecchi and Richard Scilep-pi, all under 25 years of age. Prior to the fatal accident, Vital, Valsecchi and Scileppi were temporary residents of Florida, attending college as aeronautical students at Embry-Riddle University in Daytona Beach, Florida. In November, 1976, Vital rented a Cessna 210C from DeLand Aviation, Inc., a Florida corporation. DeLand Aviation had leased the aircraft from Florida residents, Dean West and O.R. Hunt, who were principals of DeLand Aviation. Vital and his friends, Valsecchi and Scileppi, went to visit their parents for the Thanksgiving holidays. With Vital piloting the aircraft, the three men departed from DeLand, Florida. Val-secchi and Scileppi disembarked in New York, where their families resided, while Vital continued on to his family home in Massachusetts. After the holidays, the three men commenced the final leg of their return trip at the Wilmington, Delaware airport heading toward DeLand, Florida. Shortly after departure, the pilot experienced problems and soon lost radio contact. The radar image disappeared, and the plane crashed near the Oxford-Henderson, North Carolina airport, killing all three men on board.
The personal representatives of the three decedents filed for ancillary administration in Florida and, in addition, instituted lawsuits for damages in Florida. They alleged that Hunt, West and DeLand Aviation failed to maintain the aircraft's electrical system while the aircraft was hangared in Florida and that their negligence caused the crash. Acting as personal representatives of their sons' estates, the parents of Robert Valsecchi and Richard Scileppi filed wrongful death actions against Vital, Hunt, West, and DeLand. They sought damages predicated upon pilot negligence in operating the aircraft and upon the negligence of the airplane's owners and lessors, Hunt and West, in maintaining the aircraft. In addition, they asserted they were entitled to recover from DeLand Aviation, Inc., the lessee, based upon its negligent maintenance of the airplane and from Hunt, West, and DeLand, who were vicariously liable for the pilot's negligence under Florida's dangerous instrumentality doctrine.
The pilot's estate filed a cross-claim against Hunt, West, and DeLand founded upon their alleged negligent maintenance of the airplane. Hunt, West, DeLand, and Proprietors Insurance Company, their insurer, filed a cross-claim against the pilot's estate seeking indemnity or contribution for the pilot's alleged negligence. The jury found no negligence on the part of the pilot and awarded the estates of Valsecchi, Sci-leppi, and Vital $750,000 each from Hunt, West, and DeLand. The trial court limited the final judgments against Proprietors to its coverage of $75,000 per passenger and $100,000 for Vital. Contending in this appeal that no coverage existed for the pilot, Proprietors seeks to overturn the dismissal of its post-trial cross-claim concerning the $100,000 judgment for Vital.
Counsel for the estates of the pilot and both passengers contended at trial that North Carolina rather than Florida law governed. The trial court agreed. The court selected the law of North Carolina as appropriate for trial of some issues but found Florida's dangerous instrumentality and comparative negligence doctrines applied.
At trial, the Valsecchi and Scileppi personal representatives asked the court to direct verdicts in their favor on the ground that either the pilot or DeLand Aviation or both were liable for the deaths. The court, relying on North Carolina and Florida law, granted the motions and instructed the jury accordingly. The trial court ruled that if the jury found pilot error, appellants were vicariously liable to the passengers under Florida's dangerous instrumentality doctrine. This question later became moot when the jury decided the pilot was not negligent. Then, applying North Carolina law pertaining to negligence, the trial court directed verdicts against Hunt, West, and DeLand. Thus, under the trial court's rulings, Hunt, West, and DeLand were responsible if the jury found that pilot error, negligent maintenance, or a combination of these factors caused the deaths.
In addition to the choice-of-law question, we are asked to review the propriety of the trial court's exclusion of testimony by De-Land Aviation employees under the Dead-man's Statute, section 90.602, Florida Statutes (1979); the correctness of the directed verdicts establishing the liability of Hunt, West, and DeLand under the Florida dangerous instrumentality doctrine; and the trial court's dismissal of Proprietor's post-trial cross-claim denying coverage for Vital. We examine first the question of which law to apply.
