Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Budget Rent-A-Car Systems

• Decision Date: 04 September 1990
• Docket Number: No. 89-3425,WAL-MART,RENT-A-CAR,89-3425
• Citation: 567 So.2d 918
• Parties: 15 Fla. L. Weekly D2198 STORES, INC., Appellant, v. BUDGETSYSTEMS, et al., Appellees.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

Page 918

567 So.2d 918

15 Fla. L. Weekly D2198

WAL-MART STORES, INC., Appellant, v. BUDGET RENT-A-CAR SYSTEMS, et al., Appellees.

No. 89-3425.

District Court of Appeal of Florida,

First District.

Sept. 4, 1990.

Rehearing Denied Oct. 31, 1990.

J. Lester Kaney and Renee K. Fehr, of Cobb, Cole & Bell, Daytona Beach, and Robert M. Klein, of Stephens, Lynn, Klein & McNicholas, P.A., Miami, for appellant.

Terence R. Perkins, of Monaco, Smith, Hood & Perkins, Daytona Beach, for appellees.

MINER, Judge.

In this appeal, appellant Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (Wal-Mart) challenges the dismissal with prejudice of its claim for contribution against appellees Budget Rent-A-Car Systems, (Budget), Precision Leasing, Inc., (Precision) and Express Leasing, Inc., (Express). Finding that such dismissal was erroneous, we reverse.

The case at hand was born of a judgment entered against Wal-Mart in a personal injury action, the facts of which case are not here in dispute. In January 1987, Theresa Washington, a Florida resident, rented a van at the Panama City, Florida airport from Budget Rent-A-Car, a Delaware corporation doing business in Florida. The leased van was owned by Precision, a Florida corporation, which entity leased the vehicle under a master lease agreement to Express, a Florida corporation, doing business as Budget Rent-A-Car. Ms. Washington signed a standard form rental agreement wherein she designated herself and one Pernell Barker, also a Florida resident, as authorized drivers. The purpose of leasing the van was to transport Ms. Washington, Barker and a passenger, Ms. Anderson, to Pennsylvania. Under the terms of the lease agreement, the van was to be returned by Ms. Washington to Panama City and the laws of Florida were to be applied to construe its terms in the event any dispute arose between the parties to the lease.

Later on the same day it was leased, with Pernell Barker driving, the van was involved in an accident near Homerville, Georgia, when it collided with a semi-tractor-trailer owned and operated by Wal-Mart, a Delaware corporation headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas. The driver of the semi-tractor-trailer was a Georgia resident. Ms. Anderson, a passenger in the van, was severely injured. She sued Barker and Wal-Mart in the circuit court of Bay County, Florida, alleging that they were jointly and severally liable for her injuries. During the course of that litigation, an issue was raised as to whether Georgia or Florida law should apply to the issues of negligence and joint and several liability. The trial court applied the law of Georgia and, at trial, the jury returned a special verdict which found Barker 70% negligent and Wal-Mart 30% negligent in causing Ms. Anderson's injuries. Wal-Mart paid the entire judgment. On appeal, this court followed the "significant relationships" tests set forth in Bishop v. Florida Specialty Paint Co., 389 So.2d 999 (Fla.1980) in affirming the trial court's application of Georgia law to the issues raised in that litigation. Barker v. Anderson, 546 So.2d 449 (Fla. 1st DCA 1989).

Wal-Mart subsequently filed an action for contribution in the same court against Barker as joint tortfeasor, and against Budget, Precision, Express and Washington as vicariously liable parties under Florida's dangerous instrumentality doctrine. The trial court dismissed the complaint with prejudice for failure to state a cause of action under Georgia law. It reasoned that its analysis of the underlying negligence claim also controlled its determination that Georgia, which does not recognize a dangerous instrumentality doctrine, has the most significant relationship to the issue of contribution. From such dismissal, this appeal ensued.

In Bishop, supra, the supreme court adopted the Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws, sections 145-146, which modify the traditional lex loci delicti rule in favor of a more flexible approach. While Bishop stressed that the place of injury was still the primary consideration when determining the appropriate choice of law, important public policy concerns outlined in section 6 of the Restatement outweigh any mechanistic application of the significant relationships test. See Barringer v. State, 111 Idaho 794, 727 P.2d 1222 (1986). ¹

The issue in this case is whether the trial court erred in applying Georgia law to Wal-Mart's contribution claim. That claim was not before this court in Barker v. Anderson, and is substantially distinct from the underlying negligence that was previously litigated in that case. We apply the Restatement (Second), Conflict of Laws, section 6(2)(a), which outlines the relevant factors we have considered in choosing the applicable law, as follows:

(a) The needs of the interstate and international systems. The Restatement comment indicates that this is probably the most significant factor of the choice of law rules--to make the interstate and international systems work well and harmoniously together. As we recognized in Barker, Georgia had a manifest need to have its laws apply to the underlying tort. On the contribution issue, however, sister state harmony and commercial intercourse is facilitated by application of Florida law because (1) the Precision and Express Leasing master agreement provided that Florida law would govern contractual obligations; (2) Florida has a great interest in holding parties who put dangerous instrumentalities into another's hands responsible for injuries negligently inflicted; and (3) Florida's system would not impinge upon any needs promoted by Georgia law.

(b) The relevant policies of the forum. Florida's interest in imposing responsibility vicariously upon those who rent, own and operate motor vehicles on public highways is manifest from its dangerous instrumentality doctrine. We find that Florida's interest in protecting its residents and holding them responsible for their torts or the torts of their bailees outweighs Georgia's interest in protecting transients such as Barker and the appellees.

(c) The relevant policies of the other interested states and the relative interests of those states in the determination of the particular issue. Georgia permits contribution among tortfeasors, but does not impose vicarious liability upon owners or lessors of automobiles. See, Ga.Code Ann. (1987) section 51-12-32; Horton v. Continental Casualty, 72 Ga.App. 594, 34 S.E.2d 605 (1945); Liddy v. Hames, 177 Ga.App. 517, 339 S.E.2d 778 (1986) [liability predicated not on doctrine of respondent superior but on negligent act of owner]. Although this policy protects certain Georgia businesses and citizens, it does not control to preclude Wal-Mart from equitably and vicariously reapportioning its liability through contribution because no Georgia citizen is adversely affected, and Georgia's policy remains unscathed by application of Florida law.

(d) The protection of justified expectations. While substantially important in a contract case, the parties probably had no justified expectation which law would apply and any expectation was irrelevant in determining that Georgia law applied to the underlying tort action. The appellees, on the other hand, could have contemplated only that Florida law would govern obligations arising out of the rental agreement and master contract. As we stated in Stallworth v. Hospitality Rentals, Inc., 515 So.2d 413 (Fla. 1st DCA 1987), we are unwilling to conclude that each time a rental automobile crosses a state line, the legal rule governing appellees' vicarious liability to Florida occupants would change in accordance with the local law of the state where such rental vehicle happened to be located at the moment. See Stallworth, 515 So.2d at 417, n. 4.

(e) The basic policies underlying the particular field of law. That Florida law goes somewhat further in imposing liability without fault should not imply that Georgia policy would be offended by the application of Florida law since no Georgia resident is adversely affected. On the other hand, application of Georgia law to the issue of contribution seems to us repugnant to Florida's...