Cox v. McDonnell Douglas Corp., Civ. A. No. A-78-CA-003.
| Decision Date | 11 December 1980 |
| Docket Number | Civ. A. No. A-78-CA-003. |
| Citation | 503 F. Supp. 202 |
| Parties | Mrs. Sharon COX et al. v. McDONNELL-DOUGLAS CORPORATION. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Western District of Texas |
William D. Lynch, Spivey & Grigg, Broadus A. Spivey, Austin, Tex., Papadakis, Betts & Cooke, John Betts, Houston, Tex., for plaintiffs.
Graves, Dougherty, Hearon & Moody, Robert J. Hearon, Jr., John T. Anderson, David H. Donaldson, Jr., Austin, Tex., for defendant.
This is a suit for damages for the wrongful death of Captain John T. Cox, United States Air Force, brought by his widow and minor children. Captain Cox was killed on or about January 13, 1970 in the crash of his RF-4C aircraft near Mountain Home, Idaho. The airplane was designed and manufactured by Defendant McDonnell-Douglas Corporation in the State of Missouri. Plaintiffs allege that the occurrence resulted from defects in the design and manufacture of the angle-of-attack system and the ejection system. Suit was filed on January 5, 1978 in the United States District Court in Austin, Texas, the present residence of Mrs. Sharon Cox and her family. Jurisdiction is based on diversity of citizenship.
McDonnell-Douglas submitted its Motion for Summary Judgment on the ground that the cause of the action is barred by the statutes of limitations of both Missouri and Idaho. Plaintiffs assert that Missouri law does not apply and that under Idaho law, a cause of action exists which must be brought within the limitation provisions of the statutes of Texas, the forum state, under Article 4678, Vernon's Annotated Texas Statutes. Minority disability, the discovery rule and fraudulent concealment are cited as reasons for the tolling of the two year limitation period in Article 5526, V.A.T.S. The primary issue to be decided, then is to the law of which State shall this Court look in determining whether a cause of action for Plaintiffs exists.
The conflict-of-law rules, being of a substantive nature, are to be determined in a diversity case, by the law of the forum, Texas. Klaxon v. Stentor Electric Mfg. Co., 313 U.S. 487, 61 S.Ct. 1020, 85 L.Ed. 1477 (1941). Defendant argues the applicability of the "most significant relationship" test as enunciated in the Restatement (Second) of Conflicts and adopted by the Texas Supreme Court in Gutierrez v. Collins, 583 S.W.2d 312 (Tex.1979). This test requires that a Court apply the substantive law of the State which has the most significant relationship to the occurrence and the parties. It should be noted, however, that Gutierrez was decided subsequent to the 1975 Amendment of Article 4678, V.A.T.S., and expressly held that the 1975 Amendment should not be given retroactive effect. Section 6 of the Restatement (Second) of Conflicts, cited in the Gutierrez opinion, provides that a Court must follow a statutory directive of its own State on choice of law, and, only if none exists, should the law of the State with the most significant relationship be determinative. Article 4678 entitled "Death in a foreign State" is such a directive and precludes, in this case, the application of the Restatement test.
The pre-1975 version of the Article 4678 provided in relevant part as follows:
Whenever the death ... of a citizen of this State or of the United States ... has been or may be caused by the wrongful act, neglect or default of another in any foreign State ... for which a right to maintain an action and recover damages thereof is given by the statute of law of such foreign State ..., such right of action may be enforced in the Courts of this State within the time prescribed for the commencement of such action by the statutes of this State. The law of the forum shall control in the prosecution and maintenance of such action in the Courts of this State in all matters pertaining to the procedure.
The statute clearly states that the substantive law to be applied is that of the State where "the wrongful act, neglect or default" by the Defendant occurred. Plaintiffs argue that Idaho, the place of the crash and death of Captain Cox is where the wrongful act, neglect or default occurred while Defendant responds it is Missouri, the place of design and manufacture of the aircraft which caused the crash.
This is not a case where the negligent act and injury occurred in the same State as in Click v. Thuron Industries, Inc., 475 S.W.2d 715 (Tex.1972) (), Francis v. Herrin Transportation Company, 432 S.W.2d 710 (Tex.1968) () and Marmon v. Mustang Aviation, Inc., 430 S.W.2d 182 (Tex.1968) (). Apparently no Texas Court has faced choosing between the place of the negligent act and the place of the injury in a wrongful death case. The more narrow issue, then, is to determine the meaning in Article 4678 of "the wrongful act, neglect or default."
A similar question was addressed by the United States Supreme Court in Richards v. United States, 369 U.S. 1, 82 S.Ct. 585, 7 L.Ed.2d 492 (1962). The Petitioners were the personal representatives of passengers killed when an airplane, owned by the Respondent, American Airlines, crashed in Missouri while en route from Tulsa, Oklahoma to New York City. Suit was filed against the United States in the Federal District Court in Oklahoma on the theory that the Government, through the Civil Aviation Agency, had "negligently failed to enforce the terms of the Civil Aeronautics Act and the regulations thereunder which prohibited the practices then being used by American Airlines, Inc., in the overhaul depot of Tulsa, Oklahoma." Petitioners sought application of the Oklahoma Wrongful Death Act which contains no limitation on the amount of recovery. The Government sought indemnity from American Airlines, which suggested that the Court apply the Missouri Wrongful Death Act which limited the amount of recovery to $15,000.00.
The Federal Tort Claims Act was the applicable statutory directive for the first choice of law problem. Section 1346(b) of the Act read in pertinent part as follows:
"... the district courts ... shall have exclusive jurisdiction of civil actions on claims against the United States, for money damages ... for injury or loss of property, or personal injury or death caused by the negligent or wrongful act or omission of any employee of the Government while acting within the scope of his office or employment, under circumstances where the United States, if a private person, would be liable to the claimant in accordance with the law of the place where the act or omission occurred."
The Supreme Court stated that the issue was to decide to which State the words "where the act or omission occurred" referred. The justices recognized that "where the negligence and the injury normally occur simultaneously and in a single jurisdiction, the law to be applied is clear, and no solution to the meaning of the words `the law of the place, where the act or omission occurred' is required." (369 U.S. 1, 9, 82 S.Ct. 585, 591, 7 L.Ed.2d 492). The Court further stated:
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Cox v. McDonnell-Douglas Corp.
...of the district court. I. The facts of this case are set forth in detail in the opinion of the district court. Cox v. McDonnell-Douglas Corp., 503 F.Supp. 202 (W.D.Tex.1980). The only issue before us is whether the plaintiffs' wrongful death action against McDonnell-Douglas is barred by wha......