Initially, the rule of lex loci delicti, or law of the place of the wrong, provided a simple and uniform formula for solving choice-of-law questions. Modern commentators, disenchanted with the application of the wooden lex loci rule to the complex problems of current litigation, have severely criticized the doctrine. See, e.g., Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws (1971); G. Stumberg, Conflict of Laws 199-212 (3d ed. 1963); Cavers, A Critique of the Choice-of-Law Problem, 47 Harv.L.Rev. 173 (1933); Cheatham & Reese, Choice of the Applicable Law, 52 Colum.L.Rev. 959 (1952); Currie in Comments on Babcock v. Jackson, A Recent Development in Conflict of Laws, 63 Colum.L.Rev. 1212, 1233 (1963); A. Ehrenz-weig, The "Most Significant Relationship" in the Conflicts Law of Torts, 28 Law & Contemp.Prob. 700 (1963); Harper, Policy Bases of the Conflict of Laws: Reñections on Rereading Professor Lorenzen's Essays, 56 Yale LJ. 1155 (1947); Morris, The Proper Law of a Tort, 64 Harv.L.Rev. 881 (1951); Reese in Comments on Babcock v. Jackson, 63 Colum.L.Rev. 1212, 1251 (1963); Traynor, Is This Conflict Really Necessary?, 27 Texas L.Rev. 657 (1959); and authorities cited in 46 Cornell L.Q. 637, 640, n. 20 (1961) and 62 Mich.L.Rev. 1358, n. 3 (1964). In an attempt to avoid the often harsh result of the lex loci rule, see Griffith v. United Air Lines, Inc., 416 Pa. 1, 203 A.2d 796, 802, n. 11 (1964), conflicts-of-law theorists proposed new approaches.
In recognition of the jurisprudential departure from the now discredited conceptual underpinnings of sovereign supremacy and vested rights embodied in the lex loci delicti rule, Comment, Conflict of Laws— Torts: Significant Relationships v. Lex Loci Delicti — Florida Enters the Modern Era, 33 U.Fla.L.Rev. 436 (1981), the Restatement (Second) promulgated guidelines to aid in the selection of the proper law through analysis of significant contacts. Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws, § 6 and 145 (1971).
Another modern choice-of-law approach is the "government interest analysis" theory alluded to by the dissent. This theory focuses on the interest of the state involved rather than on the individual. See Cavers, The Choice of Law Process (1965); B. Cur-rie, Selected Essays on the Conflicts of Law, 189 (1963) (originally published in 26 U.Chi.L.Rev. 9 (1959); E. Scoles and P. Hay, Conflict of Laws, § 17.11-17.17 (1982); 33 U.Fla.L.Rev. 436, supra. Cases applying a Restatement (Second) approach generally do not employ an "interest analysis" test.
The significant relationships test of the Second Restatement, adopted in Bishop v. Florida Specialty Paint Co., 389 So,2d 999 (Fla.1980) and adhered to in State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. v. Olsen, 406 So.2d 1109 (Fla.1981), is clearly the approved approach to conflict of laws issues in Florida. See Harris v. Berkowitz, 433 So.2d 613 (Fla. 3d DCA 1983). The dissent's reliance upon decisions applying interest analysis concepts is misguided because it disregards the separate nature of current analytical tools and thus endorses a case-by-case test dependent upon the attitudes of individual judges rather than upon the objective standards of existing law. In our view, this path leads to chaos.
Viewing the facts under a Restatement (Second) analysis, we are compelled to recognize the applicability of Florida law to the question of damages. Whereas the lex loci rule would apply North Carolina law because it is the place where the injury occurred, the significant relationships test adopted in Florida recognizes the place of injury simply as one relevant factor in choice-of-law determinations. Evaluation under the significant relationships test involves a two-pronged inquiry directed toward review of the factors listed in section 145 and in section 6. Courts applying this two-pronged test locate the state with the most significant contacts in relation to the occurrence and to the parties with due regard for the policies underlying each of the competing state's pertinent laws. See Leflar, The Torts Provisions of the Restatement (Second), 72 Colum.L.Rev. 267, 268-74 (1972). The place of injury takes precedence only when a comparison of the competing state's contacts reveals that it is the state most significantly connected to the particular issue in the litigation. This principle is clearly delineated in section 146 and in section 175 and must be applied to the case before us.
§ 146. Personal Injuries
In an action for a personal injury, the local law of the state where the injury occurred determines the rights and liabilities of the parties, unless, with respect to the particular issue, some other state has a more significant relationship under the principles stated in § 6 to the occurrence and the parties, in which event the local law of the other state will be applied.
