Court Opinion

ID: 9527330
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:29:39.943375+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:25:43.425804
License: Public Domain

SANDERS, Justice
(dissenting).
This conflict of laws litigation presents a crossroad decision for this Court: whether to retain the mechanical rule that the law of the place of the tort governs liability arising from tortious conduct irrespective of the circumstances. The majority has elected to retain it. For reasons especially cogent in the present case, I disagree.
The plaintiff, Bessie Johnson, and the insured, Harley D. DeMoss, are residents of Shreveport, Louisiana. DeMoss owned an automobile, which was licensed, garaged, and insured in Louisiana. While a guest passenger on a trip to Iowa, Bessie Johnson sustained injuries when DeMoss ran into the rear of another vehicle in Arkansas. She filed suit in Louisiana against DeMoss and his insurer for damages.
Arkansas law denies recovery, because a guest statute requires that the vehicle be wilfully and wantonly operated in disregard of the rights of others. Ark.Stat. Ann. Sec. 75-913. Louisiana law grants recovery, because it requires only fault or negligence. LSA-C.C. Art. 2315.
The question presented is whether the Louisiana courts should apply Louisiana law or Arkansas law to the issue of the host’s liability to his guest.
The place-of-tort is a judicial rule in Louisiana. It was imported into our Court decisions after the turn of the century. It forms no part of our codes or statutes. Hence, in a strict sense, it is not law, for law is a formal expression of legislative will. LSA-C.C. Art. 1.
In recent years, numerous authorities have conclusively demonstrated that the inflexible rule is unsound. It fails to take into account legitimate governmental interests and the ideals of justice of the forum state. It relies solely upon a circumstance that is purely fortuitous in automobile accident cases: the place of the accident. See, e. g., Leflar, American Conflicts Law, §§ 133-136, pp. 323-333 (1968); Ehrenzweig on Conflict of Laws, § 211, pp. 541—548 (1962); Rheinstein, The Place of Wrong: A study in the Method of Case Law, 19 Tul.L.Rev. 4 (part 1), 165 (part 2) (1944); Comment, Conflict of Laws in Louisiana: Tort, 39 Tul.L.Rev. 96 (1964); Reese, Conflict of Laws and the Restate*313ment Second, 28 Law and Contemporary Problems 679 (1963). Weintraub, Revolution in the Choice of Law for Torts, 51 Am.Bar Assn.Journ. 441 (1965); Currie, Selected Essays on the Conflict of Laws, pp. 165, 183, 188 (1963); Dainow, Conflict of Laws, 25 La.L.Rev. 387-390 (1965).
Several jurisdictions have circumvented the rule by characterizing such actions as being other than tort, based upon some aspect of the case. See, e. g., Levy v. Daniels’ U-Drive Auto Renting Co., 108 Conn. 333, 143 A. 163, 61 A.L.R. 846; Haumschild v. Continental Casualty Co., 7 Wis. 2d 130, 95 N.W.2d 814. See also Leflar, American Conflicts Law, supra, § 133, pp. 323-325.
Most courts that have considered the question in recent years have abandoned the place-of-tort as an invariable rule. Lauritzen v. Larsen, 345 U.S. 571, 73 S.Ct. 921, 97 L.Ed. 1254 (1953); Tramontana v. S. A. Empresa De Viacao Aerea Rio Crandense, 121 U.S.App.D.C. 338, 350 F.2d 468 (1965), cert. denied, 383 U.S. 943, 86 S.Ct. 1195, 16 L.Ed.2d 206 (1966); Reich v. Purcell, 67 Cal.2d 551, 63 Cal.Rptr. 31, 432 P.2d 727 (1967); Emery v. Emery, 45 Cal.2d 421, 289 P.2d 218 (1955); Wessling v. Parish, 417 S.W.2d 259 (Ky.1967); Schmidt v. Driscoll Hotel, Inc., 249 Minn. 376, 82 N.W.2d 365 (1957); Clark v. Clark, 107 N.H. 351, 222 A.2d 205 (1966); Wilson v. Faull, 27 N.J. 105, 141 A.2d 768 (1958); Babcock v. Jackson, 12 N.Y.2d 473, 240 N.Y.S.2d 743, 191 N.E.2d 279, 95 A.L.R.2d 1 (1963); Casey v. Manson Constr. § Eng’r. Co., 247 Or. 274, 428 P.2d 898 (1967); Griffith v. United Air Lines, Inc., 416 Pa. 1, 203 A.2d 796 (1964); Wilcox v. Wilcox, 26 Wis.2d 617, 133 N.W.2d 408 (1965); Heath v. Zellmer, 35 Wis.2d 578, 151 N.W.2d 664 (1967); Mitchell v. Craft (Miss.), 211 So.2d 509 (1968).
