Court Opinion

ID: 9457016
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:09:57.128118+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:11.271014
License: Public Domain

*477KALODNER, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I dissent from this Order because it inescapably implicitly holds that a defendant’s domicile on the day of the filing of an action is of dispositive significance in deciding an issue based on conflict of laws.
That implicit holding is utterly without precedent and it is here an exercise in futility.
Moreover, the District Court here made the fact finding that the defendant, Leta Moore, her husband and children were domiciled in Maine on July 15, 1965, when the defendant’s husband and children were injured while passengers in an automobile negligently operated by defendant on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. The District Court held that both Maine and Pennsylvania apply the doctrine of interfamilial immunity which precludes suits by one spouse against another and of minor children against a parent, and this doctrine has “absolving effect on third parties.” The District Court further held that Pennsylvania, under its conflicts rule, would apply the law of the state where the family was domiciled at the time of the accident, viz., Maine. The District Court’s finding as to domicile and its holding that Pennsylvania would apply the law of the state of domicile are not challenged on this appeal.
The single critical question presented by the instant appeal is whether the United States, by reason of a state doctrine of interfamilial immunity with respect to tort actions, is barred from recovering from the defendant, pursuant to the provisions of the Medical Care Recovery Act, 42 U.S.C.A. § 2651 et seq., the value of medical care furnished to her husband, an Air Force sergeant, and their children, for injuries occasioned by defendant’s negligent operation of an automobile in which they were passengers.
The instant Order does not serve the judicial economy, here or in the Court below.