Opinion ID: 2218628
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: why abandon lex loci?

Text: It is difficult to find a learned, thoughtful writing which defends lex loci. Perhaps the most common (if not only) defense of the rule is that it is simple and easy to apply. This, I suggest, lacks certain intellectual elegance. It seems to be generally accepted that lex loci lacks analytical focus and has no objective standards. Sprague, Choice of Law: A Fond Farewell to Comity and Public Policy, 74 Cal.L.Rev. 1447 (1986). The underlying rationales for the rule, when put into practice, are simply not advanced, thus there is no reason to preserve it. Olmstead v. Anderson, 428 Mich. 1, 400 N.W.2d 292 (1987). The more modern approaches to conflicts of law are considered a necessary development to free the judicial system from the increasingly obvious inappropriateness of the old rules. Sprague, supra, at 1476. As Professor Weintraub in Commentary on the Conflict of Laws, Second Edition, at § 6.19, said: But in shaping legal rules to apply to the complexities of the human condition, a quest for absolute certainty and complete simplicity is a child's dream. Rigid, simple rules produce irrational and dysfunctional solutions to variable, complex problems. Legal rules should be, perhaps inevitably must be, rules that produce socially desirable solutions to the problems to which those rules are addressed and that also are feasible for the members of a learned profession to administer. The place-of-wrong rule focuses on the one contact, injury, that, in unintentional tort cases, is most likely to be unrelated to the policy of any tort rule. The price paid for simplicity of that rule is, therefore, too high. (Emphasis added.) See also Scoles and Hay, Conflict of Laws, Hornbook Series (L.Ed.1984); Leflar, The Law of Conflict of Laws (1959); Hancock, Studies in Modern Choice-of-Law: Torts, Insurance, Land Titles (1984). As stated by Chief Justice Wuest's special concurrence [3] in Hofer v. Meyer, 295 N.W.2d 333, 337-38 (S.D.1980): These ancient decisions have no place in modern society. In Hofer, Chief Justice Wuest went on to state: The common law is not a rigid and arbitrary code, crystalized and immutable. Rather, it is flexible and adapts itself to changing conditions. It is an accumulation of expressions of the various judicial tribunals in their efforts to ascertain what is right and just between individuals with respect to private disputes. What may be considered a just disposition of a dispute at one stage of history may not be at another stage, considering changing social, economic and other conditions of society. The principle of stare decisis was not meant to keep a stranglehold on developments which are responsive to new values, experiences and circumstances. (Emphasis added.)