Court Opinion

ID: 9638365
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 15:42:11.243523+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:06.029750
License: Public Domain

FRANK, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
While I concur in my colleagues’ decision, I do not agree with some of the statements made in reaching it.
1. I agree that the New York rules of conflicts of law control us, and that those rules refer us to the law-of England; I also agree that, whether the law of England or that of California be ultimately governing, the letter of June 5, 1946 (quoted in footnote 1 of Judge Swan’s opinion) is too indefinite to be an enforceable ex-ecutory contract. I disagree only as to a statement unnecessary to the result in which my colleagues answer the question whether, when it is said that New York “law” refers us to the “law” of England, that means English “contract law” or English “conflicts law.” On this point, it seems to me unnecessary to say anything. But my colleagues have assumed that, if the English courts would, in applying their “conflicts” rules, look to California “contract law” in passing upon the validity of the agreement, this court also should do so. Thus my colleagues seem to adhere to the doctrine of renvoi, needlessly taking a position in one of the most hotly debated disputes to fill the pages of the law reviews.
The question is a perplexing one which should be — and heretofore has been — approached cautiously by American -courts. The New York courts, which here we must follow, have not yet taken a definitive stand on the question. Although there is an early dictum of the New York Court of Appeals to the contrary, Dupuy v. Wirtz, 53 N.Y. 556, two New York lower courts have more recently held that, when a New York “conflicts” rule refers to the “law” of another country, that does not include the “conflicts” rule of that ‘ other country. In Re Tallmadge, 109 Misc. 696, 181 N.Y.S. 336, the Surrogate’s Court of -New York County held that a will should be interpreted according to the French “law of wills,” where a decedent of American nationality died 'domiciled in France. The French courts would have applied United States “law.” In Lann v. United Steel Works Corp., 166 Misc. 465, 1 N.Y.S.2d 951, the Supreme Court, Kings County, applied Dutch contract “law,” although the Dutch courts would have looked to German “law.” This view, rejecting renvoi, is also the view of the Restatement of Conflict of Laws, § 7(b); see Illustration.
*491In the present case, where we all agree on the result, and substantially agree on the road by which we reach that result, I think we should be wary of unnecessarily stirring up the hornets’ nest of renvoi along the way.
2. As I said before, I agree that under either the “law” of England or that of California, this agreement is too indefinite. In what my colleagues have said on this score, I concur. In the interest of caution, I would add that this case might have been different if Rose had made substantial expenditures or commitments in reliance upon the agreement. Cf. Judge Swan in Lord v. Pathe News, 2 Cir., 97 F.2d 508, where he cites with approval Anderson v. Blair, 202 Ala. 209, 80 So. 31, as to the unique aspects of joint adventure agreements.