## Facts

- Efraín C. Garza, a Texas resident, traveled as part of the Good Neighbor Bowling League on a trip arranged through Greyhound Lines, Inc., a Texas common carrier.
- In May 1965, Greyhound contracted in Texas to provide transportation from San Antonio, Texas, to Monterrey, Mexico, and return, including arranging an unnamed connecting carrier for the Laredo-to-Monterrey segment.
- On June 20, 1965, Garza was injured in Mexico while riding a bus marked “Transportes del Norte” between Nuevo Laredo and Monterrey.
- Garza alleged the injury resulted from the negligence of the bus driver in Mexico.
- Garza pleaded (1) a tort claim for negligence and (2) an alternative contract claim, alleging he was a third-party beneficiary of the Texas contract and that Greyhound breached an implied duty to transport him safely.

## Issues

1. Whether the trial court could dismiss the tort claim based on a finding that Mexican substantive law was so dissimilar to Texas law that a Texas court would not adjudicate the dispute, when the content of the foreign law was not properly proved.
2. Whether the trial court erred by dismissing the alternative third-party-beneficiary contract claim arising from a contract made in Texas.
3. Whether a Texas “foreign wrongful acts” statute (Article 4678, Vernon’s Ann. Civ. Stat.) required Texas courts to entertain the suit despite any dissimilarity in foreign law.

## Decision

- The Court of Civil Appeals reversed the dismissal and remanded for further proceedings.
- The trial court erred in dismissing based on “dissimilarity” of Mexican law because foreign law must be pleaded and proved as a fact, and there was no proper proof supporting a dissimilarity finding.
- The court declined to re-examine Texas’s lex loci delicti rule for tort claims; as of the decision, the place-of-injury law governed substantive tort rights.
- The court declined to decide whether Article 4678 mandated adjudication because the statute applies only if the plaintiff has a cause of action under the foreign law, and Garza neither alleged nor proved such a cause of action.
- The trial court also erred by dismissing the contract-based third-party-beneficiary claim on the same foreign-law rationale; the contract theory required separate consideration.

## Legal Principles

- Foreign law is treated as a fact in Texas courts and must be properly pleaded and proved; without proof, a court lacks an evidentiary basis to decide what foreign law provides or whether it is dissimilar to Texas law.
- In Texas tort conflicts (as applied here), substantive rights are determined by the law of the place of the tort (lex loci delicti).
- A statute allowing suit in Texas for wrongful acts occurring in a foreign jurisdiction applies only when the plaintiff has a cause of action under the foreign law; absent pleading and proof of such a cause of action, the statute does not control the result.
- A contract-based third-party-beneficiary claim arising from a Texas-made agreement is analytically distinct from a foreign tort claim and cannot be dismissed solely by invoking unproved foreign tort law.

## Conclusion

The appellate court reversed the dismissal because the asserted foreign law was not properly proved and therefore could not support a “dissimilarity” finding, and because the plaintiff’s Texas-based third-party-beneficiary contract theory required adjudication independent of the foreign tort choice-of-law question.


Garza v. Greyhound Lines, Inc., 418 S.W.2d 595 (Tex. Civ. App. 1967)