Court Opinion

ID: 6606630
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-07-20 20:13:48.954144+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:58:12.752604
License: Public Domain

Fairchild, J.
(concurring). I concur in the reversal of the judgment, but do not find it necessary to reexamine settled Wisconsin law in order to do so. A fundamental change in the law of Wisconsin such as the one announced by the majority in this case, which will importantly affect many people, should be made, if at all, in *143a case where the question is necessarily presented. Both parties assumed that their case would be decided under the principle which is being overturned by the majority, and accordingly, we have not had the benefit of brief or argument upon the validity of the principle.
1. Solution of this case without overruling previous decisions. Plaintiff wife alleges a personal injury tort cause of action arising in California against defendant husband. Defendant husband pleads that she has no cause of action because she was his wife. It has been the rule in Wisconsin that the existence or nonexistence of immunity because of family relationship is substantive and not merely procedural, and is to be determined by the law of the locus state. The law of California is that the existence or nonexistence of immunity is a substantive matter, but that it is an element of the law of status, not of tort. The tort law of California is no more concerned with immunity than is Wisconsin’s. Thus it makes no difference under the facts of this case whether we look directly to the law of Wisconsin to determine that immunity is not available as a defense or look to the law of Wisconsin only because California, having no general tort principle as to immunity, classifies immunity as a matter of status.
2. Policy questions requiring full consideration. Under the principle announced by the majority that the existence or nonexistence of immunity is a matter of status, our courts must henceforth recognize immunity as a defense where the alleged tort occurred in Wisconsin, but the parties are married and are domiciled in an immunity state. This would mean that such an act is or is not a remedial wrong depending upon the state where the parties happen to be domiciled.
The determination of domicile is not always easy, yet the courts will henceforth be required to determine it in many cases where it has heretofore been considered im*144material.- A good many married couples who may have domicile in other states are in Wisconsin for extended periods. Some, for example, are students at colleges and universities, some stationed here for military duty, some temporarily assigned here by employers, and some vacationing. Under the rule abandoned by the majority, ajjtortious act done in Wisconsin by a nonresident and injuring his spouse gave rise to the same civil liability as if done by a permanent resident.
The problem involved apparently has its principal impact because of injuries sustained in automobile accidents where members of a family travel together across state lines. Under the new rule Wisconsin courts will not countenance the defense of immunity for a Wisconsin husband when sued by his wife for an injury occurring in an immunity state. I concede there is some merit to the logic relied upon and that there may be some practical benefit to Wisconsin people. It is to be remembered, however, that under the law of many states a wife will have no cause of action for simple negligence of her husband because she will be a gratuitous guest. The fact that she and her husband are domiciled in Wisconsin and that they are on a family trip which began in Wisconsin will not exempt her from that principle of tort law. Thus the purely practical benefit to Wisconsin people which might appear at first blush to arise from the new rule will be limited.
If we deem it necessary and proper at this stage to reject a well-settled rule of law, should we limit ourselves to all the implications of the rule that the availability of the defense of immunity is to be governed by the law of domicile ? If we have a free choice of what the law is to be henceforth might not the public policy of Wisconsin be better served by some other alternative? One possible alternative is that the availability of the defense of family immunity will be determined by the law of the forum. Actually this is *145the result reached in a good many of the decisions, although different reasons are given. Admittedly, the proposition that family immunity is substantive and destroys or prevents the existence of a cause of action can be supported by neater logic than a proposition that it is only a denial of a remedy in the courts of a particular state, but these arguments are metaphysical and might well be re-examined if greater justice would be accomplished as a practical matter by a change in thinking.
Another possible alternative would be that the forum state when faced with the question of immunity choose the law of whichever state (locus or domicile) conforms more closely to its own. The party adversely affected by such a rule can be said to have subjected himself to the law of the domicile state by choosing to live in it or to the law of the locus state by choosing to travel in it. Our legislature has set up a similar rule for a choice of law with respect to the mode of execution of a will outside of Wisconsin. Sec. 238.07, Stats.
In summary, I would dispose of the present case upon the theory that California law governs the existence of the alleged cause of action and that in California the immunity question cannot be decided by resort to the law of torts but rather the law of status. I would leave to a later case the consideration of whether the Wisconsin rule of choice of law as to the defense of family immunity should remain as heretofore or, if it is to be changed, which rule will be best.
I am authorized to state that Mr. Justice Bkown concurs in this opinion.