## Facts

- A charter bus carrying members of an Ontario women’s hockey team struck the rear of a tractor-trailer parked on a highway shoulder near Geneseo, New York.
- Three bus passengers and the tractor-trailer driver died; multiple passengers suffered serious injuries.
- The injured and deceased bus passengers were domiciliaries of Ontario, Canada.
- The bus driver and corporate bus entities were treated as Ontario domiciliaries for choice-of-law purposes.
- The tractor-trailer driver and related trucking entities were treated as Pennsylvania domiciliaries.
- The accident occurred in New York, and the lawsuits were filed in New York courts.
- A conflict existed between Ontario’s limits on non-economic loss damages (including caps/limitations) and New York’s lack of comparable caps in similar personal injury and wrongful death actions.
- The trial court applied Ontario law to non-economic damages; the intermediate appellate court largely agreed but analyzed bus and truck defendants separately and still applied Ontario law to both groups for non-economic damages.

## Issues

1. Which jurisdiction’s law governs non-economic damages where the tort occurred in New York, the plaintiffs and bus defendants are Ontario domiciliaries, and the truck defendants are Pennsylvania domiciliaries.
2. Whether New York’s interest-analysis approach permits applying different loss-allocation rules to different defendant groups in the same multi-party accident.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeals modified the intermediate appellate orders and, as modified, affirmed.
- For claims against the Ontario bus defendants, Ontario law governs non-economic damages.
- For claims against the Pennsylvania truck defendants, New York law governs non-economic damages.
- The court rejected the view that one jurisdiction’s loss-allocation rule must apply uniformly to all defendants; it approved issue-by-issue and party-by-party analysis producing a split result.

## Legal Principles

- New York uses interest analysis (grouping of contacts) in tort conflicts, applying the law of the jurisdiction with the greatest interest in the specific issue.
- Choice-of-law analysis distinguishes conduct-regulating rules (typically tied to the place of the tort) from loss-allocating rules (often tied to parties’ domiciles and insurance/compensation policies).
- Foreign damages caps and similar non-economic damages limits are treated as loss-allocation rules rather than conduct-regulating rules.
- When both plaintiffs and a defendant are domiciliaries of the same foreign jurisdiction, that jurisdiction’s loss-allocation policy may control damages even if the accident occurred in New York.
- New York has a strong interest in the liability consequences for non-resident commercial actors using New York highways; that interest may justify applying New York damages law to non-domiciliary defendants for a New York accident.
- Depecage is permissible in New York conflicts law: different substantive laws may govern different parties (and potentially different issues) within the same litigation when interests and contacts diverge.

## Conclusion

The Court of Appeals held that non-economic damages are governed by Ontario law as to the Ontario bus defendants, but by New York law as to the Pennsylvania truck defendants, applying New York’s interest-analysis framework to a loss-allocation conflict and permitting a split, party-specific choice-of-law outcome in a multi-defendant accident occurring in New York.


Edwards v. Erie Coach Lines Co., 17 N.Y.3d 306 (N.Y. 2011)