## Facts

- A fatal automobile collision occurred in Sacramento County, California, involving a car driven by Manuel Cid Hurtado and a pickup truck driven by Jack Rexius.
- The decedent, Antonio Hurtado, was riding as a passenger in Manuel Hurtado’s vehicle and died from injuries sustained in the collision.
- All vehicles involved were registered in California, and the alleged tortfeasors were California residents.
- The decedent and his surviving spouse and children were domiciliaries and residents of Zacatecas, Mexico; the decedent was visiting California temporarily.
- The decedent’s survivors filed a wrongful death action in California against Manuel Hurtado and Rexius.
- Manuel Hurtado sought a separate trial on choice of law, arguing for application of Mexico’s wrongful death damages limitation rather than California’s uncapped compensatory damages rule.
- The trial court ruled that California law governed damages; Hurtado sought an extraordinary writ directing the trial court to apply Mexico’s damages cap.

## Issues

1. Under California choice-of-law rules, should damages in a California wrongful death action be governed by California’s uncapped damages rule or Mexico’s statutory damages limitation when the decedent and heirs are Mexican domiciliaries but the accident and defendants are in California?
2. Does Mexico have a governmental interest in applying its damages limitation to limit recovery by its domiciliaries against California defendants for a tort occurring in California?

## Decision

- The California Supreme Court denied the petition for writ of mandate.
- The Court held that California law governs the measure of damages.
- Applying governmental interest analysis, the Court concluded California had a legitimate interest in applying its damages law, while Mexico had no sufficiently relevant interest in applying its cap on these facts.
- Because only California was an “interested” jurisdiction, forum law applied.

## Legal Principles

- California resolves multistate tort choice-of-law questions through governmental interest analysis, focusing on whether each jurisdiction has a legitimate interest in applying its law to the конкрет dispute.
- A damages limitation in wrongful death is generally a loss-allocation rule (allocating or limiting financial responsibility), not a conduct-regulating rule aimed at controlling behavior at the place of the accident.
- When only one jurisdiction has a legitimate interest in applying its policy, the law of that jurisdiction applies; comparative impairment analysis is implicated only when there is a true conflict between competing governmental interests.
- California has a substantial interest in applying its wrongful death damages law to torts occurring within the state involving California defendants and California-registered vehicles, including to compensate nonresident victims injured while lawfully present.
- A foreign jurisdiction’s liability-limiting statute is not applied when it would not advance that jurisdiction’s policy interests in the particular case, such as where no foreign defendant or regulated entity is implicated.

## Conclusion

The court applied California’s wrongful death damages law to a California accident involving California defendants, refusing to enforce Mexico’s damages cap because Mexico’s liability-limiting policy was not served where all alleged tortfeasors and regulated conduct were centered in California.


Hurtado v. Superior Court, 11 Cal. 3d 574 (Cal. 1974)