On the issue of guest statute application, recent decisions have, with only two exceptions, rejected the rule of place-of-tort. Babcock v. Jackson, supra; Clark v. Clark, supra; Wilcox v. Wilcox, supra; Heath v. Zellmer, supra; Witherspoon v. Salm (In diana App.) 237 N.E.2d 116 (1968); Mullane v. Stavola, 101 N.J.Super. 184, 243 A. 2d 842 (1968); Dubois v. Siewert, 293 N.Y.S.2d 802 (1968); Woodward v. Stewart, (Rhode Island) 243 A.2d 917 (1968); Fuerste v. Bemis (Iowa), 156 N.W.2d 831 (1968); Kopp v. Rechtzigel, 273 Minn. 441, 141 N.W.2d 526 (1966); Melik v. Sarahson, 49 N.J. 226, 229 A.2d 625 (1967); Kuchinic v. McCrory, 422 Pa. 620, 222 A. 2d 897 (1966); Macey v. Rozbicki, 18 N.Y.2d 289, 274 N.Y.S.2d 591, 221 N.E.2d 380 (1966); Tooker v. Lopez, 24 N.Y.2d 569, 301 N.Y.S.2d 519, 249 N.E.2d 394 (1969); Kennedy v. Dixon (Missouri) 439 S.W.2d 173 (1969). Contra, White v. King, 244 Md. 348, 223 A.2d 763 (1966); *315Friday v. Smoot (Delaware) 211 A.2d 594 (1965).1
Despite the foregoing jurisprudence, the majority has based the choice of law here upon the archaic rule. In my opinion, the choice of law should be based on something more substantial. The conflict of law authorities have clearly identified the relevant considerations. Cheatham and Reese, Choice of the Applicable Law, 52 Col.L.Rev. 959 (1952); Yntema, The Objectives of Private International Law, 35 Can.Bar Rev. 721, 734-735 (1957); Cavers, The Choice-of-Law Process, 139— 203 (1965); Restatement of Conflict of Laws (Second), Section 6. They may be summarized as predictability of results, maintenance of interstate and international order, simplification of the judicial task, advancement of the forum’s governmental interests, and application of the better rule of law. Clark v. Clark, supra; Mitchell v. Craft, supra; Leflar, American Conflicts Law, supra, § 105, p. 245.
Predictability of legal results in advance of an automobile accident is largely irrelevant. Automobile accidents are unplanned. The expectations of the parties as to liability, if they had any, would relate to the law of Louisiana, where the parties were domiciled, the automobile garaged, and the liability insurance policy issued.
Maintenance of interstate orderliness presents no problem here. The sensibilities of neither state will be affected by the choice of law. Interstate travel will also be unaffected.
If simplification of the court’s task balances either way, it is on the side of Louisiana law. Courts of this state should be able to apply the fault concept of Article 2315 of the Louisiana Civil Code with greater ease and confidence.
