Opinion ID: 2785746
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: the protection of justified expectations,

Text: (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. Application of §§ 6 and 188 of the Restatement requires a sensitive, fact-specific analysis. “The key to our analysis is that the choice of law principles found in the Restatement need not be given equal weight in every circumstance, nor are they intended to be exclusive. They also are relatively elastic, and in some cases equivocal.” Int’l Ins. Co., 86 F.3d at 606. “[E]ven when sections 6 and 188 are read together, it is clear they only provide a broad general framework for the resolution of choice of law issues in the context of a contract dispute. Within No. 14-3278 Wise v. Zwicker & Assocs. Page 11 that framework, a judge must balance principles, policies, factors, weights, and emphases to reach a result, the derivation of which, in all honesty, does not proceed with mathematical precision.” Id. In Jarvis v. First Resolution Mgmt. Corp., 983 N.E.2d 380 (Ohio Ct. App. 2012) (discretionary appeal accepted), the Ninth District Court of Appeals—which takes appeals from the Summit County Court of Common Pleas—applied this test to a credit card agreement without a choice-of-law provision. Id. at 387–88. As relevant factors, the First Resolution court examined where the consumer primarily used the card (where the card issuer performed its obligation under the agreement), where she paid her bill (performing her obligation under the agreement), where the final act creating the agreement took place, and where she decided not to pay the amounts owed. Id. at 388. A complete analysis of these factors would have revealed just how little information was in the record. Again, the ultimate creation of the contract plausibly occurred in Ohio, and it is not clear where the performance of the contract occurred. It is plausible from the complaint that Wise decided not to make payments in Ohio. The contacts with Utah relate to the contract in ways not considered relevant by the First Resolution court: One party to the contract is a Utah citizen, the initial offer was made from Utah, and the account is held in Utah. It is plausible that many of the relevant contacts will relate more closely to Ohio, such that Ohio law would apply absent the choice-of-law provision, but any certainty on the issue would be premature. In summary, by adopting § 187 of the Restatement, Ohio recognized two principles—that choice-of-law provisions in contracts are generally respected, and that § 187(2) contains exceptions to this principle that entail fact-intensive inquiry. Applying the exception in § 187(2)(b) begins with a determination of whether the choice-of-law provision to be enforced would violate a fundamental policy of Ohio. Because the fee-shifting provision here conflicts with such a fundamental policy, a careful examination of the contacts of each state to the agreement was necessary to determine whether Ohio has a materially greater interest in the fee-shifting provision and, if so, whether its law would have applied absent a choice-of-law provision. The pleadings do not provide sufficient facts to make a determination on these two issues, so the court should not have granted the motion for judgment on the pleadings. Wise can No. 14-3278 Wise v. Zwicker & Assocs. Page 12 provide answers to many of the unresolved questions above, including where he paid his bills, where he signed or accepted the credit card, where he made his purchases, and where he decided not to repay. It is therefore possible that the district court could resolve the choice-of-law issue with an affidavit from him. However, the district court may also determine that the issue would benefit from limited discovery into the contacts of each state to the contract.5