Court Opinion

ID: 9623844
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 06:44:53.893034+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:51:12.675338
License: Public Domain

Justice MEYER
dissenting.
I dissent from the opinion of the majority.
It is undisputed that under the Virginia Workers’ Compensation Act, an injured employee under the circumstances presented in this case is barred from suing a third party in tort for injuries deriving from employment. Va. Code Ann. § 65.1-40 (Michie 1987). However, it is equally clear that this state’s Workers’ Compensa*130tion Act does not bar such an action. N.C.G.S. § 97-10.2 (1985); Lovette v. Lloyd, 236 N.C. 663, 73 S.E.2d 886 (1953).
While conceding that, in terms of strict tort law, the doctrine of lex loci delicti commissi requires that the law of Virginia would control, the majority nevertheless concludes that, because the North Carolina workers’ compensation law does not bar such an action, North Carolina law controls. The majority claims that this is so for two reasons. The first stems from the majority’s perception of the expansive scope of our workers’ compensation law. According to the majority, the North Carolina Workers’ Compensation Act involves “ ‘mutual concessions’ . . . wherein an employee trades off his common law right of recovery in tort for the assurance that any work-related injury ... will be compensated.” The majority reasons that because plaintiff has received benefits under the North Carolina Act, plaintiff is a “beneficiary” of North Carolina workers’ compensation law. Second, according to the majority, “public policy considerations” require that North Carolina law, which does not expressly bar negligence actions against third-party subcontractors, controls because (1) all the parties are North Carolina citizens, (2) plaintiff’s employment contract originated in North Carolina, and (3) plaintiff received benefits pursuant to North Carolina workers’ compensation law. The majority thus concludes that the interests of North Carolina are “paramount.”
While it is true that N.C.G.S. § 97-10.2 envisions a trade-off such as that recognized by the majority, this fact does not answer the conflict of laws question before the Court. The majority’s assertion that plaintiff is a “beneficiary” of the trade-off merely restates the obvious — that North Carolina workers’ compensation law allows plaintiff to recover benefits under the Act. The majority next points out that numerous circumstances pertain to North Carolina and that therefore North Carolina’s interests are paramount in ensuring that its workers’ rights under the Act be protected. Aside from being circular, this reasoning amounts to a bald, yet unstated, disavowal of our well-settled choice of laws doctrine.
This Court has long and consistently adhered to the rule of lex loci. Ironically, Justice Martin, author of the majority opinion, just recently voiced our continued allegiance to the doctrine.
[U]nder North Carolina law, when the injury giving rise to a negligence . . . claim occurs in another state, the law of *131that state governs resolution of the substantive issues in the controversy.
This Court has consistently adhered to the lex loci rule in tort actions. ... We see no reason to abandon this well-settled rule at this time. It is an objective and convenient approach which continues to afford certainty, uniformity, and predictability of outcome in choice of law decisions.
Boudreau v. Baughman, 322 N.C. 331, 335-36, 368 S.E.2d 849, 854 (1988) (citations omitted). Today, notwithstanding our recent adherence to the rule, the majority appears to adopt what may be best categorized as a “most significant relationship” test, a view at marked variance with lex loci.1 Using its new test, the majority is able to downplay the historic significance of the situs of the injury and correspondingly emphasize the significance of hitherto unheeded factors in the conflict of laws analysis. Such a sub silentio rejection of a well-settled doctrine of law can only lead to the uncertainty, lack of uniformity, and unpredictability contemplated by the Boudreau Court.
Lacking any certain precedent for this shift, and apparently loathe to acknowledge its disavowal of lex loci, the majority adopts a tortured reading of our decision in Leonard v. Johns-Manville Sales Corp., 309 N.C. 91, 305 S.E.2d 528 (1983). The Leonard Court, while affirming its adherence to lex loci, was faced with a very different set of facts than that with which we are faced today. There, plaintiff was injured in Virginia and obtained workers’ compensation benefits under Virginia law. Subsequent to his death, his widow brought a third-party tort action in North Carolina against manufacturers of asbestos. In North Carolina, in a negligence action by an injured employee, the third-party tort-feasor can allege as a pro tanto defense the concurring negligence of the employer. See N.C.G.S. § 97-10.2 (1991). Virginia, however, had no law either permitting or denying such defenses under the circumstances. We therefore concluded that North Carolina law applied even though plaintiff received workers’ compensation benefits from Virginia, stating that “in the absence of any Virginia law one way or the *132other on this issue, the rule of lex loci delicti commissi does not apply.” Leonard, 309 N.C. at 96, 305 S.E.2d at 352. Further, in a footnote, we offered that “even if Virginia law clearly prohibited an employer’s negligence to be litigated for the limited purposes allowed under North Carolina law, . . . the governmental interests and public policy of our state would require us to abjure the lex loci delicti commissi rule.” Id. at 96 n.1, 305 S.E.2d at 352 n.1.
Thus, upon close examination, Leonard provides scant support for the majority’s stance. While the opinion did deviate from a strict application of lex loci, it did so in a context bereft of alternative state law. Therefore, in Leonard, there was no way that Virginia law could apply because the Virginia law did not speak to the issue. It was only because of the vacuum in Virginia law that North Carolina law was applied in that case. Moreover, the majority’s contention that Leonard provides a public policy exception in choice of laws analysis lacks support in the law. The Leonard Court’s assertion, contained in a footnote, concerned matters not implicated by the facts at bar and therefore amounted to nothing more than dictum, rendering the assertion worthless as precedential value. Hayes v. Wilmington, 243 N.C. 525, 91 S.E.2d 673 (1956).
I must also note my reservations concerning the majority’s usage of the renvoi doctrine. It is indeed ironic that the majority rushes to embrace this anachronistic and much-criticized2 doctrine, while at the same time renouncing the well-settled body of law surrounding lex loci. Surely the majority cannot escape the irony of its application of renvoi insofar as it reinforces the importance of the law of the situs, requiring as it does that Virginia’s conflict of laws policy deserves deference, but not its substantive law. The majority places itself in the shoes of the Virginia court and prophesies that, because of plaintiff’s eligibility for and receipt of North Carolina workers’ compensation benefits, that court would apply North Carolina law rather than the law of Virginia. This convenient remission to North Carolina law by the majority cannot be taken as anything less than result-oriented.
*133Finally, the position adopted by the majority is at odds with the traditional view of other American jurisdictions.3
For the foregoing reasons, I respectfully dissent from the opinion of the majority.

. This test was first advanced by the American Law Institute in 1971. Gregory E. Smith, Choice of Law in the United States, 38 Hastings L.J. 1041, 1044-46 (1987). See Restatement (Second) Conflict of Laws §§ 6, 145(2), 146, 188(2) (1981). In 1976, this Court explicitly rejected an opportunity to adopt the Second Restatement approach. See Henry v. Henry, 291 N.C. 156,163-64, 229 S.E.2d 158,163 (1976).

. See Rhoda S. Barish, Renvoi and the Modem Approaches to Choice of .Law, 30 Am. U. L. Rev. 1049, 1065-68 (1981); Albert A. Ehrenzweig, Conflict of Laws 336 (1962); Erwin S. Griswold, Renvoi Revisited, 51 Harv. L. Rev. 1165, 1167 n.8 (1938).

. See Robert A. Leñar, American Conflicts Law 466 n.15 (4th ed. 1986); Restatement (Second) Conflict of Laws §§ 183-185 (1981); 81 Am. Jur. 2d Workmen’s Compensation §§ 63, 86, 88 (1976 & Supp. 1991).