Court Opinion

ID: 9679008
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 06:38:14.915598+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:09.633769
License: Public Domain

*486Hallows, C. J.
(dissenting). The majority has overemphasized the Wisconsin contacts and has favored Wisconsin governmental interests and better law in determining that this state had the most significant relationship to the host-guest issue in this personal injury action. Wisconsin has only two contacts, the forum and the place of accident (here, the place of conduct and injury coincide). Illinois has substantial contacts, the domicile of all the parties and the center of the host-guest relation, which is the very issue involved. To paraphrase Wilcox v. Wilcox (1965), 26 Wis. 2d 617, 631, 133 N. W. 2d 408, we are concerned with the situation in which the plaintiff guest and the defendant host are Illinois residents who were on a trip which commenced in Illinois and was intended to end there. The policy of insurance was issued by an Illinois licensed company, delivered in Illinois, to afford coverage on an automobile licensed in Illinois and usually garaged and operated in Illinois.
Of the five choice-influencing considerations, we have little difficulty with predictability and the simplification of the judicial task. They are of little significance in tort cases. However, predictability was stressed as being most important in an antenuptial-agreement case which adopted the grouping-of-contacts theory for con*487tract issues prior to the application of such rule in Wilcox to torts. See Estate of Knippel (1959), 7 Wis. 2d 335, 96 N. W. 2d 514. However, on the issue of whether the host-guest law of Illinois should apply to protect the host, the factor of maintenance of interstate and international order has some significance. Illinois may have little basis to be offended when Wisconsin applies its law to protect its own residents in their right to recover in an automobile accident case when an Illinois resident is also involved. This was the situation in Zelinger v. State Sand & Gravel Co., ante, p. 98, 156 N. W. 2d 466.
Illinois, however, is greatly concerned when its law governing a relationship existing solely between its residents is at issue and is not applied to its residents who are temporarily in Wisconsin simply because a court of Wisconsin thinks its law is better than that of Illinois. The court of the forum must not only evaluate the factual contacts in relation to the issue to determine whether they give rise to a legitimate governmental interest but also evaluate the strength of these local concerns or interest in relation to the factual contacts. Thus three ingredients must be weighed with each choice-influencing factor — the factor itself, the importance of the factual contact in relation to the choice factor and the relevancy of both in relation to the precise issue involved.
The facts in the instant case are the converse of Wilcox v. Wilcox, supra, and its reasoning for not applying lex loci should be applied to be consistent and to further the hope expressed in that case that, page 635, “on a case-by-case-basis generalizations will soon become apparent and will take its place as a guide to the future to provide a uniform common law of conflicts.” If this reasoning were used the place of the accident contact would not support the application of our local concerns to the specific issue. The Wilcox reasoning is not to be depreciated, because in truth and in fact the happening of the accident in this case in Wisconsin was fortuitous *488and “should not now inure as a windfall to any of the defendants” (plaintiffs, here). The Wilcox reasoning also relied on the argument that the law of Wisconsin was the law of the place whose application was “anticipated and insured against,” citing Ehrenzweig, Guest Statutes in the Conflict of Laws — Towards a Theory of Enterprise Liability Under “Foreseeable and Insurable Laws,” 69 Yale L. J. (1960), 595, 603. Likewise here, in converse, Ehrenzweig’s “compelling reasons” would require the application of the Illinois law because Wisconsin law is not a “foreseeable and insurable law.” Certainly, the mobility of modern society must be considered but the question is how much compelling force or influence should this factor be given.
The only other factual contact in the instant case is that Wisconsin is the forum, but we said in Zelinger that the application of the law of the forum was merely a weak presumption to be used as a starting point in evaluating the choice-influencing factors in relation to the specific issue and not to the tort as a unitary entity. If the advancement of the local concerns of the forum is to be the controlling factor, as the majority seems to indicate, then we have deserted in fact, if not in word, our newly adopted method of deciding choice-of-law questions and are committed to applying the law of the forum because it is always our duty to advance Wisconsin governmental interests and to apply our better law in every conflicts case before us.
