Edwards v. Erie Coach Lines Co.

• Decision Date: 30 June 2011
• Citation: 2011 N.Y. Slip Op. 05583,929 N.Y.S.2d 41,952 N.E.2d 1033,17 N.Y.3d 306
• Parties: Sheila Elizabeth EDWARDS, Individually and as Executrix of Richard Edwards, Deceased, and as Administratrix of the Estate of Brian Edwards, Deceased, et al., Appellants,v.ERIE COACH LINES COMPANY et al., Respondents, et al., Defendants.Meagan Godwin et al., Appellants,v.Trentway–Wagar, Inc., et al., Respondents, et al., Defendants.Traci Butler, Appellant,v.Stagecoach Group, PLC, el al., Defendants, and Trentway–Wagak, Inc., et al., Respondents.Courtney Cowan et al., Appellants,v.Stagecoach Group, PLC, et al., Respondents, et al., Defendants.Lauralee Davidson, Appellant,v.Coach USA, Inc., et al., Respondents.Michael Roach, Individually and as Representative of the Estate of Catherine Roach, Deceased, et al., Appellants,v.Coach USA, Inc., et al., Respondents.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

17 N.Y.3d 306

952 N.E.2d 1033

929 N.Y.S.2d 41

2011 N.Y. Slip Op. 05583

Sheila Elizabeth EDWARDS, Individually and as Executrix of Richard Edwards, Deceased, and as Administratrix of the Estate of Brian Edwards, Deceased, et al., Appellants,

v.ERIE COACH LINES COMPANY et al., Respondents, et al., Defendants.Meagan Godwin et al., Appellants,

v.Trentway–Wagar, Inc., et al., Respondents, et al., Defendants.Traci Butler, Appellant,

v.Stagecoach Group, PLC, el al., Defendants, and Trentway–Wagak, Inc., et al., Respondents.Courtney Cowan et al., Appellants,

v.Stagecoach Group, PLC, et al., Respondents, et al., Defendants.Lauralee Davidson, Appellant,

v.Coach USA, Inc., et al., Respondents.Michael Roach, Individually and as Representative of the Estate of Catherine Roach, Deceased, et al., Appellants,

v.Coach USA, Inc., et al., Respondents.

Court of Appeals of New York.

June 30, 2011.

Seeger Weiss LLP, New York City (TerriAnne Benedetto and Christopher A. Seeger of counsel), for appellants in the first above-entitled action.Hiscock & Barclay, LLP, Rochester (Anthony J. Piazza, Mark T. Whitford Jr. and Joseph A. Wilson of counsel), for Erie Coach Lines Company and others, respondents in the first above-entitled action.Culley, Marks, Tannenbaum & Pezzulo, LLP, Rochester (Glenn E. Pezzulo of counsel), for J & J Trucking and others, respondents in the first above-entitled action.Clark, Gagliardi & Miller, P.C., White Plains (Lawrence T. D'Aloise, Jr., of counsel), for appellants in the second, third and fourth above-entitled actions.Hiscock & Barclay, LLP, Rochester (Anthony J. Piazza, Mark T. Whitford Jr. and Joseph A. Wilson of counsel), for Trentway–Wager, Inc. and others, respondents in the second, third and fourth above-entitled actions.Culley, Marks, Tannenbaum & Pezzulo, LLP, Rochester (Glenn E. Pezzulo of counsel), for J & J Hauling, Inc. and others, respondents in the second, third and fourth above-entitled actions.Kelly & Leonard, LLP, Ballston Spa (Mitchell A. Toups and Thomas E. Kelly of counsel), for appellants in the fifth and sixth above-entitled actions.Hiscock & Barclay, LLP, Rochester (Anthony J. Piazza and Mark T. Whitford Jr. of counsel), for Coach USA. Inc. and others, respondents in the fifth and sixth above-entitled actions.Culley, Marks, Tanenbaum & Pezzulo, LLP, Rochester (Glenn E. Pezzulo of counsel), for J & J Hauling, Inc. and others, respondents in the fifth and sixth above-entitled actions.

OPINION OF THE COURT

READ, J.

Near Geneseo, New York on January 19, 2005 a charter bus carrying members of an Ontario women's hockey team plowed into the rear end of a tractor-trailer parked on the shoulder of the highway. Three bus passengers and the tractor driver died; several bus passengers were seriously hurt. We are called upon to decide the choice-of-law issue presented by these six lawsuits, which were brought to recover damages for wrongful death and/or personal injuries.

I.

Nearly a half-century ago, in Babcock v. Jackson, 12 N.Y.2d 473, 240 N.Y.S.2d 743, 191 N.E.2d 279 (1963), we abandoned what had long been our choice-of-law rule whereby the law of the place of the tort invariably governed. Because “in nearly all such cases, the conduct causing injury and the injury itself occurred in the same jurisdiction” ( id. at 477 n. 2, 240 N.Y.S.2d 743, 191 N.E.2d 279), this rule offered “the advantages of certainty, ease of application and predictability,” but at the expense of “the interest which [other] jurisdictions ... [might] have in the resolution of particular issues” ( id. at 478, 240 N.Y.S.2d 743, 191 N.E.2d 279; see also Cooney v. Osgood Mach., 81 N.Y.2d 66, 72, 595 N.Y.S.2d 919, 612 N.E.2d 277 [1993] [place-of-the-tort theory “failed to accord any significance to the policies underlying the conflicting laws of other jurisdictions”] ).

