Brown v. DSI Transports, Inc.
| Decision Date | 15 October 1986 |
| Docket Number | No. 85,85 |
| Parties | Donald F. BROWN v. DSI TRANSPORTS, INC., and National Union Fire Insurance Company. CA 0744. |
| Court | Court of Appeal of Louisiana — District of US |
Robert L. Kleinpeter, Baton Rouge, for Donald F. Brown.
Wayne T. McGaw, New Orleans, for Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corp. Carolyn Pratt Perry, Baton Rouge, for DSI Transport, Inc. & Nat. Union Fire Ins. Co.
Before LOTTINGER, SHORTESS and CARTER, JJ.
This case arose from an accident which occurred in Atmore, Alabama, on October 26, 1981. Donald F. Brown (plaintiff) was injured when the rear wheels of a tractor-trailer rolled over him and fractured his hip. He brought suit against the driver's employer, DSI Transports, Inc. (DSI), and its insurer, National Union Fire Insurance Company (National Union). Kaiser Aluminum and Chemical Corporation (Kaiser), plaintiff's employer, intervened seeking reimbursement for worker's compensation payments it had made to him. The trial court granted judgment for plaintiff and Kaiser; all parties have appealed.
Kaiser had an agreement to supply alumina to an Exxon plant in Atmore. DSI was to transport the alumina by truck to Atmore from the Kaiser facility in Baton Rouge. Kaiser sent plaintiff to Atmore to make a record of the delivery and to see that it was properly completed. Immediately prior to the accident, plaintiff was recording the times and quantities of deliveries made to a reactor at the Atmore plant. Ledell Haynes, a DSI employee, had driven a DSI truck from Baton Rouge to Atmore. After unloading the alumina into the reactor, he drove his tractor-trailer a short distance from the reactor. Because another truck was blocking the exit gate, Haynes began backing his truck. He did not see plaintiff standing near the reactor, nor did plaintiff notice the truck approaching him from the direction of the exit gate. The trailer struck plaintiff; he fell and the rear wheels rolled over him, causing a severely comminuted fracture of his hip.
Plaintiff had surgery in Atmore shortly thereafter; a Smith-Peterson nail was used to repair the fracture. When he returned to Baton Rouge, he consulted Dr. John F. Loupe who advised him that the first procedure had not proved successful. Dr. Loupe performed a second operation and removed the Smith-Peterson nail, replacing it with a plate and screw. Plaintiff continued under Dr. Loupe's care through the time of the trial.
The trial judge assessed plaintiff's damages at $558,704.70, but because he found plaintiff 10% contributorily negligent, he reduced the award to $502,834.23, representing the 90% negligence ascribable to DSI. All parties stipulated that Kaiser had made $42,510.20 in worker's compensation payments to plaintiff, and the judge awarded this amount to Kaiser to be paid from the award to plaintiff.
DSI and National Union present three issues for review: (1) Did the trial court err in applying Louisiana's law of comparative negligence instead of Alabama's law of contributory negligence? (2) Did the trial court err in finding that plaintiff was totally and permanently disabled? (3) Did the trial court err in awarding $200,000.00 in general damages. The latter two are alternative arguments, for the primary contention of the defendants is that Alabama law is the law of this case and that the rule in Alabama at the time of this accident was that contributory negligence is a complete bar to recovery.
Plaintiff's argument requires a two-part analysis. We must decide first what law will govern the question of whether any parties acted negligently and, second, what law should be used to determine the effect of contributory negligence on recovery.
Defendants argue that, because of Alabama's overriding interest in regulating the conduct of persons within the State, the Alabama rule of contributory negligence should apply. This confuses the two separate issues. We recognize Alabama's strong interest in regulating the activities of drivers and pedestrians within its borders. But we see no conflict between the Louisiana and the Alabama standards of negligence; both states impose a duty of reasonable care under the circumstances. More precisely, both recognize that a pedestrian plaintiff can be contributorily negligent if he deviates from this standard. Nelms v. Allied Mills, Co., 387 So.2d 152 (Ala.1980); Turner v. New Orleans Public Service, Inc., 471 So.2d 709 (La.1985).
