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Personal jurisdiction Choice of law Recognition of foreign judgments Constitutional Sub-constitutional

Prosser: “The realm of the conflict of laws is a dismal swamp, filled with quaking quagmires, and inhabited by learned but eccentric professors who theorize about mysterious matters in a strange and incomprehensible jargon. The ordinary court, or lawyer, is quite lost when engulfed and entangled in it.” Kim Roosevelt: “Choice of law is a mess.” William Reynolds: “Choice of law today, both the theory and practice of it, is universally said to be a disaster. The agreement on that proposition, among all branches of the profession, is nearly universal. “ Joseph William Singer: a “confusing morass”

Alabama Great Southern RR Co v Carroll (Ala. 1892)

§ 386. Liability To Servant For Tort Of Fellow Servant The law of the place of wrong determines whether a master is liable in tort to a servant for a wrong caused by a fellow servant.

§ 377. The Place Of Wrong The place of wrong is in the state where the last event necessary to make an actor liable for an alleged tort takes place.

“Up to the time this train passed out of Alabama no injury had resulted. For all that occurred in Alabama, therefore, no cause of action whatever arose. The fact which created the right to sue, the injury, without which confessedly no action would lie anywhere, transpired in the state of Mississippi. It was in that state, therefore, necessarily that the cause of action, if any, arose; and whether a cause of action arose and existed at all, or not, must in all reason be determined by the law which obtained at the time and place when and where the fact which is relied on to justify a recovery transpired.”

“The [plaintiff’s] theory is that the employers' liability act became a part of this contract, that the duties and liabilities which it prescribes became contractual duties and liabilities, or duties and liabilities springing out of the contract, and that these duties attended upon the execution whenever its performance was required, in Mississippi as well as in Alabama, and that the liability prescribed for a failure to perform any of such duties attached upon such failure and consequent injury wherever it occurred, and was enforceable here, because imposed by an Alabama contract, notwithstanding the remission of duty and the resulting injury occurred in Mississippi, under whose laws no liability was incurred by such remission.

“Section 2590 of the Code, in other words, 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 read as follows: ‘When a personal injury is received in Alabama by a servant or employee,’ etc.”

What if Carroll had fallen in Mississippi, felt OK, walked to Louisiana where his harm manifested itself? What law would apply?

§ 377. The Place Of Wrong The place of wrong is in the state where the last event necessary to make an actor liable for an alleged tort takes place. Rule 1. Except in the case of harm from poison, when a person sustains bodily harm, the place of wrong is the place where the harmful force takes effect upon the body.

Assume the plaintiff is poisoned by the defendant in Alabama, gets sick in Mississippi, and dies in Louisiana. What state's law applies for a tort action against the defendant? Why?

§ 377. The Place Of Wrong Rule 2. When a person causes another voluntarily to take a deleterious substance which takes effect within the body, the place of wrong is where the deleterious substance takes effect and not where it is administered.

What if the Carroll's wife, who lives with Carroll in Alabama, had sued the railroad for loss of consortium. What law would apply?

§ 391. Right Of Action For Death The law of the place of wrong governs the right of action for death.