#11105 - The Constitution And Choice Of Law - Conflict of Laws

The Constitution and Choice of Law

1. The Limits of Legislative Jurisdiction

   1. Due Process

      1. The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment provides that no state shall "deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law."

      2. The issue raised by the Due Process Clause is simply whether or not the application of one state's laws would be arbitrary or fundamentally unfair to either of the litigants.

         • "[A] choice-of-law decision would violate the Due Process clause if it were totally arbitrary or if it were fundamentally unfair to either litigant." Allstate Ins. Co. v. Hague (Stevens, J. concurring - pg. 338)

      3. FACTORS

         • (1) Undue surprise

           • A state's "attempt to impose a greater obligation than that agreed upon and to seize property in payment of the imposed obligation violates the guaranty against deprivation of property without due process of law." Home Ins. Co. v. Dick (pg. 314)

             • "When . . . the parties have expressly agreed upon a time limit on their obligation, a statute which invalidates the agreement and directs enforcement on the contract after the time has expired increases their obligation and imposes a burden not contracted for." Home Ins. Co. v. Dick (pg. 315)

           • A state may not "enlarge the obligations of the parties to accord with every local statutory policy solely upon the ground that one of the parties is its own citizen." Hartford Acc. & Indem. Co. v. Delta & Pine Land Co. (pg. 318)

      4. (2) Quid pro quo

         • One element of whether there was fundamental unfairness is whether the litigant has gotten something from the state whose law is being applied.

           • A state "may not abrogate the rights of parties beyond its borders having no relation to anything done or to be done within them." Home Ins. Co. v. Dick (pg. 315)

             • "[A state] may not validly affect contracts which are neither made nor are to be performed in Texas." Home Ins. Co. v. Dick (pg. 315)s

             • The court in that case noted that neither of the litigants "has asked favors" of Texas. "They ask only to be let alone." Home Ins. Co. v. Dick (pg. 315)

           • A state "may not . . . ignore a right lawfully vested elsewhere if . . . the interests of the forum has but slight connection with the substance of the contract obligation." Hartford Acc. & Indem. Co. v. Delta & Pine Land Co. (pg. 318)

   2. Full Faith and Credit

      1. "Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and Judicial Proceedings of every other State." U.S. Constitution, Art. IV, § 1

      2. An interested state can always apply its law notwithstanding the interest of any other state. See Pacific Employers

         • Does the forum state have a legitimate interest?

   3. Convergence

      1. With respect to both the Due Process Clause and the Full Faith and Credit clause, "for a State's substantive law to be selected in a constitutionally permissible manner, that state must have a significant contact or significant aggregation of contacts, creating state interests, such that choice of its law is neither arbitrary nor fundamentally unfair." Allstate Ins. Co. v. Hague (pg. 334)

2. The Obligation to Provide a Forum

   1. A statute "is a 'public act' within the provision of Art. IV, § 1 that 'Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts . . . of every other State.'" Hughes v. Fetter (pg. 352)

   2. THE WHOLE POINT of this section is that Hughes is an example where the forum state did not have a legitimate interest.

   3. A state "cannot escape this constitutional obligation to enforce the rights and duties validly created under the laws of other states by the simple device of removing jurisdiction from courts otherwise competent." Hughes v. Fetter (pg. 352)

      1. In that case, the statute at issue was a Wisconsin statute which created a cause of action only for deaths caused in Wisconsin and established a local policy against Wisconsin's entertaining suits brought under the wrongful death acts of other states.

      2. The Court noted that "Wisconsin's exclusionary statute might amount to a deprivation of all opportunity to enforce valid death claims created by another state." Hughes v. Fetter (pg. 353)

      3. Thus, the Court concluded that "Wisconsin's statutory policy which excludes this Illinois cause of action is forbidden by the national policy of the Full Faith and Credit Clause." Hughes v. Fetter (pg. 353)

      4. BUT note FN 10 which states that "[t]he present case is not one where Wisconsin, having entertained appellant's lawsuit, chose to apply its own instead of Illinois' statute to measure the substantive rights involved. This distinguishes the present case from those where we have said that 'Prima facie every state is entitled to enforce in its own courts its own statutes, lawfully enacted.'" Hughes v. Fetter (pg. 353 n.10)

         • It is not entirely clear what this means. This almost implies that the court could've just applied Wisconsin law and then found that the plaintiff did not meet the statute and thus dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim.

           • However, what is confusing about the wording used is the idea of applying Wisconsin law "to measure the substantive rights involved." Does this mean that even if the Wisconsin statute were applied that the action could still be maintained? Does this imply that the limitation to deaths in Wisconsin is "procedural" as opposed to "substantive"?

   4. "A State may adopt such systems of courts and form of remedy as it sees fit. It may in appropriate cases apply the doctrine of forum non conveniens . . . But it may not, under the guise of merely affecting the remedy, deny the enforcement of claims otherwise within the protection of the full faith and credit clause, when its courts have general jursdiction of the subject matter and the parties." Broderick v. Rosner (pp. 355-56)

   5. "[A] transitory cause of action can be maintained in another state even though the statute creating the cause of action provides that the action must be brought in local domestic courts." Tennessee Coal, Iron & R.R. Co. v. George (pg. 361)

3. Unconstitutional Discrimination in Choice of Law - P & I Clause

   1. Article IV, § 2 of the...