## Facts

- Ronald and Heather Day, Arizona residents and members of Central Christian Church of the East Valley, joined a church-organized mission trip to Mexico in November 2006 to build wood-framed structures.
- Central (an Arizona corporation) organized and coordinated the trip, recruited and assigned volunteers, and supervised construction work at the site.
- Amor Ministries (a California nonprofit) designed the buildings and supplied plans and materials for the construction projects in Mexico.
- On November 12, 2006, Ronald Day was working on roof framing that lacked sheathing; he stepped on an unsheathed rafter that broke, fell through the unfinished roof, and suffered head, neck, and back injuries.
- The Days sued Central and Amor for negligence; Heather asserted a loss-of-consortium claim.
- A jury awarded damages totaling over $4.9 million, allocating fault 5% to Ronald, 15% to Amor, and 80% to Central.

## Issues

1. Whether Arizona or Mexican law governed the negligence and loss-of-consortium claims arising from an injury in Mexico during a mission trip organized and supervised by an Arizona church for Arizona congregants.
2. Whether the trial court should have entered judgment nunc pro tunc as of the verdict date to apply a higher statutory pre- and post-judgment interest rate.

## Decision

- The court affirmed the judgment and the denial of Central’s motion for new trial.
- The court held Arizona law applied under Arizona’s Restatement (Second) “most significant relationship” approach, despite the injury occurring in Mexico.
- The court affirmed the trial court’s refusal to enter judgment nunc pro tunc because the request sought retroactive substantive benefit (a higher interest rate) rather than correction of a clerical or recording error.

## Legal Principles

- In tort conflicts, Arizona applies the Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws “most significant relationship” test; the place of injury is relevant but not controlling.
- A forum’s interest in compensating and protecting its domiciliaries and regulating local defendants can outweigh the foreign situs of the accident, particularly when the parties’ relationship and alleged negligent supervision are centered in the forum.
- Nunc pro tunc relief is a corrective device to make the record reflect what actually occurred; it is not a mechanism to back-date a judgment to change substantive consequences such as the applicable statutory interest rate absent a clerical mistake or misentry.

## Conclusion

The court applied Arizona tort law to an injury occurring in Mexico because Arizona had the most significant relationship to the parties and their church-centered mission-trip activities, and it refused to back-date the judgment nunc pro tunc where no clerical error justified altering the interest-rate consequences of the actual judgment-entry date.


Day v. Amor Ministries, No. 1 CA-CV 12-0059, 2013 WL 709660 (Ariz. Ct. App. Feb. 26, 2013)