Cuba Railroad Company v. Walter Crosby
Decision Date | 09 January 1912 |
Docket Number | No. 124,124 |
Citation | 222 U.S. 473,32 S.Ct. 132,56 L.Ed. 274 |
Parties | CUBA RAILROAD COMPANY, Petitioner, v. WALTER E. CROSBY |
Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Mr. Howard Mansfield for petitioner.
[Argument of Counsel from pages 473-476 intentionally omitted] Messrs. Benjamin M. Weinberg and Edwin L. Kalish for respondent.
This is an action for the loss of a hand through a defect in machinery, in connection with which the defendant in error, the plaintiff, was employed. The plaintiff had noticed the defect and reported it, and, according to his testimony, had been promised that it should be repaired or replaced as soon as they had time, and he had been told to go on in the meanwhile. The jury was instructed that if that was what took place, the defendant company assumed the risk for a reasonable time, and, in effect, that if that time had not expired, the plaintiff was entitled to recover. The jury found for the plaintiff. The accident took place in Cuba, and no evidence was given as to the Cuban law, but the judge held that if that law was different from the lex fori, it was for the defendant to allege and prove it, and that as it had pleaded only the general issue, the verdict must stand. 158 Fed. 144. The judgment was affirmed by a majority of the circuit court of appeals. ——L.R.A.(N.S.) ——, 95 C. C. A. 539, 170 Fed. 369.
The court below went on the ground that, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, it would 'apply the law as it conceives it to be, according to its idea of right and justice; or, in other words, according to the law of the forum.' We regard this statement as too broad, and as having been wrongly applied to this case.
It may be that, in dealing with rudimentary contracts or torts made or committed abroad, such as promises to pay money for goods or services, or battery of the person, or conversion of goods, courts would assume a liability to exist if nothing to the contrary appeared. Parrot v. Mexican C. R. Co. 207 Mass. 184, 34 L.R.A.(N.S.) 261, 93 N. E. 590. Such matters are likely to impose an obligation in all civilized countries. But when an action is brought upon a cause arising outside of the jurisdiction, it always should be borne in mind that the duty of the court is not to administer its notion of justice, but to enforce an obligation that has been created by a different law. Slater v. Mexican Nat. R. Co. 194 U. S. 120, 126, 48 L. ed. 900, 902, 24 Sup. Ct. Rep. 581. The law of the forum is material only as setting a limit of policy beyond which such obligations will not be enforced there. With very rare exceptions the liabilities of parties to each other are fixed by the law of the territorial jurisdiction within which the wrong is done and the parties are at the time of doing it. American Banana Co. v. United Fruit Co. 213 U. S. 347, 356, 53 L. ed. 826, 832, 29 Sup. Ct. Rep. 511, 16 A. & E. Ann. Cas. 1047. See Bean v. Morris, 221 U. S. 485, 486, 487, 55 L. ed. 821, 823, 31 Sup. Ct. Rep. 703. That, and that alone, is the foundation of their rights.
The language of Mr. Justice Bradley in The Scotland (National Steam Nav. Co. v. Dyer), 105 U. S. 24, 26 L. ed. 1001, with regard to the application of the lex fori to a case of collision between vessels belonging to different nations, and so subject to no common law, referred to that class of cases and no others, and was used only in coming to the conclusion that foreign vessels might take advantage of our limited liability act. See also The Chattahoochee, 173 U. S. 540, 550, 43 L. ed. 801, 806, 19 Sup. Ct. Rep. 491. Other exceptional cases are referred to in American Banana Co. v. United Fruit Co. ubi supra, such as those arising in regions having no law that civilized countries would recognize as adequate. But as to causes of action arising in a civilized country, the disregard of the foreign law occasionally indicated by some English judges before the theory to be applied was quite worked out must be disregarded in its turn. The principle adopted by the decisions of this court is clear. See also Dicey, Confl. L. 2d ed. 647 et seq.
We repeat that the only justification for allowing a party to recover when the cause of action arose in another civilized jurisdiction is a well-founded belief that it was a cause of action in that place. The right to recover stands upon that as its...
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