Beaulieu v. Beaulieu

• Citation: 265 A.2d 610
• Parties: Clifford BEAULIEU v. Roger B. BEAULIEU.
• Decision Date: 27 May 1970
• Court: Supreme Judicial Court of Maine (US)

Page 610

265 A.2d 610

Clifford BEAULIEU v. Roger B. BEAULIEU.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

May 27, 1970.

Marden, Dubord, Bernier & Chandler, by Bruce W. Chandler, Waterville, for plaintiff.

Mahoney, Desmond, Robinson & Mahoney, by William B. Mahoney and M. Roberts Hunt, Portland, for defendant.

Before WILLIAMSON, C. J., and WEBBER, DUFRESNE, WEATHERBEE and POMEROY, JJ.

DUFRESNE, Justice.

This action arose out of an automobile accident that occurred in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The agreed statement of facts in support of the complaint avers that on January 8, 1967 while the plaintiff was riding as a passenger in his father's automobile, the father's negligence in approaching a right-hand curve on Route 9 in Newton caused the automobile to skid upon the slippery road and strike a telephone pole located on the left side of the road, causing the plaintiff's injuries for which he now seeks compensation. The parties agree they both are presently residents of the State of Maine and were so at the time of the accident. Their trip to Massachusetts was to afford the plaintiff the occasion to see his brother in Newton concerning a job interview. They had planned to return to the State of Maine where their journey had its origin. As part of the agreed statement of facts, the plaintiff concedes that his claim is not grounded upon any factual setting of gross negligence. The defendant's motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6), M.R.C.P. raises a legal issue of conflict of laws, whether the substantive law of the State of Maine or that of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is applicable in determining the rights and liabilities of the parties in light of the fact that the plaintiff's cause of action is dependent upon proof of wrongful conduct amounting to no more than ordinary negligence. Although the agreement is silent thereon, we infer from the parties' domicile in Maine that the vehicle was registered and garaged in this State, and, if insurance coverage was obtained to secure protection against accidental injuries arising out of its operation, the same was issued in this State. We additionally infer that the defendant had a Maine operator's license. The case is with us on report under Rule 72, M.R.C.P.

Massachusetts, as part of the development of its common law, adopted the rule, that in order to recover from his host a guest has the burden to establish gross negligence. Massaletti v. Fitzroy, 1917, 228 Mass. 487, 118 N.E. 168; Falden v. Crook, 1961, 342 Mass. 173, 172 N.E.2d 686. The Massachusetts doctrine of gross negligence is not recognized as a part of the law of this State. Winslow v. Tibbetts, 1932, 131 Me. 318, 162 A. 785.

Here, in guest cases the host-operator must exercise in his own conduct ordinary care, which is 'that degree of care that the great majority of legally responsible persons, owing a legal duty to use care, or the type of that majority-that is to say, a person of ordinary intelligence and reasonable prudence and judgment-ordinarily exercises under like or similar circumstances.' Levesque v. Pelletier, 1932, 131 Me. 266, 161 A. 198; Chaisson v. Williams, 1931, 130 Me. 341, 156 A. 154; Avery v. Thompson, 1918, 117 Me. 120, 103 A. 4. There are no degrees of care and no degrees of negligence in this State. Nadeau v. Fogg, 1950, 145 Me. 10, 70 A.2d 730. Furthermore, at the time of the accident, Maine had enacted a comparative negligence statute, which permits a person who suffers damage as a result partly of his own fault and partly of the fault of another to recover such proportionate part of his total damages as the defendant's share of responsibility in causing the damages bears to the whole damages, providing the claimant is not 'equally at fault.' Thus, there is a clear conflict between the law of Maine and that of Massachusetts and the question is which one governs.

The defendant claims that the issue was settled long ago in Winslow v. Tibbetts, supra, when this Court peremptorily stated the applicable rule of conflict of laws in these terms:

'It is elementary law that the rights of the plaintiffs to recover are controlled by the law of the place where the injuries were received, and the law of the jurisdiction where relief is sought dermines the remedy and its incidents, such as pleading, practice, and evidence.'

