Connell v. Riggins

• Decision Date: 15 December 2006
• Docket Number: No. 1D05-4064.,1D05-4064.
• Citation: 944 So.2d 1174
• Parties: Robert Carter CONNELL and Connell & Son, Inc., Appellants, v. Mary RIGGINS as Guardian of the Person and Property of Caleb Riggins, Appellee.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

944 So.2d 1174

Robert Carter CONNELL and Connell & Son, Inc., Appellants, v. Mary RIGGINS as Guardian of the Person and Property of Caleb Riggins, Appellee.

No. 1D05-4064.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, First District.

December 15, 2006.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Raymond L. Roebuck and Brena B. Huffman, of the Roebuck Law Office, Jacksonville, for Appellants.

Steven R. Browning, Norwood S. Wilner, and Gregory H. Maxwell, of Spohrer, Wilner, Maxwell & Matthews, P.A., Jacksonville, for Appellee.

BROWNING, C.J.

Robert Carter Connell, the defendant in the trial court, appeals from a final judgment entered in favor of the plaintiff, Caleb Riggins, in the third trial arising from a vehicular accident involving Mr. Connell and Mr. Riggins. Mr. Connell contends that the trial court reversibly erred by, inter alia, applying Florida comparative negligence law to the issue of liability and damages in this case; using information in the hearsay State of Georgia Department of Public Safety driver's manual, in effect, to instruct the jury that Mr. Connell was negligent per se; and allowing surprise testimony by Mr. Riggins' motor vehicle accident reconstruction expert (Thomas Feiereisen) and argument based on this expert's prejudicial testimony. Concluding that these three rulings constitute reversible error, we are constrained to reverse the final judgment and remand for a new trial.

The accident in question occurred on November 20, 1998, around 3:40 p.m. when a four-ton Ford 350 pickup truck driven by Mr. Connell struck the compact-size Plymouth Horizon hatchback automobile driven by Mr. Riggins at a busy intersection in St. Marys, Georgia. The collision left Mr. Riggins severely injured, and he sued Mr. Connell and Mr. Connell's employer, Connell & Sons, Inc. (which owned the pickup truck and is no longer in operation), in the Duval County Circuit Court.

Choice of Law

A key issue in the trial court was whether to apply Florida comparative negligence law rather than Georgia law to the issue of negligence and damages. This choice-of-law matter is a legal question subject to our de novo review. See Collins Moving & Storage Corp. of S.C. v. Kirkell, 867 So.2d 1179, 1181 (Fla. 4th DCA 2004); Henry v. Windjammer Barefoot Cruises, 851 So.2d 731, 734 (Fla. 3d DCA 2003), receded from on other grounds, Tananta v. Cruise Ships Catering & Servs. Int'l, N.V., 909 So.2d 874, 882 (Fla. 3d DCA 2004) (en banc). Florida courts apply the "significant relationship" test to decide which state's laws apply to various elements of trials. See Bishop v. Fla. Specialty Paint Co., 389 So.2d 999 (Fla.1980). As a general principle:

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 s. 6.

Id. at 1001 (quoting Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws, § 145(1) (1971)). Section 6 of this Restatement (Second) sets out the following factors as material considerations in choice-of-law decisions in all areas of the law:

(a) the needs of the interstate and international systems,

(b) the relevant policies of the forum,

(c) the relevant policies of other interested states and the relative interests of those states in the determination of the particular issue,

(d) the protection of justified expectations,

(e) the basic policies underlying the particular field of law,

(f) certainty, predictability and uniformity of result, and

(g) ease in the determination and application of the law to be applied.

Bishop, 389 So.2d at 1001 n. 1 (quoting Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws, § 6 (1971)).

In Bishop, the Supreme Court of Florida rejected the strict application of the long-held, inflexible lex loci delicti rule, adopted the Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws (1971) test from sections 145-146, and held that in a conflict-of-laws situation, consideration should be given to four main factors: 1) "the place where the injury occurred," 2) "the place where the conduct causing the injury occurred," 3) "the domicil, residence, nationality, place of incorporation and place of business of the parties," and 4) "the place where the relationship, if any, between the parties is centered." See id. at 1001. The Bishop court noted that the analysis set forth in the Restatement (Second) does not abandon the "place of injury" rule completely. In fact, the supreme court quoted section 146 of the Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws (1971), which expressly addresses "personal injuries" and states:

In an action for a personal injury, the local law of the state where the injury occurred determines the rights and liabilities of the parties, unless, with respect to the particular issue, some other state has a more significant relationship under the principles stated in § 6 to the occurrence and the parties, in which event the local law of the other state will be applied.

