## Facts

- Georgia W. Babcock, a New York resident, rode as a guest passenger in an automobile owned and driven by William H. Jackson, also a New York resident.
- Babcock and the Jacksons (husband and wife) lived in Rochester, New York, and began a weekend pleasure trip from Rochester to Canada, intending to return to New York.
- While driving in Ontario, Jackson lost control and struck a stone wall; Babcock was seriously injured.
- Ontario law contained a “guest statute” barring liability to nonpaying passengers for injuries arising from operation of the vehicle; New York had no comparable limitation.
- After returning to New York, Babcock sued in New York for negligence; the defense argued Ontario law governed and barred recovery.
- The trial court dismissed under the traditional rule applying the law of the place of injury; the Appellate Division affirmed without opinion; Babcock appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether New York must apply the law of the place of the injury (Ontario) to determine a guest passenger’s right to recover in tort.
2. Whether, in a multi-jurisdiction tort, the governing law should instead be that of the jurisdiction with the strongest interest in the specific issue presented.

## Decision

- The New York Court of Appeals reversed the dismissal and remanded.
- The court rejected an inflexible lex loci delicti rule for tort choice-of-law questions.
- Applying an interest-based approach, the court held New York law governed the guest’s right to recover, and Ontario’s guest statute did not bar the action.

## Legal Principles

- Tort choice of law is not controlled invariably by the place of injury; the governing law is that of the jurisdiction with the strongest interest in resolving the particular issue.
- Choice-of-law analysis should consider the purposes of the competing rules and the jurisdictions’ relevant contacts and governmental interests.
- For loss-allocation rules defining rights and liabilities between host and guest (as opposed to conduct-regulating rules of the road), the parties’ common domicile and the place where their relationship is centered may predominate.
- When the accident location is fortuitous relative to the parties’ relationship and expectations, it may carry less weight than the domicile-based interests implicated by allocating losses among residents.

## Conclusion

The court applied an interest-analysis approach and held that New York, as the parties’ common domicile and the center of their relationship, had the stronger interest in allocating losses between them; therefore, New York law—not Ontario’s guest statute—governed the guest passenger’s negligence claim.


Babcock v. Jackson, 12 N.Y.2d 473 (N.Y. 1963)