Talk:Lex loci delicti commissi

Muddled Explanation

The discussion regarding the U.S. citizen who sues in a U.S. court on account of an accident that occurred in Mexico seems muddled. There are two separate questions which must be determined. The first is whether the alleged tortfeasor is subject to the personal jurisdiction of a U.S. court. If he is a resident of Mexico, and does not have "minimum contacts" with the United States, he will not be subject to the jurisdiction of a U.S. court.

If the U.S. court does have jurisdiction, the next question is determining which jurisdiction's laws should apply. The traditional and historic rule is lex loci delicti, and under that rule, the U.S. court would apply the law of Mexico, as that is where the incident occurred. Starting about the 1960's, however, many U.S. courts began to pull away from a strict application of lex loci delicti, because too many plaintiffs were losing, and the activist judges believed it was inappropriate in many cases to deny relief to U.S. person injured by a U.S. person, simply because the incident happened to occur in a place where the law was different. Other theories include (a) the jurisdiction with the most compelling governmental interest (i.e. does Mexico care whether we apply our law in a case in our own courts between our own citizens? and (b) the jurisdiction that has the most substantial relationship, which, in many cases, will result in Mexican law applying anyway.

As an example of a situation which was thought to cry out for reform, consider that if a person travels by automobile from Detroit, Michigan, to Buffalo, New York, the shortest, most direct route is through Ontario, which is in Canada. At one time (and perhaps currently), Ontario had a statute which provided that, in case of an accident, a non-paying passenger could not sue the driver except for intentional misconduct. The idea was that this would keep insurance premiums low (whether it did or not, I do not know). So, if Mollie and her friend, Susie, set out from Detroit to visit their friend, Imelda, in Buffalo, and Mollie, the driver, was negligent, and Susie, the passenger, was injured, and the accident occurred in Ontario, then the law of Ontario would apply, even though Susie sued Mollie in a Michigan or New York court. The New York courts rejected the traditional rule first, and Michigan, being more conservative at the time, did so much later.

John Paul Parks (talk) 20:07, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Where does the "conflicts of law"-approach apply this article is based upon?

I understand that (apart from, maybe, common law) many countries have their own conflicts of law approach. I therefore wonder for which jurisdiction this article applies (US; common law in general; Scottish Law?). This should be explained in the introduction, I presume.--Olag (talk) 11:21, 8 August 2012 (UTC)