I think Illinois contacts and interests in relation to the host-guest issue here presented are substantially greater and more relevant than Wisconsin’s. I do not think the underpinnings of contacts of forum and place of accident on these facts are sufficient to entitle nonresidents to reject the governmental interest of their domicile state and the law under which their relationship was created and to claim what we consider and undoubtedly the plaintiff considers to be the better law. *489In Wilcox v. Wilcox, supra; Heath v. Zellmer (1967), 35 Wis. 2d 578, 151 N. W. 2d 644; and Zelinger v. State Sand & Gravel Co., supra, a Wisconsin resident was involved and was entitled to the protection of the law of his domicile and forum as against Illinois residents claiming the protection of Illinois law. The specific issues were guest-host statutes, parental immunity, and the right to contribution. But in the present case no Wisconsin resident is even remotely involved. I find nothing in Babcock v. Jackson (1963), 12 N. Y. 2d 473, 191 N. E. 2d 279; Dym v. Gordon (1965), 16 N. Y. 2d 120, 209 N. E. 2d 792; Macey v. Rozbicki (1966), 18 N. Y. 2d 289, 221 N. E. 2d 380; or in Clark v. Clark (1966), 107 N. H. 351, 222 Atl. 2d 205, which compels the majority decision.
The majority cites Kell v. Henderson (1965), 47 Misc. 2d 992, 263 N. Y. Supp. 2d 647, affirmed (1966), 26 App. Div. 595, 270 N. Y. Supp. 2d 552. While Kell would decide this case as the majority does, it is not an opinion of the highest court of New York and gives no discussion of its reasoning. True, the several scholars who have commented on Kell would seem to affirm the opinion on various grounds. Maurice Rosenberg 1 would apply the New York law to get away from the host-guest law of Ontario on the theory the host domicile should determine the standard of care to his guest unless the place of injury provides a higher standard. Basically, his rule is a preference for the standard of ordinary negligence or what he conceives to be the better rule. Donald T. Trautman,2 another professor, would also apply New York law because he finds the host-guest statutes obnoxious and reasons there is no real policy against ungrateful guest or collusive suits in Ontario. However, *490he would apply the Ontario law if there were such policies.
Professor Robert Leflar, the creator of the five choice-influencing factors we adopted in Heath, states that a jurisdiction committed to the dominant contacts approach to be consistent would have to apply the Ontario law in Kell but concludes a New York court would probably think its negligence rule makes better socioeconomic-legal sense than Ontario’s host-guest statute and the function of the law in society would be better served by applying New York’s rule. Leflar, Conflicts Law: More on Choice-Influencing Considerations, 54 Cal. L. Rev. (1966), 1584. This is exactly what the majority has done. This is an example of the homing instinct which Leflar also warns against as a natural tendency of the forum state to favor its own law.
Professor David Cavers seems to favor the rule of preference similar to Professor Rosenberg’s and would apply the law of the forum to these facts. See Cavers, The Choice-of-Law Process (1965), pp. 114-180. However, there is a common thread through the rationale of the reasoning of these professors although each of them has his own theory of a conflict-of-law rule, none of which were adopted in Heath. We submit that a consistent application of Babcock v. Jackson, supra (Wilcox is the Wisconsin equivalent) requires a reversal of Kell and a reversal on this appeal. But consistency and logic in the law, while not unknown, are apparently no longer considered a virtue. The majority opinion, which like the professors, concludes the law of the forum should be applied is based upon the premise that the host-guest statute is bad law, serves no legitimate purpose, and should be circumvented. The fifth choice-influencing consideration, the better law, then becomes the paramount if not the controlling factor. But in Heath and in Zelinger, we made it clear that none of the choice-in*491fluencing considerations standing alone is to be considered controlling.
If we were to follow the Restatement 2d, Conflicts of Law, Tentative Draft No. 9, we would apply the law of Illinois to the present facts for the reason that Illinois has more significant relationships to the particular issue here involved than Wisconsin. See sec. 379, comment b, and sec. 379 1, comment /, where the identical facts of the instant case are given as examples for the application of the nonforum law. The application of the choice-influencing factors should be consistent in every case with respect to the same issue although the relative importance of each factor will vary with the kind of tort or issue involved in relation to the factual contacts. If we are going to be consistent only in applying the law of the forum, then we are merely giving lip service to the new “significant contacts” rule. The result reached by the majority and its reasoning of the overpowering local concerns and better law logically and easily support the rule of the mechanical application of the law of the forum in every case, but this rule was rejected years ago in Bain v. Northern Pacific Ry. (1904), 120 Wis. 412, 98 N. W. 241.
I am authorized to state Mr. Justice Robert W. Hansen joins in this dissent.

 An Opinion for the New York Court of Appeals, 67 Colum. L. Rev. (1967), 459.

 A Comment, 67 Colum. L. Rev. (1967), 465.