## Facts

- Three California residents (Grant, Manchester, and Jensen) were injured when their car collided with a car driven by Pullen on U.S. Highway 66 in Arizona.
- Jensen’s car was badly damaged, and all three plaintiffs suffered personal injuries.
- Pullen died 19 days after the collision from injuries received in the accident.
- Pullen’s estate was opened and administered in California, and the administrator was appointed there.
- Each plaintiff presented a claim for damages to the estate; the administrator rejected the claims.
- The plaintiffs then filed separate actions in California against the estate based on the Arizona accident.

## Issues

1. Whether the survivability of personal injury claims against a deceased tortfeasor is governed by the law of the place of injury (Arizona) as substantive tort law or by the forum’s law (California) as a procedural/remedial matter.
2. Whether California’s survival statutes permit these negligence actions to proceed against a California-administered estate even though Arizona lacked a general tort survival statute.

## Decision

- The California Supreme Court reversed the trial court’s orders granting the motions to abate.
- The court held that survivability of these tort causes of action is procedural/remedial and governed by California law as the forum.
- Because California law permits such claims to survive the tortfeasor’s death and be asserted against the estate’s representative, the actions could be maintained in California.
- The cases were remanded for further proceedings; Arizona substantive tort rules (e.g., negligence standards, defenses, and damages) were not displaced except on the survival question.

## Legal Principles

- The forum applies the substantive law of the place of the wrong but may apply its own procedural rules.
- A survival statute may be treated as procedural when it concerns enforcement of an existing obligation after death rather than creation of a new cause of action.
- Rules governing which claims may be asserted against a decedent’s estate and against whom suit may be brought are closely tied to local estate administration and may be governed by forum law.
- Characterizing survivability as procedural allows the forum to apply its survival policy when the estate is administered locally and the dispute is centered on forum domiciliaries.

## Conclusion

The court held that California, as the forum administering the decedent’s estate, could apply its own survival statutes to prevent abatement of personal injury actions arising from an out-of-state accident, allowing the plaintiffs’ negligence claims to proceed against the estate despite the place-of-injury state’s lack of a general tort survival rule.


Grant v. McAuliffe, 41 Cal. 2d 859, 264 P.2d 944 (Cal. 1953)