## Facts

- Jacquelyn Haumschild and LeRoy Gleason, then married and domiciled in Wisconsin, were injured in an automobile accident in California in December 1956.
- Haumschild alleged Gleason’s negligent driving caused her injuries.
- Wisconsin law permitted tort suits between spouses; California law barred interspousal negligence actions.
- After the couple divorced, Haumschild sued Gleason and his liability insurer, Continental Casualty Company, in a Wisconsin court.

## Issues

1. In a Wisconsin forum, whether interspousal immunity/capacity to sue for a negligence claim arising from an accident in California is governed by Wisconsin law (domicile) or California law (place of injury).
2. Whether interspousal immunity should be characterized as a tort-liability rule governed by lex loci delicti or as a marital-status rule governed by the law of the spouses’ domicile.

## Decision

- The Wisconsin Supreme Court reversed the dismissal and remanded.
- The court held interspousal immunity is a matter of family law and marital status (capacity to sue), not substantive tort law.
- The law of the spouses’ domicile (Wisconsin) governed interspousal capacity to sue, so Haumschild’s action could proceed.
- The court maintained that the place-of-wrong rule continues to govern substantive tort questions (e.g., negligence standards and damages), but not spousal capacity/immunity.

## Legal Principles

- Interspousal immunity and spousal capacity to sue are governed by the law of the spouses’ domicile because they arise from the incidents of the marital relationship.
- Lex loci delicti remains applicable to substantive tort rules, but a separate conflicts rule applies to marital-status questions affecting who may sue.
- A forum need not employ renvoi to reach the domicile’s law when the better conflicts rule directly selects domicile law for spousal capacity.

## Conclusion

The court treated interspousal immunity as a marital-status question controlled by the spouses’ Wisconsin domicile, not by California’s place-of-injury rule, and therefore reinstated the wife’s negligence suit against her former husband and his insurer.


Haumschild v. Continental Cas. Co., 7 Wis. 2d 130, 95 N.W.2d 814 (Wis. 1959)