At the time of Winslow v. Tibbetts, supra, the choice-of-law rule in cases, such as the instant suit, under the great weight of judicial authority was settled and known as lex loci delicti which invariably allowed the law of the place where the injury occurred absolute control. Restatement, Conflict of Laws, ss. 377-383 (1934). It was assumed that the law of the situs created the cause of action and necessarily determined the extent of the liability, whether the disputed issues involved conduct, survival of actions, applicability of a wrongful death statute, immunity from liability or other rules. The rule was based upon a vested rights theory, i. e. rights originating and attaching in the foreign state by reason of a breach of duty arising under foreign law. It is in that atmosphere of categorical appliance of the lex loci delicti that this Court reaffirmed Winslow v. Tibbetts in Pringle v. Gibson, 1937, 135 Me. 297, 195 A. 695, and denied recovery to residents of the Province of New Brunswick against their Maine host where New Brunswick law barred recovery of damages for personal injuries received by gratuitous passengers as a result of their host's conduct in the operation of a motor vehicle. When applying the traditional lex loci delicti rule in conflict-of-law cases, this court in Pringle recognized that the law of the place of wrong had no extraterritorial force and became the law of the case by adoptive choice of the forum court. Under principles of comity 'the foreign law becomes the local law,' cited the Maine Court. Gray v. Gray, 87 N.H. 82, 1934, 174 A. 508.

Although allowing in Pringle that it had given effect to laws of other states which substantially limited the right of action in guest cases, (Winslow v. Tibbetts, supra), this Court concluded its decision with the following theme:

'We cannot say that application of the statute of New Brunswick in the instant case is against good morals, natural justice or is prejudicial to our citizens. Instead, we conclude that the defendant in this case, a citizen of Maine, is entitled to the protection accorded him by the law where the alleged tort was committed.' (Emphasis supplied.)

In Galzer, Chandler v. Grob, 1939, 136 Me. 123, 3 A.2d 895, no issue of conflict of laws developed as the parties conceded the applicability of the traditional rule of lex loci delicti. Thus, our Court has applied as the law of the forum and of the case before it the law of the place of the wrong on the theory that the law of the situs governs the substantive rights of the parties, as if these rights had become vested from the time of the occurrence of the event.

But in its search for the proper rule to apply in its courts as the local law of the case does the forum state properly discharge its duty to the litigants and to the states involved in the conflict-of-law choice when it follows the arbitrary stereotyped course of the lex loci delicti? Does not the choice of the appropriate rule to be applied in the case before the court depend upon an analysis of the respective interests of the litigants and the involved states and an enlightened conclusion therefrom made after the proper balancing of the several competing interests? In what has been characterized as the ideal case for the adoption of the new flexible approach to choice-of-law rule in multistate-interest occurrences, the instant cause portrays the usual factual setting where the law of the place of the wrong fails to do justice between the parties litigant. All authorities in conflict of laws so admit and even the courts which upon reconsideration have refused to depart from the traditional rule so concede.

For these reasons, we believe that a review of our position in Winslow v. Tibbetts, supra, and Pringle v. Gibson, supra, is warranted. The American way of life during the last 30 years has changed so much in our traveling habits, whether by car, plane or boat, that we are not surprised litigants question the adequacy of an ancient rule of the good old days. We must decide anew whether the traditional rule of lex loci delicti, (the law of the place of the wrong invariably controlling regardless of the issues before the court), fully satisfies the present needs of a motoring society accustomed to fast, frequent and distant travel and at the same time subjected to ever-increasing motor vehicle injuries and fatalities.

The first objection to modification is stare decisis. The underlying philosophy of this rule has been well stated in Jordan v. McKenzie, 1915, 113 Me. 57, 92 A. 995, in the following terms:

'Litigants have a right to transact business with reference to the law enunciated by the court. Most valuable property rights may be predicated upon the law, as thus declared. These rights should not be impaired nor sacrificed by a reversal or modification of the law except upon cogent and necessary reasons. Stability of the law should be the one great outstanding feature of jurisprudence upon which the profession as well as the people should have a right to rely.'

Although adherence to the principle of stare decisis is generally a wise course of judicial action, it does not irreversibly require that we follow without deviation earlier pronouncements of law which are unsuited to modern experience and which no longer adequately serve the interests of justice. Furthermore, there should be greater readiness to abandon a rule of doubtful adequacy in dispensing exact justice, when the rule to be discarded may not reasonably be supposed to have determined the conduct of the litigants. See, Cardozo, The Nature of the Judicial Process 150-151 (1921). In these days of...