Thus, we are not confronted with a conflict of laws when resolving the first question: whether defendant or plaintiff acted negligently. 1 The trial court found that Haynes was 90% negligent. His failure to take adequate care when backing is well established. Plaintiff was aware that he was in a construction area where there was significant vehicular traffic. He testified that the truck had moved forward about 100 to 150 feet before it began to move backward. One witness testified that he saw the impending accident and began blowing his horn and waving at plaintiff, but to no avail. Our reading of the entire record does not indicate that the court was clearly wrong in ascribing 10% negligence to plaintiff and 90% to Haynes. 2
The second part of this analysis presents a true conflict-of-laws issue: should Alabama's contributory negligence rule or Louisiana's comparative negligence rule be applied? Since we uphold the finding that plaintiff was negligent, application of Alabama's law would prevent his recovery; Louisiana law, the choice of the trial court, would simply reduce his award.
Louisiana has rejected the traditional rule of lex loci delecti. In Jagers v. Royal Indemnity Company, 276 So.2d 309 (La.1973), instead of deciding that the law of the state in which the tort occurred would apply, the court concluded that an interest analysis was the more appropriate method of choosing which law applied. Jagers presented a false conflict of laws in that only one state (Louisiana) had an interest in the application of its laws. Cases following Jagers have adopted an interest analysis when faced with a genuine conflict of laws. Burns v. Holiday Travel, Inc., 459 So.2d 666 (La.App. 4th Cir.1984); Lee v. Ford Motor Company, 457 So.2d 193 (La. App. 2d Cir.1984), writ denied, 461 So.2d 319 (La.1984); Champion v. Panel Era Manufacturing Company, 410 So.2d 1230 (La. App. 3rd Cir.1982), writ denied, 414 So.2d 389 (La.1982). The threshold inquiry is whether at least two states have an interest in the matter; if so, the court must undertake an interest analysis to determine which state has the more significant relationship to the occurrence and the parties. Lee, 457 So.2d at 194-5.
The Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws (1969) (hereafter Restatement ) has been used as the guide in resolving choice-of-law questions. Jagers, 276 So.2d at 312; Burns, 459 So.2d at 668. See also Brinkley & West, Inc. v. Foremost Insurance Company, 499 F.2d 928 (5th Cir.1974). The Restatement sets out these guidelines for tort cases:
§ 145. The General Principle
(1) The rights and liabilities of the parties with respect to an issue in tort are determined by the local law of the state which, with respect to that issue, has the most significant relationship to the occurrence and the parties under the principles stated in § 6.
(2) Contacts to be taken into account in applying the principles of § 6 to determine the law applicable to an issue include:
(c) the domicil, residence, nationality, place of incorporation and place of business of the parties, and
(d) the place where the relationship, if any, between the parties is centered.
These contacts are to be evaluated according to their relative importance with respect to the particular issue.
In the case before us, both states have an interest in the application of their law. Compare Jagers, 276 So.2d at 311-312. The accident and injury occurred in Alabama. DSI, Kaiser, and plaintiff were conducting business there. The relation between the parties took place at least in part in Alabama.
On the other hand, Louisiana is the domicile of the plaintiff; DSI is incorporated in Texas and has a place of business in Louisiana. Nothing in the record indicates where the agreement between Kaiser and DSI was completed, but it is clear that both have places of business in Louisiana, that Haynes' DSI truck was loaded in Baton Rouge, that his trip originated there, and that Haynes was a resident of Baton Rouge. 3 From the information we have before us, the relationship between plaintiff and DSI appears more likely to be "centered" in Louisiana than in Alabama.
The weight given to these contacts is "to be evaluated according to their relative importance with respect to the particular issue." Restatement, § 145. The particular issue here is whether plaintiff's contributory negligence should completely preclude or merely reduce his recovery. We believe the domicile of the parties is especially significant in resolving this particular issue. Plaintiff is domiciled in Louisiana; after initial treatment in Alabama, he has received, and from all indications will continue to receive, medical treatment in Louisiana. The economic impact of our decision on this issue will be felt in Louisiana, not Alabama. It will affect a Louisiana domiciliary, a Texas corporation doing business in Louisiana, and an insurance company incorporated in Pennsylvania with a New York address. These facts suggest closer ties to Louisiana than to Alabama. See Davis, 283 So.2d at 790; Mitchell v. Craft, 211 So.2d 509 (Miss.1968) (cited by the Louisiana Supreme Court to demonstrate a state's latitude in conflict questions, with this comment:
[T]he Mississippi Supreme Court applied the Mississippi doctrine of comparative negligence to a case involving Mississippi domiciliaries and arising out of an accident in Louisiana, where contributory...
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