The
lex loci delicti commissi is the
Latin term for "law of the place where the
tort was committed" in the
conflict of
laws. Conflict of laws is the branch of law regulating all
lawsuits involving a "foreign" law element
where a difference in result will occur depending on which laws are
applied.
The term is often shortened to
lex loci delicti.
Explanation
When a case comes before a
court and the
parties and the causes of action are local, the court will apply
the
lex fori, the prevailing
municipal
law, to decide the case. However, if
there are "foreign" elements to the case, the forum court may be
obliged under the conflict of laws to consider the following
issues:
The
lex loci delicti commissi is one of the possible
choice of law rules applied to cases arising from an alleged
tort.
For example, suppose
that a person domiciled in Australia and a person who resides in Albania
exchange
correspondence by e-mail that is alleged to defame a group of Kurds
resident in Turkey
. The
relevant choice of law rules would be:
- The lex loci
solutionis (law of the place where relevant performance
occurs) might be the most relevant, but it leaves the laws of
Australia, Albania, and Turkey equally applicable. That is, the
parties corresponded from two states but
the damage was not sustained until the correspondence was published
in Turkey;
- The proper law is the law which has
the closest connection with the alleged misconduct; and
- The lex fori which might have public policy issues if, for example,
one of the parties was an infant, or
multiple jurisdictions may be involved over global internet
use.
Reasoning for applicability
In a case where a US citizen on vacation in Mexico was injured when
he fell into a hotel construction excavation (while climbing a
mound of dirt to obtain a better view of the construction
activity), he attempted to sue the hotel's owners in a US court.
The US court rejected the suit, asserting
lex loci
delicti. The man appealed the trial court's finding, but the
appeals court sided with the trial court. The appeals court judge
(Judge Posner) supported his decision with a vigorous explanation
of why the lex loci rule should apply:
"The jurisdiction in
which the accident occurs] is the place that has the greatest
interest in striking a reasonable balance among safety, cost, and
other factors pertinent to the design and administration of a
system of tort law. Most people affected whether as
victims or as injurers by accidents and other injury-causing events
are residents of the jurisdiction in which the event takes
place. So if law can be assumed to be generally responsive
to the values and preferences of the people who live in the
community that formulated the law, the law of the place of the
accident can be expected to reflect the values and preferences of
the people most likely to be involved in accidents .
. ."
Two
Harvard
University
Law professors examined the Judge's reasoning, and
while agreeing with it in principle, articulated several different
points of rationale for applying local law to local
incidents:
- Under the economic theory of accident law, compensatory damages
should be relative to the social harm caused by an accident, and
that level of harm can best be determined by application of the
local laws governing that area;
- The perceived economic value of life and limb varies from state
to state;
- The optimal amount of medical care for an injured person (and
thus the required cash compensation) will vary from state to
state;
- Specific standards of precautions against particular classes of
injuries or accidents will differ between states, because of
differences in population density, climatic factors, economic
factors, differing perceptions of risk etc.
References
- http://www.yourdictionary.com/law/lex-loci-delicti
- Spinozzi v. Sherator Corp, 174 F.3d 842 (7th Cir. 1999)
-
http://www.harvardlawreview.org/issues/120/march07/goldsmith_sykes.pdf
See also
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