P.V. ex rel. T.V. v. Camp Jaycee

• Decision Date: 24 November 2008
• Docket Number: A-31 September Term 2007.
• Citation: 197 N.J. 132,962 A.2d 453
• Parties: P.V., by her Guardians Ad Litem T.V. and L.V. and T.V. and L.V., Individually, Plaintiffs-Respondents, v. CAMP JAYCEE, Defendant-Appellant, and "A" Through "Z" Doe (fictitious names actual names being unknown), Defendants.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

962 A.2d 453

197 N.J. 132

P.V., by her Guardians Ad Litem T.V. and L.V. and T.V. and L.V., Individually, Plaintiffs-Respondents, v. CAMP JAYCEE, Defendant-Appellant, and "A" Through "Z" Doe (fictitious names actual names being unknown), Defendants.

A-31 September Term 2007.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

Argued February 19, 2008.

Decided November 24, 2008.

Walter F. Kawalec, III, Cherry Hill, argued the cause for appellant (Marshall, Dennehey, Warner, Coleman & Goggin, attorneys).

Philip G. Auerbach, Red Bank, argued the cause for respondents (Lomurro, Davison, Eastman & Munoz, attorneys).

Justice LONG delivered the opinion of the Court.

This choice-of-law case involves the question of whether New Jersey's charitable immunity statute, N.J.S.A. 2A:53A-7 to -11, applies to a tort committed in Pennsylvania. In 2003, a mentally disabled New Jersey resident was sexually abused at a summer camp located in Pennsylvania but operated by a New Jersey charity. Her parents sued the camp individually and on her behalf for negligent supervision at the campsite. The trial judge granted the camp's motion for summary judgment based on the doctrine of charitable immunity to which New Jersey adheres by statute. The Appellate Division reversed, declaring that Pennsylvania law governs the action because the commonwealth, which has abrogated charitable immunity and is the state in which the tortious conduct and injury occurred, has the greater governmental interest in the case. The camp filed a petition for certification that we granted.

Although we have traditionally denominated our conflicts approach as a flexible "governmental interest" analysis, we have continuously resorted to the Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws (1971) in resolving conflict disputes arising out of tort. See, e.g., Erny v. Estate of Merola, 171 N.J. 86, 95-96, 792 A.2d 1208 (2002); Fu v. Fu, 160 N.J. 108, 119-39, 733 A.2d 1133 (1999). That approach is the "most significant relationship" test. Under that standard, the analysis in a personal injury case begins with the section 146 presumption that the local law of the state of the injury will apply. Once the presumptively applicable law is identified, that choice is tested against the contacts detailed in section 145 and the general principles outlined in section 6 of the Second Restatement. If another state has a more significant relationship to the parties or issues, the presumption will be overcome. If not, it will govern.

Examining the facts of this case as they relate to the contacts and principles articulated in the Second Restatement, we conclude that Pennsylvania, the state in which the charity chose to operate and which is the locus of the tortious conduct and injury, has at least as significant a relationship to the issues as New Jersey, and that the presumptive choice of Pennsylvania law therefore has not been overcome.

I.

Over thirty years ago, New Jersey Camp Jaycee, Inc. (Camp Jaycee) was organized as a not-for-profit corporation to operate a summer program for mentally challenged individuals.¹ Although Camp Jaycee was incorporated in New Jersey and maintains an administrative office here, it has chosen to carry out its primary charitable mission in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania at a campsite in the town of Effort.

In 2003, one of Camp Jaycee's campers was P.V., a twenty-one-year-old female from New Jersey with Down syndrome and mental and emotional handicaps. P.V. had attended the camp for at least three consecutive summers. According to the complaint, in August 2003, P.V. was sexually assaulted by another camper, as a result of which she sustained injuries requiring medical treatment.

P.V.'s parents, T.V. and L.V., as guardians ad litem and individually, instituted a personal injury action in New Jersey against Camp Jaycee and several fictitious defendants. They alleged that Camp Jaycee and its agents, servants, and employees were careless and negligent in the supervision of P.V. "at the camp" in Pennsylvania. Camp Jaycee filed a motion to dismiss, asserting immunity from suit under the New Jersey Charitable Immunity Act (CIA). N.J.S.A. 2A:53A-7 to -11.

