Hopkins v. Lockheed Aircraft Corp.

• Decision Date: 01 February 1967
• Docket Number: No. 35203,35203
• Citation: 201 So.2d 743
• Parties: Mary S. HOPKINS, individually and as Executrix of the Estate of George D. Hopkins, Deceased, Appellant, v. LOCKHEED AIRCRAFT CORPORATION, Appellee.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

Page 743

201 So.2d 743

Mary S. HOPKINS, individually and as Executrix of the Estate of George D. Hopkins, Deceased, Appellant, v. LOCKHEED AIRCRAFT CORPORATION, Appellee.

No. 35203.

Supreme Court of Florida.

Feb. 1, 1967.

As Corrected July 12, 1967.

On Rehearing July 26, 1967.

Henderson, Franklin, Starnes & Holt, Fort Myers, for appellant.

Macfarlane, Ferguson, Allison, Kelly & Himes, T. Paine Kelly, Jr., and David H. McClain, Tampa, for appellee.

ROBERTS, Justice.

This cause is before the court for determination of a question of law certified to us by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit pursuant to Rule 4.61, Florida Appellate Rules, 31 F.S.A. Hopkins v. Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, 358 F.2d 347, opinion and certificate filed March 24, 1966. The factual background against which the question certified is presented is succinctly stated in the appellate court's certificate, as follows:

'Plaintiff (appellant), a Florida citizen, prior to September 17, 1961, resided in Florida with the Deceased as man and wife. On September 17, 1961, the Deceased was a fare-paying passenger on an aircraft designed and manufactured by Lockheed (appellee), a California corporation doing business in Florida, and operated by Northwest Airlines, Inc., which crashed in Illinois, killing all persons aboard. The aircraft was on a regularly scheduled flight from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to Tampa, Florida, via Chicago, Illinois. Deceased boarded the doomed aircraft in Chicago, after a stop-over of several days, on the last leg of a round trip ticket he had purchased from Northwest in Tampa.

'After his death, probate was commenced in Lee County, Florida, and Plaintiff was appointed as Executrix of the estate of her deceased husband. Administration of this estate is still pending.

'Thereafter, Plaintiff filed separate actions against Northwest and Lockheed. The basis of the allegations in the suit against Northwest was negligent maintenance and operation of the aircraft, and the basis of the suit against Lockheed, the subject of this appeal, is negligent design and manufacture resulting in a breach of implied warranty of fitness. The suit against Northwest was terminated by payment of $32,500 to Plaintiff in consideration for a covenant not to sue.

'The Illinois Wrongful Death Act, Ill.Ann.Stat. Ch. 70, Sections 1--2 (Smith-Hurd), provides an action for damages for wrongful death for accidents within the State of Illinois and contains a limitation of recoverable damages in the amount of $30,000.

'The Florida Wrongful Death Act, Fla.Stat.Ann. Section 768.01 et seq., contains no limitation on the damages recoverable for wrongful death.'

The trial judge entered summary judgment for defendant Lockheed on the ground that the Illinois statutory limitation of damages was applicable to plaintiff's suit; that she had already recovered from the defendant Northwest Airlines more than the amount obtainable under the Illinois statute; and that a trial on the merits would, therefore, be moot. On appeal by the plaintiff, the sole question presented was whether the trial judge properly applied the Illinois limitation of damages. Finding no clear, controlling precedents in the decisions of this court determinative of the question, the appellate court has certified to this court for response the following question:

'Would the State Courts of Florida, for reasons of public policy or otherwise, refuse to apply the Illinois limitation of damages in the above situation, and if so, would any limitation of damages apply?'

In support of the contention that the first part of this question should be answered in the affirmative, counsel for plaintiff-appellant argues that this court has an opportunity to align itself with those courts which have discarded the ancient rule that the Lex loci delicti is the sole arbiter of the substantive rights and liabilities of the parties in tort cases--the so-called place-of-wrong rule--and have adopted, in its stead, a more flexible rule or standard by which to solve conflict-of-law (or, more accurately, choice-of-law) problems which inevitably arise in a multi-state tort case--and particularly in the multi-state accident cases which are becoming more and more frequent in the fast-moving, travel-minded, age of today. And after careful consideration of the leading decisions, we are persuaded that they are based on impeccable and irresistible logic and reasoning. Accordingly, the first part of the question here certified is answered in the affirmative.

We note, first, that the reason for the court-adopted rule of Lex loci delicti has, over the years, lost much if not all of its authenticity. An early case, Alexander v. Pennsylvania Co., 1891, 48 Ohio St. 623, 30 N.E. 69, stated the reason for the rule as follows:

'An act should be judged by the law of the jurisdiction where it was committed. The party acting or omitting to act must be presumed to have been guided by the law in force at the time and place, and to which he owed obedience. If his conduct, according to that law, violated no right of another, no cause of action arose, for actions at law are provided to redress violated rights.'

