## Facts

- David and Orilla Mae Cropp, Oregon residents and self-employed long-haul truck drivers, were involved in a highway collision in California on December 18, 1990.
- While the Cropps’ truck was parked on the shoulder of Highway 395 near Doyle, California, it was struck by a truck driven by Robert Edward Rust, an employee of Interstate Distributor Co.
- The collision caused personal injuries and property damage to the Cropps.
- Interstate Distributor Co. was a Washington corporation with its principal office in Tacoma and conducted most of its business in California; Rust was a Nevada resident who worked mainly in California but drove into Oregon periodically.
- The Cropps filed a negligence action in Oregon in April 1992—more than one year but less than two years after the accident.
- California provided a one-year limitations period for personal injury actions at the time; Oregon provided a two-year limitations period.

## Issues

1. Under Oregon tort choice-of-law principles, whether Oregon’s two-year or California’s one-year statute of limitations governed an Oregon-filed personal injury action arising from a California accident.
2. Whether California’s limitations period should be treated as part of the governing substantive tort law rather than automatically displaced by Oregon’s forum limitations law.

## Decision

- The Oregon Court of Appeals affirmed summary judgment for defendants.
- The court held that California’s one-year statute of limitations applied.
- Because the action was filed more than one year after the California accident, the claims were time-barred.

## Legal Principles

- Oregon first determines whether a material difference exists between Oregon law and another state’s law; a true conflict triggers a choice-of-law analysis rather than automatic application of forum law.
- In tort cases, Oregon applies the law of the state with the most significant relationship to the occurrence and the parties, evaluated through contacts and state policy interests.
- A statute of limitations may be treated as substantive for choice-of-law purposes when it is closely connected to another state’s policy choices governing the underlying tort claims.
- The place of injury and the defendant’s operational connections to the injury state can outweigh the plaintiffs’ Oregon domicile when the injury state has a strong regulatory interest in conduct and injuries within its borders.

## Conclusion

Because the accident and injuries occurred in California and defendants’ relevant work and business activity were centered there, California had the most significant relationship and stronger policy interest; applying California’s one-year limitations period barred the Oregon-filed claims.


Cropp v. Interstate Distributor Co., 129 Or. App. 510, 880 P.2d 464 (Or. Ct. App. 1994)