Boyle v. Ward, 7844

• Decision Date: 26 January 1942
• Docket Number: 7845.,No. 7844,7844
• Citation: 125 F.2d 672
• Parties: BOYLE et ux. v. WARD.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit

125 F.2d 672 (1942)

BOYLE et ux. v. WARD.

Nos. 7844, 7845.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.

Argued December 15, 1941.

Decided January 26, 1942.

Walter W. Harris, of Scranton, Pa. (James W. Scanlon and O'Malley, Hill, Harris & Harris, all of Scranton, Pa., on the brief), for appellant.

David J. Reedy, of Scranton, Pa. (A. M. Lucks, of Scranton, Pa., on the brief), for appellees.

Before BIGGS, MARIS, and GOODRICH, Circuit Judges.

GOODRICH, Circuit Judge.

The plaintiffs brought actions in the Federal Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania against the defendant to recover damages for injuries sustained in an automobile accident. Mrs. Boyle was a passenger in the defendant's car at the time of the accident which occurred while the defendant was operating the vehicle upon the highway in the State of New York. Jurisdiction of the Federal Court was founded upon diversity of citizenship, defendant being a resident of Massachusetts. A verdict was given for both plaintiffs on trial of the case and judgment was entered in their favor in the court below. The litigation in the trial court evidently proceeded without reference to the fact that the accident out of which the litigation grows took place in New York. This being a case where the cause is tried in one State and the significant facts on which the litigation is founded have occurred in another, it is the Federal Court's duty to follow the rules of conflict of laws prevailing at the place of trial. Klaxon Co. v. Stentor Electric Mfg. Co., 1941, 313 U.S. 487, 61 S.Ct. 1020, 85 L.Ed. 1477; Miller, Inc. v. Needham, 3 Cir., 1941, 122 F.2d 710. The question in this case, therefore, is: what is the Pennsylvania rule of conflict of laws relating to recovery upon a tort claim where the facts have occurred outside of Pennsylvania.

It is clearly settled that the applicable rule of reference in such instances is to the law of New York,¹ but it is by virtue of Pennsylvania law that such reference is made. Referring to the law of New York it is found that the liability of the operator of a motor vehicle to his passenger for injury sustained as a result of the operation of the car is based upon the negligent conduct of the driver; that the duty is the familiar one of ordinary care under the circumstances.² In the instant case the instructions to the jury by the trial judge proceeded upon this theory, although no reference to the New York law was made. So far the legal voyage is easy sailing; even though the legal test given the jury to apply was that of the forum rather than that of the place of wrong, the error is obviously harmless for the test is the same by both laws.³

The course now set by defendant's argument guides us into rougher water. Application plication of the New York law, he contends, to the facts shown by the plaintiff in this case requires the conclusion that there is insufficient evidence to entitle a jury to render a verdict in the plaintiff's favor. For this proposition is cited the decision in Galbraith v. Busch, 1935, 267 N. Y. 230, 196 N.E. 36.⁴ In that case the automobile in which the plaintiff was riding as a guest suddenly swerved from the highway and crashed into a tree. The evidence failed to show any cause for the sudden swerve. At the trial the judge had ruled that the mere fact that the car had left the highway under these circumstances raised a presumption of negligence on the part of the driver and that it was the duty of the defendants to go forward with their evidence and explain why the car thus left the highway without negligence on the operator's part. The jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff and the Court of Appeals reversed the judgment entered thereon. The case is distinguishable from the present litigation in that the New York court pointed out that the probability that the accident came from a break in the mechanism of the car was just as great as that it was due to lack of care in its operation. With regard to the defects in the car itself, if unknown, the defendants were not responsible. The difference in the instant case is that the likelihood that the accident was the result of a defect in the mechanism of the car was in part overcome by the fact that evidence shows that defendant drove the car fifty or more miles without repair immediately following the accident.

For the discussion of the problem in the case at bar, however, it may be assumed that the New York decision is an all-fours case on the facts. Even then it is not controlling under the Pennsylvania rules of the conflict of laws. The standards which determine plaintiffs' rights and the defendant's liabilities are those which the Pennsylvania court finds fixed by New York law. But the application of these standards necessarily is made in proceedings at the forum. Matters of procedure are governed by the law of the forum, not by reference to the law of some other state.⁵ Difficult questions necessarily arise in determining whether a given question is one which should be classified as substantive and settled by reference to the appropriate foreign law, or as procedural and settled by application of the internal law of the forum. But the New York law to which defendant insists reference should be made here does not relate to questions which involve ultimate liability. Undoubtedly these, under the Pennsylvania rule of conflict of laws, are determined by reference to New York law. The question here is whether, on a showing of given facts, the burden devolves upon the defendant to go forward and explain those facts so as to exculpate himself from a charge of negligence under the risk of having the jury find against him if he does not; or whether on the other hand, the mere proof of the facts is not sufficient to warrant submitting the case to the jury in the first instance. Is the question of the fact conclusion to be drawn from the evidence without such explanation a matter to be referred to the foreign law or settled by the internal law of the forum? Considerations, both of logic and policy, which determine the rules of reference in such cases are both delicate and difficult.⁶

In these instances, however, we do not think that the burden of any such delicate balancing falls upon this court, for the Pennsylvania point of view on the subject, by which we are bound, seems clear. It is set out in the opinion of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania in Singer v. Messina, 1933, 312 Pa. 129, 167 A. 583, 586, 89 A.L.R. 1271. The subject-matter of the suit was a claim for damages sustained by the death of the plaintiff's intestate owing to the alleged negligence of the defendant. One question in the case was the contributory negligence of the decedent. Counsel...