§ 175. Right of Action for Death
In an action for wrongful death, the local law of the state where the injury occurred determines the rights and lia bilities of the parties unless, with respect to the particular issue, some other state has a more significant relationship under the principles stated in § 6 to the occurrence and the parties, in which event the local law of the other state will be applied.
Applying the significant relationships test, we find that since North Carolina became the place of the injury by the mere happenstance of the plane crash on its soil, it maintained no significant relationship with the occurrence or the parties. Consequently, no interest or purpose in applying North Carolina law can be ascertained. We are confronted with a situation in which the law of a state other than the state in which the injury occurred governs. According to comment e to section 145:
Situations do arise . where the place of injury will not play an important role in the selection of the state of the applicable law. This will be so, for example, when the place of injury can be said to be fortuitous or when for other reasons it bears little relation to the occurrence and the parties with respect to the particular issue.... (emphasis added).
See Berkowitz (applying Florida's wrongful death recovery provisions rather than damage law of Maine where fatal car accident occurred in Maine but Florida had most significant contacts as state where decedents and all parties resided and where estates were probated.) See also comment e, section 146 ("when . the injured person is domiciled or resides or does business in the state where the conduct occurred, there is a greater likelihood that this state is to be the state of most significant relationship and therefore the state of applicable law....") (emphasis added); comment d, section 175 ("The likelihood that some state other than that where the injury occurred is the state of most significant relationship is greater in those relatively rare situations where, with respect to the particular issue, the state of injury bears little relation to the occurrence and the parties."). In the present case, prior to the fatal accident, the decedents resided in Florida where they became acquainted while attending aeronautical school. The plane was rented in Florida from Florida residents, defendants in the action. The plane was hangared and negligently maintained in Florida. The flight began and was to end in Florida. Ancillary estates were opened in Florida, and the lawsuits were filed here. On the other hand, North Carolina's only connection to the event and the parties was the purely adventitious circumstance that the aircraft crashed on the soil within its boundaries.
The contacts held significant in Bishop are, for the most part, present here: (1) the trip was to begin and end in Florida; (2) defendants are Florida residents; (3) the relationship between the parties arose in Florida. Although the plaintiffs in this case, unlike those in Bishop, are not permanent Florida residents, neither are they North Carolina residents.
Under the significant relationships test or any modern theory departing from the rigid lex loci rule, courts all over the United States apply the law of the state with relevant connection to the litigation. This point is clearly demonstrated by the classic aviation accident case which has motivated courts to apply the law of the state other than the fortuitous place of injury. See, e.g., In re Paris Air Crash of March 3, 1974, 399 F.Supp. 732 (C.D.Calif.1975) (under an interest analysis, California law held to apply to damages recoverable by claimants from various other jurisdictions where plane, which crashed in France, was constructed, manufactured and tested in California); Gordon v. Eastern Air Lines, Inc., 391 F.Supp. 31, 33 (S.D.N.Y.1975) (applying an interest analysis, the court found that New York governed the sole issue of plaintiff's wrongful death damages resulting from the airplane crash that occurred in Florida where Florida had "no interest whatsoever in how much money a New York jury would award a New York resident in a New York court."); ⅛ re Air Crash Disaster at Boston, Masschusetts on July 31, 1973, 399 F.Supp. 1106 (D.Mass. 1975) (under Vermont's significant relationships test, court applied Vermont law to the wrongful death damages resulting from an airplane crash in Boston where decedents, Vermont domicilaries, purchased their plane tickets in Vermont, the flight began and was expected to end in Vermont and where both parties being non-residents of Massachusetts, that state's fortuitous contact with the action was insufficient); Manos v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., 295 F.Supp. 1170, 1173 (N.D.Ill.1969) (on issue of damages, where Italy, place of the airplane crash, "was a mere fortuity in relation to the true interests . to be served," Italian law did not apply; Wood v. American Airlines, Inc., 103 Misc.2d 431, 426 N.Y.S.2d 193 (1979) (under New York's "grouping of contacts" test, Tennessee law held to govern measure of wrongful death damages where airplane crash in Virgin Islands was purely adventitious and where Tennessee had most intimate relationship with the matter based on fact that decedents were Tennessee residents, flight originated in Tennessee and was to terminate there); Long v. Pan American World Airways, Inc., 16 N.Y.2d 337, 213 N.E.2d 796, 266 N.Y.S.2d 513 (1965) (under an interest analysis, court applied Pennsylvania law to question of damages where Maryland's sole relationship with the occurrence was the fortuity of the airplane crash on its soil and where decedents were Pennsylvania residents who bought their tickets in Pennsylvania where the flight began and was to terminate); Griffith v. United Air Lines, Inc., 416 Pa. 1, 203 A.2d 796 (1964) (Pennsylvania court applied an interest analysis in holding that Pennsylvania law governed the measure of wrongful death damages where the site of the airplane crash in Colorado was purely fortuitous and where decedents were Pennsylvania domicilaries and the flight began and was to terminate in Pennsylvania).