The trial judge granted Camp Jaycee's motion for summary judgment on the ground that, under the CIA, the camp is immune from suit by a beneficiary. The Appellate Division reversed, declaring that the CIA is not the governing law of the case because Pennsylvania, the state of the wrongful conduct and injury, has abrogated charitable immunity and has a greater interest in regulating the conduct of entities operating within its borders than New Jersey has in immunizing not-for-profit corporations. P.V. v. Camp Jaycee, 393 N.J.Super. 19, 21-22, 922 A.2d 761 (App.Div.2007). In ruling, the Appellate Division relied in part on the exceptions that have been carved out of the CIA (e.g. the CIA does not immunize charities against actions for intentional conduct) as diluting New Jersey's interest. We granted Camp Jaycee's petition for certification, 192 N.J. 295, 927 A.2d 1293 (2007), and now affirm the judgment of the Appellate Division.

II.

Camp Jaycee argues that New Jersey has a transcendent interest in the application of its charitable immunity law because the camp was organized under the laws of New Jersey; both parties are domiciled in New Jersey; Pennsylvania has no interest in the post-event rights and liabilities of two New Jersey domiciliaries Pennsylvania is merely "the happenstance of the situs of the accident"; and no Pennsylvania citizen was injured.

P.V. counters that Pennsylvania, the state in which Camp Jaycee chose to operate; in which the tortious conduct and injury occurred; and in which the relationship of the parties was centered, has at least as great if not a greater interest than New Jersey in the resolution of this matter because of its concerns over conduct-regulation and redress to tort victims.

III.

The background of our present approach to conflict of laws is helpful to this analysis. Traditionally, our courts, like those of most jurisdictions, followed the bright-line rules embodied in the Restatement (First) of Conflict of Laws (1934). Those rules applied the law of the jurisdiction where a right was said to have "vested." William L. Reynolds, Legal Process and Choice of Law, 56 Md. L.Rev. 1371, 1376 (1997).

A tort right vested, for example, in the state where the injury occurred (rather than, say, where the wrongful conduct occurred); a contract right vested in the state where the last act necessary to make the contract took place (usually the acceptance), and so on. The system purported to solve all choice-of-law problems by isolating a key fact (such as where the plaintiff was injured); once the location of that fact is identified, the law to be applied follows ineluctably. On the surface, at least, the judge exercises no discretion; choosing applicable law is a routine, humdrum enterprise. [Ibid.]

Under that system, courts could choose between competing laws simply by applying concepts such as lex fori, lex loci, and lex contractus, without analyzing the content of the laws, the specific facts of a case, or the contacts the parties may have had with other states. That approach often resulted in the application of the law of a state with no real connection to the litigation and led to the downfall of the First Restatement. Id. at 1380-85.

During the 1950s, "legal realists" attacked the vested rights theory and countered that, in choosing between conflicting laws, courts should take into account the policies behind those laws and the facts of the cases that gave rise to the conflict. Id. at 1380 (citing Bruce Posnak, Choice of Law: Interest Analysis and Its "New Crits", 36 Am. J. Comp. L. 681, 682 (1988) (noting early criticisms of First Restatement)).

In 1967, we joined with other jurisdictions in abandoning the First Restatement approach to tort cases, embracing the modern governmental interest analysis, for which Professor Brainerd Currie is generally credited.² See Mellk v. Sarahson, 49 N.J. 226, 234-35, 229 A.2d 625 (1967) (foregoing application of lex loci approach). The governmental interest test has traditionally been described as an approach by which courts seek to assess countervailing state laws through statutory construction and other interpretative mechanisms to determine whether the states' policies are aligned with either party in the litigation. Jeffrey M. Shaman, The Vicissitudes of Choice of Law: The Restatement (First, Second) and Interest Analysis, 45 Buff. L.Rev. 329, 349-50 (1997). See generally Brainerd Currie, Selected Essays on the Conflict of Laws 627 (1963). Under the governmental interest test, where an actual conflict exists, courts must "identify the governmental policies underlying the law of each state and how those policies are affected by each state's contacts to the litigation and the parties." Veazey v. Doremus, 103 N.J. 244, 248, 510 A.2d 1187 (1986).

Four years after our adoption of the governmental interest analysis, and seventeen years after the reform effort had been undertaken, the Second Restatement was finalized. To a great extent, it embraced the "reasoned elaboration" school of judicial analysis that requires a thorough explanation of every judicial decision, tied closely to the facts of the case, and an articulation of why the decision is just. Reynolds, supra, 56 Md. L.Rev. at 1387 (quoting Henry Hart, Jr. & Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process: Basic Problems in the Making and Application of Law 145-52 (William Eskridge, Jr. & Philip P. Frickey eds., 1994)). In place of black letter law, the Second Restatement contains presumptions and detailed considerations that bear on conflicts analyses. The philosophy underlying the Second Restatement has been described as follows:

to provide guidance for judges by reminding them of things to consider in making a choice-of-law decision. The judge then would weigh the factors in light of the facts and...