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Ulrich Huber’s Three Maxim’s
(1) The laws of each state have force within the limits of that government and bind all subject to it, but not beyond.
(2) All persons within the limits of a government, whether they live there permanently or temporarily, are deemed to be subjects thereof.
(3) Sovereigns will so act by way of comity that rights acquired within the limits of a government retain their force everywhere so far as they do not cause prejudice to the power or rights of such government or of its subjects.
The traditional approach to choice of law is synonymous with Beale’s territorial “vested rights” approach.
Alabama Great Southern R.R. Co. v. Carroll
1892
Facts
1. ∏ (Carroll) was an employee of the ∆, and a citizen of Alabama. The ∆ is an Alabama corporation, operating a RR extending from Chattanooga, TN through Meridian, MI.
2. At the time of the casualty the ∏ was in the service of the ∆ and a brakeman, running a train under a contract made in Alabama.
3. The injury was caused by the breaking of a link between two cars in a freight train which was proceeding from Birmingham to Meridian. The link broke and injury occurred in the state of Mississippi. It was a defective link that was defective when leaving Alabama.
4. A case for recovery can be found under the employer’s liability act in Alabama, but there is no law of similar force in Mississippi.
Issue
Whether Alabama or Mississippi law applies to the cause of action?
Holding
Mississippi. The negligent infliction of an injury here, under statutory circumstances, creates a right of action here, which, being transitory, may be enforced in another other state or country the comity of which admits of it, but for an injury inflicted elsewhere than in Alabama our statute gives no right of recovery, and the aggrieved party must look to the local law to ascertain what his rights are.
Rule of Law
There can be no recovery in one state for injuries to the person sustained in another unless the infliction of the injuries is actionable under the law of the state in which they were received.
Qualification: The infliction of the injuries would also support an action in the state where the suit is brought had they been received within that state.
§ 2590 of the Code of Alabama had no efficacy beyond the lines of Alabama, it cannot be allowed to operate upon facts occurring in another state.
Reasoning
Up until the train passed out of Alabama no injury had resulted and no cause of action had arose. The injury, the fact creating the right to sue, transpired in the state of Mississippi.
§ 2590 is to be interpreted in the light of universally recognized principles of private, international, or interstate law, as if its operation had been expressly limited to this state, and as if its first line was read to state if personal injury was received in Alabama.
The duties and liabilities incident to the relation between the ∏ and ∆, which are involved in this case, are not imposed by, and do not rest in or spring from, the contract between the parties. The only office of the contract is to establish the relation of master and servant between the parties.
Arguments
∏- Argue that the negligence which produced the casualty transpired in Alabama, and wherever the consequences of that negligence manifested itself, a recovery can be had in Alabama.
∏- the employer’s liability act becomes part of the Alabama contract.
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Notes
(2) Traditional choice of law thinking places a high value on uniformity of result, predictability and the discouragement of forum-shopping.
(4) Huber’s territorial theory for choosing the applicable law (which underlies the Carroll opinion) was restated by Justice Story.
§ 18. The first and most general maxim or proposition is . . . that every nation possesses an exclusive sovereignty and jurisdiction within its own territory. The direct consequence of this rule is, that the laws of every state affect, and bind directly all property, whether real or personal, within its territory; and all persons, who are resident within it, whether natural born subjects, or aliens; and also all contracts made, and acts done within it.
§ 20. Another maxim, or proposition is, that no state or nation can, by its laws, directly affect or bind property out of its own territory, or bind persons not resident therein, whether they are natural born subjects or others. This is a natural consequence of the first proposition; for it would be wholly incompatible with the equality and exclusiveness of the sovereignty of all nations, that any one nation should be at liberty to regulate either persons or things not within its own territory.
(5) Suppose in Carroll that it was Mississippi that had abolished the fellow-servant rule and Alabama that had preserved it. ∏ could then recover under Mississippi but not Alabama law.
(6) Isn’t Alabama regulate persons or things not in its own territory when applying Mississippi law? Story also explained a third maxim.
§ 23. Whatever force and obligation the laws of one country have in another, depend solely upon the laws, and municipal regulations of the latter, that is to say, upon its own proper jurisprudence and polity, and upon its own express or tacit consent. A state may prohibit the operation of all foreign laws, and the rights growing out of them, within its own territories. It may prohibit some foreign laws, and it may admit the operation of others.
§ 38. There is, then, not only no impropriety in the use of the phrase, “comity
n which he paid $300 and the remainder upon which this action was brought. Some of the goods were ordered by mail, others in person. The ∆ refused to make payment.
4. Massachusetts barred women from acting as surety for their husbands while Maine allowed them to do so.
Issue
Whether a contract made in another state by a married woman domiciled here, which a married woman was not at the time capable of making under MA law, but was then allowed by Maine law, and which was not lawfully allowed to be made in MA, will sustain an action against her in MA courts?
Holding
The law of the place of contract governs. Maine law governs and the spouse had the capacity to enter into the contract under Maine law.
Rule of Law
The validity of a contract is to be determined by the law of the state in which it is made, if it is valid there it is valid everywhere, and will sustain an action in the courts of a state whose laws do not permit such a contract. Scudder.
If a person residing in this state signs and transmits, either by a messenger or through the post-office, to a person in another state, a written contract which requires no special forms or solemnities in execution and no signature of the person to whom it is addressed, and is assented to an acted on by him there, the contract is made there, just as if the writer personally took the executed contract into the other state, or wrote and signed it there.
The law of Maine authorized a married woman to bind herself by any contract as if she was unmarried. The law of MA as then existing, did not allow her to enter into a contract as surety or for the accommodation of her husband or any third person.
Although foreign jurists generally hold that the law of the domicile ought to govern in regard to the capacity of persons to contract; yet the common law holds a different doctrine, that the lex loci contractus is to govern.
Where a married woman domiciled with her husband in Mississippi, by the law of which a purchase by a married woman was valid and the property purchased went to her separate use, bought personal property in TN, by the law of which married women were incapable of contracting, the contract of purchase was void and could not be enforced in TN.
