## Facts

- Tyrone Williams illegally smuggled Mexican and Honduran citizens into the United States in a tractor-trailer.
- Great Dane Trailer (Great Dane), a Delaware limited partnership, owned the trailer.
- Salem Trucking, Inc. (Salem), a New York corporation, owned the tractor.
- Williams abandoned the trailer at a gas station in Texas, and 19 migrants died.
- The estates and surviving family members of the decedents (families) sued Williams, Great Dane, and Salem in federal court in Texas, including claims for wrongful death and related relief.
- All plaintiffs lived in Mexico or Honduras and had no Texas ties other than the deaths occurring in Texas.
- Great Dane, joined by Salem, moved for an order applying Mexican and Honduran substantive law instead of Texas law.
- The parties identified material differences among the laws: (1) Mexico and Honduras did not recognize survival claims that Texas recognized; (2) Mexico and Honduras used more formula-based and generally lower compensatory-damages calculations than Texas; and (3) Mexico and Honduras did not allow punitive damages that Texas allowed.

## Issues

1. Under Texas choice-of-law rules for tort claims, should the court apply Texas substantive law or the substantive law of Mexico and Honduras to the families’ wrongful-death–related claims against Great Dane and Salem?
2. If foreign law has the most significant relationship, may the court still apply Texas law based on differences in remedies such as survival damages and punitive damages?

## Decision

- The court granted Great Dane’s first amended motion for application of foreign law, and granted Salem’s request to join the motion.
- The court ruled that Mexican and Honduran substantive law, rather than Texas law, governed the families’ wrongful-death–related claims against Great Dane and Salem.
- The order resolved only the governing law for those claims; it did not decide liability or set damages.

## Legal Principles

- A federal court sitting in diversity applies the forum state’s choice-of-law rules to determine which jurisdiction’s substantive law governs.
- Texas applies the Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws “most significant relationship” test to tort claims, weighing contacts such as the place of injury, the place of the conduct causing the injury, the parties’ domicile/residence/nationality and places of incorporation/business, and where any relationship between the parties is centered.
- In wrongful-death and personal-injury torts, the place of injury can matter, but it does not automatically control if another jurisdiction has stronger connections to the parties and the dispute.
- Limits on available damages (including whether survival damages and punitive damages exist) are treated as substantive and are governed by the chosen substantive law.
- Texas courts do not disregard otherwise-applicable foreign law merely because Texas offers broader recovery; refusing to use foreign law requires a strong conflict with Texas public policy.

## Conclusion

In Estate of Figueroa v. Williams, the Southern District of Texas held that Mexican and Honduran substantive law governed the foreign families’ wrongful-death–related claims against the U.S. corporate defendants arising from the Texas trailer deaths, which meant the case proceeded without Texas-law remedies such as survival actions and punitive damages.


Estate of Figueroa v. Williams, 2010 WL 5387599 (2010)