Opinion ID: 2218953
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: Nebraska Considerations

Text: At this point, the question becomes whether the exclusion nonetheless cannot be enforced in this state because it violates some Nebraska statute or public policy. We begin by noting that the owner's estate does not claim any such impediment to enforcement; its analysis of the case proceeds on the premise that the matter is to be resolved entirely under the law of California. In that regard, it is correct. While language can be found comforting to a court which wishes to avoid the application of a rule of law it does not like, see, e.g., Paul v. National Life, 177 W.Va. 427, 352 S.E.2d 550 (1986), it is a rare case in which a claim validly existing under the law of one American state can be said to be so far outside the pale of social, economic, and moral standards currently imposed by our civilization as to be violative of the strong public policy of any sister state. Robert A. Leflar et al., American Conflicts Law § 45 at 145 (4th ed. 1986). Thus, a Tennessee court in Diviney v. Vineyard, No. 01-A-01-9012-CV00458, 1991 WL 66480 (Tenn.App. May 1, 1991), applied the guest statute of Alabama in denying recovery for injuries sustained in an accident that occurred in Alabama; a Missouri court in Bruton v. Shelter Mut. Ins. Co., 748 S.W.2d 379 (Mo.App.1988), applied the law of Arkansas in determining whether the seller owned an automobile involved in an accident in Missouri; and a Texas court in Crisman v. Cooper Industries, 748 S.W.2d 273 (Tex.App.1988), applied Florida's statute of repose in a products liability suit brought on behalf of the family of a decedent who was killed when a pickup truck with an allegedly poorly marked trailer pulled in front of the vehicle in which the decedent was riding as a passenger in Florida. Indeed, not only does the owner's estate not point to any Nebraska statute or other source of Nebraska public policy which denies enforceability to the subject exclusion, we have approved a similar exclusion in a policy of insurance issued in Nebraska. See Allstate Ins. Co. v. Farmers Mut. Ins. Co., 233 Neb. 248, 444 N.W.2d 676 (1989) (the court ruled enforceable an exclusion from protection for bodily injury to the insured or any member of the family of the insured residing in the same household as the insured).