The dissent suggests that lex loci delicti is appropriate even when the location of the accident is a mere fortuity. Review of the cases upon which it relies discloses the error in that proposition. First, not one of the named decisions is based upon the Second Restatement approach required by Bishop. E.g., Jones v. Wittenberg University, 534 F.2d 1203 (6th Cir.1976) (applied interest analysis); Cook v. United States, 274 F.2d 689 (2d Cir.1960) (under Federal Tort Claims Act, court applied damage law of place in which "wrongful act or omission" of United States' employees occurred); Maynard v. Eastern Air Lines, Inc., 178 F.2d 139, 140 (2d Cir.1949) (court applied law of Connecticut, site of aircrash, rather than New York law on the ground that the New York death statute did not afford recovery "for accidents occurring beyond the borders of its state," citing the lex loci delicti rule of the First Restatement as additional support); Hurtado v. Superior Court of Sacramento County, 11 Cal.3d 574, 522 P.2d 666, 114 Cal.Rptr. 106 (1974) (applying "governmental interest" analysis); Maguire v. Exeter & Hampton Electric Co., 114 N.H. 589, 325 A.2d 778 (1974) (applying "principles of preference" or "choice influencing considerations" approach).
Second, most of these cases are factually inapposite since the location of the place of injury was not a mere fortuity as it was in the present situation. For example, in Wit-tenberg, Ohio, the place of the fatal accident, was the temporary residence of the decedent, who attended college there, and the permanent residence of defendants, the university and the university security guard who fatally shot the decedent on university grounds. Additionally, in Maguire, New Hampshire damage law applied where New Hampshire was not only the site of the accident, but the place of decedent's employment with a New Hampshire company. Significantly, the court in Maguire noted: "Unlike automobile accidents and airplane accidents where the place of accident has been characterized as 'fortuitous' . the place of employment in New Hampshire was not 'fortuitous' but stable and chosen." 325 A.2d at 779.
As one last example, in Hurtado, California was not only the location of the fatal auto accident, but the domicile of the defendants. In contrast to those cases, North Carolina in the present case is the classic fortuitous accident site — where none of the parties resided, worked, attended school, or even vacationed — in short, a place with no meaningful link to the present litigation.
Furthermore, while the survivors' place of residence may offer a predicate for interest analysis cases, it serves only as an additional factor to be considered under the significant relationships test. Even if an interest analysis test were applied, however, the law of Florida, the residence of the principal defendants, would be the proper selection. Florida's interest lies in the protection of its residents from excessive financial burdens whereas North Carolina has little interest in the protection of foreign litigants, especially when the act of negligence occurred in a foreign jurisdiction.
The law of conflicts cannot rest upon the proposition propounded by the dissent that lex loci applies when it is more generous than the state of the survivors' residence. In those cases which appear to reach such a result, other significant contacts are evident. See Bonn v. Puerto Rico International Air Lines, 518 F.2d 89 (1st Cir.1975); Summers v. Interstate Tractor & Equipment Co., 466 F.2d 42 (9th Cir.1972). Compare Olsen (applying more restrictive recovery policy of the lex loci, Illinois, by finding that the action was governed by Illinois' law of contributory negligence rather than Florida's comparative negligence doctrine).
In conclusion, it is apparent that this court is bound to follow the supreme court decision in Bishop adopting the Second Restatement rule. The significant relationships test applies and mandates reversal. North Carolina had nothing to do with the parties or the cause of the accident. Its ties to the litigation are too insignificant to warrant the application of its law. Accordingly, we hold that Florida law governs.
