Harford Mut. Ins. Co. v. Bruchey

• Decision Date: 08 February 1968
• Docket Number: No. 46,46
• Parties: The HARFORD MUTUAL INSURANCE COMPANY et al. v. William Adam BRUCHEY, III.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 669

248 Md. 669

238 A.2d 115

The HARFORD MUTUAL INSURANCE COMPANY et al. v. William Adam BRUCHEY, III.

No. 46.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

Feb. 8, 1968.

Thomas Waxter, Jr., and Thomas E. Cinnamond, Baltimore (John H. Mudd, Baltimore, on the brief), for appellants.

John Wheeler Glenn, Baltimore (Leroy W. Preston, Baltimore, and Edwin F. Nikirk, Frederick, on the brief), for appellee.

Before MAMMOND, C.J., and BARNES, McWILLIAMS, FINAN and SINGLEY, JJ.

HAMMOND, Chief Judge.

Mr. and Mrs. William Adam Bruchey, III, schoolteachers who live in Frederick, drove into Virginia on April 15, 1965, toward the Skyline Drive and near Luray, in Paige County, Virginia, had a head-on collision with a car driven by Wilbur Adrian Clark, a resident of Virginia and an employee of The Harford Mutual Insurance Company (Harford) of Bel Air, which has a branch office in Richmond and does business throughout Virginia. The car Clark was driving was owned by Hinder Brothers, Incorporated (Hinder), of Aberdeen, which was engaged in the business of leasing motor vehicles.

The State Trooper who took charge of the accident and the independent witnesses are residents of Virginia. Mr. and Mrs. Bruchey were hospitalized in Virginia, she for several months.

Mr. and Mrs. Bruchey filed suit in the Circuit Court for Harford County against Harford and Hinder. Virginia has a statute (Va.Code Ann., § 55-36 (1959 Repl. Vol.)), which provides:

'A married woman may contract and be contracted with and sue and be sued in the same manner and with the same consequences as if she were unmarried, whether the right or liability asserted by or against her accrued heretofore or hereafter. In an action by a married woman to recover for a personal injury inflicted on her she may recover the entire damage sustained including the personal injury and expenses arising out of the injury, whether chargeable to her or her husband, notwithstanding the husband may be entitled to the benefit of her services about domestic affairs and consortium, and any sum recovered therein shall be chargeable with expenses arising out of the injury, including hospital, medical and funeral expenses, and any person, including the husband, partially or completely discharging such debts shall be reimbursed out of the sum recovered in the action, whensoever paid, to the extent to which such payment was justified by services rendered or expenses incurred by the obligee, provided, however, that written notice of such claim for reimbursement, and the amount and items thereof, shall have been served on such married woman and on the defendant prior to any settlement of the sum recovered by her; and no action for such injury, expenses or loss of services or consortium shall be maintained by the husband.'

The Brucheys' declaration alleges that she is totally and permanently disabled for life and that he 'was deprived of the care, companionship and services of his wife * * * from the time of the accident to the present and that he will be without her services for the entire future of her lifetime.' The pleadings of Harford and Hinder raised the issue of whether the Virginia law which does not allow a husband to recover for loss of consortium or the Maryland law which does should apply, the defendants asserting that Virginia law controls. Bruchey petitioned the court for a separate trial under Maryland Rule 502 of this separate issue of law, and Harford and Hinder gave due notice pursuant to Code, Art. 35, § 47 (1965 Repl. Vol.) (the Uniform Judicial Notice of Foreign Law Act), of their intention to rely on the statute and case law of Virginia.

Judge Dyer held a separate trial as requested, on a stipulation of the parties which included the stipulation that 'the law of the State of Virginia does not entitle Mr. Bruchey to bring any action for medical expenses for Mrs. Bruchey, for loss of her services, or for loss of consortium.' The parties agreed, however, that under the Virginia statute, although the wife in her action is to recover 'the entire damage sustained including the personal injury and expenses arising out of the injury whether chargeable to her or her husband,' including hospital, medical and funeral expenses, nevertheless 'any person, including the husband, partially or completely discharging such debts shall be reimbursed out of the sum recovered in the action,' so that the husband can recover the medical expenses. ¹

Judge Dyer recognized that Maryland has consistently applied the rule that the law of the place of the wrong controls substantive matters, including the measure of damages, but relied largely on cases such as Ash v. B. & O. R. R. Co., 72 Md. 144, 19 A. 643; London Etc. Co. v. Balgowan Steamship Co., 161 Md. 145, 155 A. 334, and Davis v. Ruzicka, 170 Md. 112, 183 A. 569. In Ash (as in the other cases) the Court was dealing with differences between the wrongful death statutes of Maryland and those of another State, and it found 'no reason why statutes of other States * * * should be allowed extra-territorial force and operation, by the Courts of this State.' However, in Texaco, Inc. v. Vanden Bosche, 242 Md. 334, 339, 219 A.2d 80, 83, we said 'that these decisions are sound law today is extremely unlikely in view of subsequent holdings of the Supreme Court,' in the light of 28 U.S.C. § 1738, as amended in 1948, providing that 'full faith and credit shall be given in each state to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state,' and First Nat. Bank of Chicago v. United Air Lines, 342 U.S. 396, 72 S.Ct. 421, 96 L.Ed. 441 (1952), and Hughes v. Fetter, 341 U.S. 609, 71 S.Ct. 980, 95 L.Ed. 1212 (1951), noted in 100 U.Pa.L.Rev. 126 (1952). In holding that Maryland law should prevail to allow Bruchey to recover for loss of consortium, Judge Dyer said:

'This Court believes that the inconsistency between Section 55-36 of the Married Woman's Act of Virginia and the Maryland provisions and common law, supra, with the resultant diminution and change in conjugal rights and duties reflects much more than different measures of damages. The distribution and administration of monetary recovery between a husband and wife, when interdependent with the subsequent conjugal rights and duties seem to be policies which should be governed by the law of the marital domicile. This belief is reinforced by the fact that all the parties are domiciled in Maryland, and that the accident occurred on a temporary excursion into Virginia. * * *

'Therefore, the issue posed in this case seems to go beyond the public policy of compensating tort victims, for the interdependency of Maryland's conjugal rights and duties indicates a public policy in favor of continuing this State's marital relationship in a way that has been rejected by the Virginia Legislature for its domiciliaries. By so deciding this case, this Court feels it does no injustice to the policies and laws of Virginia. The Virginia law should govern the issue of liability, for Virginia obviously has the right to determine what standards of driving conduct apply to those who use its highways. And generally, under the original Restatement Rule, supra, Virginia law should decide what recovery should be under its remedial laws. But the Virginia Married Woman's Act declares marital policy as well as the measure of tort damages, and to this extent should not be obligatory where its application would change the domestic relations of a married couple domiciled outside Virginia. A fortiori, it should not be applied where, as here, it would pluck an integral sheaf from a Maryland couples' bundle of rights.

'The Court recognizes that the Plaintiff has argued extensively for a basic change in the conflict of laws rule for torts, proposing a change to the center of gravity or most significant relationship test. * * * If this were the Maryland Rule today, the Court would have reached substantially the same results.'

We do not agree with Judge Dyer. In White v. King, 244 Md. 348, 223 A.2d 763, we carefully reviewed the criticisms of and the arguments against lex loci delicti by courts and commentators and the virtues claimed for substitute rules, such as those labelled 'the center of gravity,' 'grouping of contracts,' and 'most significant relationships,' and, suggesting there had not yet been evolved a...