To “accomodat[e] the competing interests in tort cases with multi-State contacts,” we adopted the “center of gravity” or “grouping of contacts” approach, which gave the “controlling effect to the law of the jurisdiction which, because of its relationship or contact with the occurrence or the parties. ha[d] the greatest concern with the specific issue raised in the litigation” (12 N.Y.2d at 481, 240 N.Y.S.2d 743, 191 N.E.2d 279). This new method of analysis, however, was limited to competing loss-allocation—not conduct-regulating—rules.¹ As we explained in Babcock,

“[w]here the defendant's exercise of due care in the operation of his automobile is in issue, the jurisdiction in which the allegedly wrongful conduct occurred will usually have a predominant, if not exclusive, concern. In such a case, it is appropriate to look to the law of the place of the tort so as to give effect to that jurisdiction's interest in regulating conduct within its borders, and it would he almost unthinkable to seek the applicable rule in the law of some other place” (12 N.Y.2d at 483, 240 N.Y.S.2d 743, 191 N.E.2d 279).

The facts of Babcock illustrate how “grouping of contacts” worked. In that case, a New York passenger in a car operated by a New York driver was injured in an automobile accident that occurred in Ontario during a weekend trip to Canada. We noted that the trip began and was to end in New York, where the car was garaged, licensed and insured, and where the driver-passenger relationship arose ( id. at 482–483, 240 N.Y.S.2d 743, 191 N.E.2d 279). The “guest” passenger sued the “host” driver in New York for negligence. At the time, the Ontario guest statute barred the passenger from recovering damages from the driver,² while New York law did not.

Looking to the “grouping of contacts,” we decided that New York—not Ontario, the place of the tort—possessed “the dominant contacts and the superior claim for application of its law” as to whether the passenger should “recover[ ] for damages for a wrong concededly committed” ( id. at 483, 240 N.Y.S.2d 743, 191 N.E.2d 279). We commented that, in this context,

“[a]lthough the Tightness or wrongness of [the driver's] conduct may depend upon the law of the particular jurisdiction through which the automobile passes, the rights and liabilities of the parties which stem from their guest-host relationship should remain constant and not vary and shift as the automobile proceeds from place to place. Indeed, such a result ... accords with the interests of the host in procuring liability insurance adequate under the applicable law, and the interests of his insurer in reasonable calculability of the premium” ( id. at 483–484, 240 N.Y.S.2d 743, 191 N.E.2d 279 [internal quotation marks omitted] ).

Over time, the “grouping of contacts” approach put into place by Babcock evolved into a more explicit “interest analysis.” This method of deciding choice-of-law issues “reject[ed] a quantitative grouping of contacts” because “[c]ontacts obtain significance only to the extent that they relate to the policies and purposes sought to be vindicated by the conflicting laws” ( Miller v. Miller, 22 N.Y.2d 12, 17, 290 N.Y.S.2d 734, 237 N.E.2d 877 [1968]; see also Cooney, 81 N.Y.2d at 72, 595 N.Y.S.2d 919, 612 N.E.2d 277 [“Of the various, sometimes competing, schools of thought on choice of law, the one that emerged as most satisfactory was ‘interest analysis,’ which sought to effect the law of the jurisdiction having the greatest interest in resolving the particular issue”] ).

We refined our “interest analysis” so as “to assure a greater degree of predictability and uniformity” in Neumeier v. Kuehner, 31 N.Y.2d 121, 127, 335 N.Y.S.2d 64, 286 N.E.2d 454 (1972), a case where a domiciliary of Ontario was killed when the automobile in which he was a passenger collided with a train in Ontario. The vehicle was owned and driven by a resident of New York, who was also killed in the accident. The passenger's wife and administratrix, a citizen of Canada and a domiciliary of Ontario, brought an action for wrongful death in New York against the driver's estate and the railway company, both of which interposed affirmative defenses involving the Ontario guest statute.³ The wife, asserting that the Ontario statute was unavailable, moved to dismiss the affirmative defenses, and Supreme Court denied the motion (63 Misc.2d 766, 313 N.Y.S.2d 468 [1970] ). The Appellate Division reversed (37 A.D.2d 70, 322 N.Y.S.2d 867 [1971] ), and asked us if its order was properly made. We answered, “No.”

Neumeier set up a three-rule framework for resolving choice of law in conflicts settings involving guest statutes, which by definition allocate losses after the tort occurs rather than regulate primary conduct. Under the first Neumeier rule, when the driver and passenger are domiciled in the same state, and the vehicle is registered there, the law of their shared jurisdiction controls (31 N.Y.2d at 128, 335 N.Y.S.2d 64, 286 N.E.2d 454). The second rule addresses the situation where the driver and the passenger are domiciled in different states, and the law of the place where the accident occurred favors its domiciliary. When the driver's conduct occurs in the state where he is domiciled, which would not impose liability, that state's law applies. Conversely, if the law of the place where the accident occurred permits the injured passenger to recover, then the driver, “in the absence of special circumstances,” may not interpose a conflicting law of his state as a defense ( id.; see also Cooney, 81 N.Y.2d at 73, 595 N.Y.S.2d 919, 612 N.E.2d 277 [“In essence, ... the second Neumeier rule adopts a ‘place of injury’ test for true conflict guest statute cases”] ).

“In other situations, when the passenger and the driver are domiciled in different states, the rule is necessarily less categorical” (31 N.Y.2d at 128, 335 N.Y.S.2d 64, 286 N.E.2d 454). Thus, under the third Neumeier rule, the law of the state where the accident occurred governs unless “it can be shown that displacing that normally applicable rule will advance the relevant substantive law purposes without impairing...