Louisiana’s governmental interest is paramount. Both the claimant and the insured are domiciled here. The automobile was garaged here. The public liability insurance was issued here. The trip was to begin and end here. Our state has a strong policy of protecting its citizens from loss by the fault of another. This principle is embodied in Article 2315 of the Louisiana Civil Code, providing:
“Every act whatever of man that causes damage to another obliges him by whose fault it happened tc repair it.”2
*317Arkansas has little or no governmental interest in the damage claims of Louisiana residents against each other based on a host-guest relation. Unlike “rules of the road”, the factors that bear on the host-guest relationship center in Louisiana.
The policy reflected in guest statutes is to protect hosts from ungrateful guests and to protect liability insurance companies from suits brought by guests in collusion with their hosts. Hence, under this policy, Arkansas is primarily concerned only with suits brought in its own courts affecting hosts, guests, and insurance companies subject to its jurisdiction. See Clark v. Clark, supra.
Finally, we are of the opinion that the Louisiana fault rule is superior to the wilful and wanton rule of the Arkansas Guest Statute. The New Hampshire Supreme Court, speaking through Chief Justice Kenison in Clark v. Clark, supra, demonstrated this quite clearly:
“The automobile guest statutes were enacted in about half the states, in the 1920’s and early 1930’s, as a result of vigorous pressures by skillful proponents. Legislative persuasion was largely in terms of guest relationships (hitchhikers) and uninsured personal liabilities that are no longer characteristic of our automotive society. Cavers, The Choice of Law Process 297 (1965). The problems of automobile accident law then were not what they are today. New Hampshire never succumbed to this persuasion. No American state has newly adopted a guest statute for many years. Courts of states which did adopt them are today construing them much more narrowly, evidencing their dissatisfaction with them. Pedrick, Taken for a Ride: The Automobile Guest and Assumption of Risk, 22 La.L.Rev. 90 (1961); Comment, the Ohio Guest Statute, 22 Ohio St.L.J. 629 (1961). Though still on the books, they contradict the spirit of the times. Leflar, Choice-Influencing Considerations on Conflicts Law, 41 N.Y.U.L.Rev. 267, 278, 307 (1966). Unless other considerations demand it, we should not go out of our way to enforce such a law of another state as against the better law of our own state. Weintraub, A Method for Solving Conflicts Problems: Torts, 48 Cornell L.Q. 215, 220 (1963).”
See also Heath v. Zellmer, supra.
In my opinion, we should abandon the place-of-tort as an invariable rule and place the choice of law on a sounder basis. The decision of this Court in Webb v. Zurich Insurance Company, 251 La. 558, 557 (n. 18) 205 So.2d 398, 405 (n. 18) (1967) and that of the Third Circuit Court of Appeal in Universal C.I.T. Credit Corporation v. Hulett, 151 So.2d 705 (1963) point the way to a new approach and a just result.
For the reasons assigned, I respectfully dissent.
*319SANDERS and BARHAM, JJ., are of the opinion a rehearing should be granted.
BARHAM, Justice,
is of the further opinion that the Court of Appeal should not have been rebuked for its failure to follow “the settled law of this State”. I commend it for its excellent discussion and adjudication thereunder of a Louisiana jurisprudentially created “conflicts” rule which has never been definitively analyzed by this court and which is in fact founded historically upon what was then the universal common law rule of our sister states. That jurisprudential foundation and source is now undergoing reexamination and determination in those common law states, and the prevailing trend is for the change in that rule advocated by the Court of Appeal.

. The majority speculates that the decision in Dym v. Gordon, 16 N.Y.2d 120, 262 N.Y.S.2d 463, 209 N.E.2d 792 (1963) may presage a “turnabout” from Babcock v. Jackson, supra. Quite to the contrary, Babcock was recently reaffirmed. See Macey v. Rozbicki, 18 N.Y.2d 289, 274 N.Y.S.2d 591, 221 N.E.2d 380 (1966); Tooker v. Lopez, 24 N.Y.2d 569, 301 N.Y.S.2d 519, 249 N.E.2d 394 (1969).

. In substantially the same language, the principle was set forth in Louisiana’s first Civil Code, as Article 16 of the Civil Code of 1808. Prior thereto, it was incorporated in the Code Napoleon (1804).