The next question we consider pertains to the exclusion of testimony under the Deadman's Statute. Appellants maintain that the trial court improperly excluded testimony by DeLand Aviation employees indicating that they instructed the pilot, Vital, to fly under visual flight rules and only in the daytime. The Deadman's Statute provides that communications between parties interested in the litigation and a deceased person cannot be introduced into evidence in a suit against the personal representative. However,
The test of the interest of a witness ., is whether he will gain or lose by the direct legal operation and effect of the judgment, or whether the record in the case will be legal evidence for or against him in some other legal action. It must be a present and vested interest and not one uncertain, remote, or contingent.
Parker v. Priestley, 39 So.2d 210, 213 (Fla. 1949). It is well settled that an employee or mere agent is not an interested party disqualified from testifying under the Deadman's Statute. Parker; Allstate Insurance Company v. Doody, 193 So.2d 687 (Fla.3d DCA 1967). Since a judgment in this case would have no direct effect upon DeLand's employees, the employees did not possess the legally recognized interest required to trigger the testimonial bar of the Deadman's Statute. See Matthews v. Hines, 444 F.Supp. 1201 (M.D.Fla.1978); Parker; Broward National Bank of Fort Lauderdale v. R. Bear, 125 So.2d 760 (Fla. 2d DCA 1961). We therefore hold that the trial court's exclusion of the DeLand employees' testimony, which was relevant to establish proximate cause, constituted reversible error. See New York Life Insurance Company v. Childs, 252 So.2d 288 (Fla. 3d DCA 1971). The remaining issues are without merit.
Reversed and remanded for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
. The application of North Carolina law would produce a result different from the application of Florida law with regard to damages for wrongful death, liability under the dangerous instrumentality doctrine, and contributory negligence versus comparative negligence. Recovery would be greater under North Carolina's wrongful death act, under Florida's comparative negligence doctrine, and under Florida's dangerous instrumentality doctrine.
. The trial court did not have the benefit of Bishop v. Florida Specialty Paint Co., 389 So.2d 999 (Fla. 1980) when it ruled.
. Under Florida's dangerous instrumentality doctrine:
[A]s a matter of law the relationship of principal and agent is raised out of the factual situation. When one permits another to operate his automobile under his license, he becomes as a matter of law the principal and the driver becomes his agent for the purpose.
Weber v. Porco, 100 So.2d 146 (Fla.1958). The doctrine applies with the same force to airplanes. Orefice v. Albert, 237 So.2d 142 (Fla. 1970). The application of the doctrine to automobiles and airplanes is not based on the theory that the instrumentality itself is dangerous, but upon the theory that the instrumentality may become dangerous in operation. See Southern Cotton Oil Co. v. Anderson, 80 Fla. 441, 86 So. 629 (1920).
. § 6. Choice-of-Law Principles
(1) A court, subject to constitutional restrictions, will follow a statutory directive of its own state on choice of law.
(2) When there is no such directive, the factors relevant to the choice of the applicable rule of law include
(a) the needs of the interstate and international systems,
(b) the relevant policies of the forum,
(c) the relevant policies of other interested states and the relative interests of those states in the determination of the particular issue,
(d) the protection of justified expectations,
(e) the basic policies underlying the particular field of law,
(f) certainty, predictability and uniformity of result, and
(g) ease in the determination and application of the law to be applied.
§ 145. The General Principle
(1) The rights and liabilities of the parties with respect to an issue in tort are determined by the local law of the state which, with respect to that issue, has the most significant relationship to the occurrence and the parties under the principles stated in § 6. (2) Contacts to be taken into account in applying the principles of § 6 to determine the law applicable to an issue include:
(a) the place where the injury occurred,
(b) the place where the conduct causing the injury occurred,
(c) The domicil, residence, nationality, place of incorporation and place of business of the parties, and
(d) the place where the relationship, if any, between the parties is centered.
These contacts are to be evaluated according to their relative importance with respect to the particular issue.
. The question of whether the law of New York or of Massachusetts applies is not properly before this court.
. If "greatest recovery" were the sole criterion, any state with any arguable tangential interest in the litigation could be arbitrarily selected by any plaintiff. It is also improbable that the supreme court intended to confer the greatest liability upon the airline in every case.
. § 90.602, Fla.Stat. (1979), formerly § 90.05, Fla.Stat. (1975).