Opinion ID: 2325365
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Interest-Weighing Approach in Rhode Island

Text: When a claim originates in one state (the claim state) but is brought before a court of another state (the forum state), the forum state must conduct a thorough analysis to determine which state's laws should govern the suit. [31] At present, Rhode Island jurists perform this painstaking analysis on an ad hoc basis by employing the interest-weighing approach. The application of that analysis to determinations of which statute of limitations to apply somehow has morphed from the language used by this Court in its 1968 decision in Woodward v. Stewart, 104 R.I. 290, 243 A.2d 917 (1968). In Woodward, this Court abandoned its long adherence to the rule that the place of a tort shall govern the rights of the injured party. [32] Id. at 299, 243 A.2d at 923. In lieu of that rule, the Court chose to adopt an interest-weighing approach whereby an action is separated into its various elements and each individual element or issue is governed by the law of the jurisdiction that has the most significant contacts relative thereto. Id. at 293, 243 A.2d at 919-20. The former approach (known as the lex loci delicti doctrine) was a subjective determination of whether a particular element was labeled as substantive or procedural that often controlled which law would be applied. Id. at 295, 243 A.2d at 920-21. Classifying an element as substantive or procedural was a subjective determination, in part, because the guidelines used in making such determinations were not very often open to objective classification or criticism. Id., 104 R.I. at 295, 243 A.2d at 921. The Woodward Court noted, when a court met a hard case in which it had to decide whether a particular matter was substantive or procedural and there was a serious question raised as to which label to applythe courts found that they had considerable latitude to characterize the matter as procedural and govern the case by the law of the forum. Id. at 295, 243 A.2d at 921. It is noteworthy, however, that the application of statutes of limitations cannot seriously be considered to be within the class of hard cases referred to by the Woodward Court because statutes of limitations historically have been viewed as procedural and are viewed as procedural today by a vast majority of states. See Part II, infra. Moreover, in adopting the interest-weighing approach, the Court in Woodward intimated the application of that approach would be limited to instances where the Court first had to determine whether the element in question was clearly not procedural. See id. at 298, 243 A.2d at 922. This is simply not the case with respect to statutes of limitations. Woodward, therefore, did not in any way overturn the long-held application of the forum state's statute of limitations adopted in Byron v. Great American Indemnity Co., 54 R.I. 405, 407-08, 173 A. 546, 547 (1934), and Staples v. Waite, 30 R.I. 516, 519, 76 A. 353, 354 (1910) ([N]o rule is better settled than that the statute of limitations of the state in which the action is brought, is to prevail   .). Indeed, in discussing the application of the theory to cases being litigated under common law (as opposed to statutory law) the Woodward Court held that [o]nce a forum has established sufficient interests to warrant applying its own substantive laws to a given issue,    it follows that the forum is warranted in applying its own substantive laws whether those laws are based on common-law rights, or whether they depend totally upon statutory enactment for their existence. Woodward, 104 R.I. at 298, 243 A.2d at 922 (emphasis added). In 1997, this Court expanded the interest-weighing approach upon determining whether the Rhode Island or New Hampshire statute of limitations controlled in Cribb v. Augustyn, 696 A.2d 285, 288 (R.I. 1997). In doing so, the Court summarilyand incorrectly in our opinionconcluded that the doctrine of lex loci delicti had been wholly abandoned in this jurisdiction without considering whether Woodward intended to limit the interest-weighing approach to cases where there was a serious question whether the issue was procedural or substantive. With all due respect, it is our opinion that the majority has extended the error in Cribb with its holding in this case.