The Bishop court noted that, under most circumstances, the state where the injury occurred will be "the decisive consideration in determining the applicable choice of law." See 389 So.2d at 1001; State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Olsen, 406 So.2d 1109, 1111 (Fla.1981) (holding that Illinois law controlled under the "significant relationship" test in a personal injury lawsuit, where Illinois was the site of an automobile accident involving an uninsured Illinois motorist and a fatally injured Florida resident who was insured under a Florida policy of automobile liability insurance, and Illinois had a paramount interest in the rights of its citizens who were subject to subrogation by an insurer on any uninsured motorist coverage it paid).

Determining which state's negligence law applies is pivotal to the outcome of this case. Under Florida's "pure" comparative negligence scheme, liability is apportioned according to each party's percentage of negligence. See Hoffman v. Jones, 280 So.2d 431 (Fla.1973) (abolishing doctrine of contributory negligence). In contrast, Georgia's "modified" comparative negligence law protects a defendant from judgment altogether if the defendant's negligence is equal to, or less than, the plaintiff's negligence. See DeVooght v. Hobbs, 265 Ga.App. 329, 593 S.E.2d 868, 873 (2004); Whelan v. Moone, 242 Ga.App. 795, 531 S.E.2d 727, 730 (2000) (finding no error in trial court's instructing jury that if it found plaintiff's negligence was less than defendant's, then plaintiff would not be precluded from recovery of damages, but jury would be required to reduce amount of damages otherwise awarded to plaintiff in proportion to plaintiff's negligence compared to defendant's negligence).

In the third and most recent trial, Mr. Connell filed a motion to apply Georgia law to all issues of negligence and damages. Mr. Riggins argued that while Georgia law should be applied to issues relating to the parties' conduct, Florida law should be applied to the issues of comparative negligence and the apportionment of damages. The parties agree that Bishop sets forth the appropriate analysis for resolving the choice-of-law question. It is undisputed that the only two states involved in this litigation are Georgia and Florida. Sections 145 and 146 of the Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws (1971) provide that the "significant relationship" question must be determined with respect to "the particular issue under consideration"; this "does not require the court to evaluate the recited contacts with a view to determine which state's local law should be applied to all issues in the case as a whole." See Stallworth v. Hospitality Rentals, Inc., 515 So.2d 413, 415 (Fla. 1st DCA 1987) (emphases in original).

In resolving the significant relationship question, we, like the Bishop court, look to section 145(2)(a)-(d) of the Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws (1971), which sets out Factors (a) through (d) in determining the types of "[c]ontacts to be taken into account." As to the first two factors, "the conduct causing the injury" occurred in Georgia, which is also "the place where the injury occurred." The third factor deals with residency, the place of incorporation, and the place of business. Mr. Riggins and his family are Georgia residents. Mr. Connell, a Florida resident, was an employee of a now-defunct Jacksonville, Florida-based company but was driving in Georgia at the time of the accident as a result of his ongoing commute from Florida to a work project on a naval base in Georgia. The fourth factor is "the place where the relationship, if any, between the parties is centered." The record disclosed no prior contact or relationship between the parties up to and until their motor vehicles collided in Georgia, injuring Mr. Riggins. Mr. Riggins filed this lawsuit in the Florida trial court.

"In an action for a personal injury, the local law of the state where the injury occurred," i.e., Georgia, "determines the rights and liabilities of the parties, unless, with respect to the particular issue, some other state"—Florida is the only other state with any relationship to this case — "has a more significant relationship under the principles stated in § 6 to the occurrence and the parties, in which event the local law of the other state will be applied." Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws § 146 (1971); Murphy v. Thornton, 746 So.2d 575, 575-76 (Fla. 1st DCA 1999). Therefore, in this negligence litigation, as Georgia was the site of the accident, its local law determines the parties' rights and liabilities respecting the issues of negligence and damages unless Florida has a more significant relationship to this case upon a proper consideration of the relevant factors set forth in section 6 of the Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws (1971).

In its written order concluding that Florida has the more significant relationship to this case with respect to the...