Court Opinion

ID: 9852034
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:23:23.501887+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:21.361054
License: Public Domain

Sears, Presiding Justice,
concurring.
Although I am constrained by OCGA § 1-3-9 to concur in the *813judgment of the majority opinion,7 I write separately to urge our General Assembly to adopt the rule of the Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws § 187 (2), concerning when the courts of this State will honor the law of another state that the parties to a contract have chosen to govern their contractual relationship.8 The Restatement rule has several advantages over the more restrictive rule represented by OCGA § 1-3-9. It recognizes that “persons are free within broad limits to determine the nature of their contractual obligations,” and, with regard to multistate transactions, it fosters the “[p]rime objectives of contract law” “to protect the justified expectations of the parties and to make it possible for them to foretell with accuracy what will be their rights and liabilities under the contract.”9 In addition, the Restatement rule provides adequate protection to the policies of this state by providing that if Georgia has a “materially greater interest” in the resolution of the issue in question than the state chosen by the parties and that if the policy of the chosen state is contrary to the fundamental policy of this state, this state may apply its own laws to the issue in question.
Decided May 19, 2003
Reconsideration denied July 11,2003.
Callaway, Braun, Riddle & Hughes, Dana F. Braun, for appellant.
Hunter, Maclean, Exley & Dunn, Wade W. Herring II, Colin A. B. McRae, for appellee.
For the foregoing reasons, I concur in the majority opinion.
I am authorized to state that Chief Justice Fletcher and Justice Carley join in this concurrence.

 In this regard, under the principles set forth in Allstate Ins. Co. v. Hague, 449 U. S. 302 (101 SC 633, 66 LE2d 521) (1981), I see no constitutional impediment to the application of Georgia law in this case.

 Under § 187 (2), the law chosen by the parties will govern unless
(a) the chosen state has no substantial relationship to the parties or the transaction and there is no other reasonable basis for the parties’ choice, or (b) application of the law of the chosen state would be contrary to a fundamental policy of a state that has a materially greater interest than the chosen state. . . .

 Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws § 187, Comment e.