The reason thus given is clearly inapposite in the case of an unintentional tort--especially one where, as in the instant case, the 'place of wrong' was purely adventitious--mere 'happenstance'.

Another reason for the rule was stated by the New York Court of Appeals in Babcock v. Jackson, 1963, 12 N.Y.2d 473, 240 N.Y.S.2d 743, 191 N.E.2d 279, 95 A.L.R.2d 1, as follows:

'It had its conceptual foundation in the vested rights doctrine, namely, that a right to recover for a foreign tort owes its creation to the law of the jurisdiction where the injury occurred and depends for its existence and extent solely on such law.'

But, as pointed out by the New York court in that decision,

'(T)he vested rights doctrine has long since been discredited because it fails to take account of underlying policy considerations in evaluating the significance to be ascribed to the circumstance that an act had a foreign situs in determining the rights and liabilities which arise out of that act.'

That policy considerations are a Sine qua non to the exercise by a court of the judicial principle of comity, in assuming jurisdiction of a cause of action arising under the law of a foreign state or in recognizing a status created by the law or a judicial decision of a foreign state, has long been recognized in this jurisdiction. See Herron v. Passailaigue, 1926, 92 Fla. 818, 110 So. 539; Mott v. First National Bank of St. Petersburg, 1929, 98 Fla. 444, 124 So. 36; Hartford Accident & Indemnity Co. v. City of Thomasville, 1930, 100 Fla. 748, 130 So. 7; Beckwith v. Bailey, 1935, 119 Fla. 316, 161 So. 576; and Kellog-Citizens National Bank of Green Bay v. Felton, 1940, 145 Fla. 68, 199 So. 50. Accord: Tsilidis v. Pedakis, Fla.App.1961, 132 So.2d 9; Allen v. Universal C.I.T. Credit Corp., Fla.App.1961, 133 So.2d 442; Neal v. State ex rel. Neal, Fla.App.1961, 135 So.2d 891.

This aspect of judicial comity--of which the rule of Lex loci delicti in tort cases is necessarily a subservient part--was stated in the Hartford Accident & Indemnity Co. case, supra, 130 So. 7, 8, as follows:--

'The rule of judicial comity has reference to the principle in accordance with which the courts of one state or jurisdiction will give effect to the laws and judicial decisions of another state, not as a matter of obligation, but out of deference and respect. * * * While the statutes of one state have no force or effect in another state, courts of justice in one state will by the rule of comity assume jurisdiction of causes of action which are transitory in their nature and arise under the law of a foreign state. * * * The extent and scope to which the rule of comity will operate is not universal, but will be determined by each sovereignty under the controlling facts of the particular case. It does not require a court to enforce rights given by the statutes of another state to the prejudice of its own citizens, or when complete justice cannot be done, nor will the courts of one state enforce laws of another state which are repugnant to its own or to public policy.' (Emphasis added.)

Similarly, in Beckwith v. Bailey, supra, 161 So. 576, 581, in considering whether an Idaho divorce decree should be recognized, under the rule of comity, as a defense to a suit for alienation of affections, this court noted that

'* * * it has not been made to appear by the proofs as a matter of law that the public policy, Or any salutary interest, of the state of Florida requires the preservation of the pre-existing marital status of Harold O. Bailey with his wife * * *.' (Emphasis added.)

An examination of the decisions relied upon by defendant-appellee in which this court has given lip service to the place-of-wrong rule reveals that there was, in fact, no claim of conflict between the law of this, the forum, state and the law of the place-of-wrong state. See Meyer v. Pitzele, Fla.App.1960, 122 So.2d 228; Myrick v. Griffin, 1941, 146 Fla. 148, 200 So. 383. In Astor Electric Service v. Cabrera, Fla.1952, 62 So.2d 759, the choice-of-law problem was as between the law of the domicile of the parties (Puerto Rico) and Florida, which was the forum as well as the place-of-wrong state. A similar situation existed in Young v. Viruet de Garcia, Fla.App.1965, 172 So.2d 243. In Astor, we declined to apply the community-property law of Puerto Rico to the issue of whether the negligence of the husband should be imputed to the plaintiff-wife because such law is contrary to the legislative policy of this state. In Young, it appears that there was, in fact, no conflict between Puerto Rican and Florida law on the ultimate issue of whether the plaintiff was entitled to bring the suit.

In view, then, of the frequently announced and strongly worded policy of this court to give primary consideration, in...