Opinion ID: 1204495
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: 1. The Method of Analysis.

Text: In Johnson v. Pischke, 108 Idaho 19, 700 P.2d 19 (1985), this Court adopted and applied the most significant contacts analysis found in the Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Law for tort cases. Thus, my analysis is based on the Restatement's approach for determining which state's law applies. I begin with § 184, which provides in pertinent part: Recovery for tort or wrongful death will not be permitted in any state if the defendant is declared immune from such liability by the workmen's compensation statute of a state under which the defendant is required to provide insurance against the particular risk and under which (a) the plaintiff has obtained an award for the injury.... It is readily apparent that Stack Steel, having provided workers' compensation benefits under Washington law to Mrs. Barringer, is immune from liability to her in light of the blanket immunity in which Washington's Industrial Insurance Act clothes its employers. Comment C to § 184, however, states that the same result is not always true when contribution and indemnification are involved: A person who is declared immune from liability for tort or wrongful death to an injured employee or his dependents by an applicable workmen's compensation statute may nevertheless be liable for contribution or indemnity to a third person against whom a judgment in tort or wrongful death has been obtained on account of the injury. Whether he will so be held liable is determined by the law selected by application of the rule of § 173. Thus, I turn to the rule found in § 173, which states: The law selected by application of the rule of § 145 determines whether one tortfeasor has a right to contribution or indemnity against another tortfeasor. Section 145 states: (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. Finally, § 6 states: (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. The group of principles and factors set forth above are not to be mechanically applied; rather, they are to be analyzed and applied based upon the substantive issues they implicate. As this Court stated in Johnson, supra, in quoting Weintraub, Commentary of the Conflict of Laws, § 6.8, pp. 277-78 (1980): Whether or not a particular contact with a state is significant for conflicts purposes cannot be known until one first knows exactly what domestic tort rules are in conflict and what the policies underlying those rules are. Only then can one intelligently evaluate rather than mechanically count the contacts. A dozen contacts with an occurrence may fail to give a state any interest in having its rule applied to determine consequences of that occurrence. One contact may make the policies underlying a state's rule directly and rationally applicable to the case being decided. Once each of two states has a contact with an occurrence such that each state has an interest in having a different rule applied to determine controversies flowing from that occurrence, there is a real conflict that should be resolved rationally and not by counting contacts.