## Facts

- Everett A. Loucks, a New York resident, was struck and killed on a Massachusetts highway by a vehicle negligently operated by employees of Standard Oil Company of New York acting within the scope of employment.
- Loucks left a widow and two children who resided in New York.
- The estate’s administrators sued in New York, asserting a cause of action created by the Massachusetts wrongful death statute.
- The Massachusetts statute imposed liability for death caused by negligence, with damages set within a statutory range ($500 to $10,000) and calibrated to the defendant’s degree of culpability.
- Under the Massachusetts scheme, any recovery was distributed to private beneficiaries (including the widow and children).

## Issues

1. Whether the Massachusetts wrongful death statute was “penal” in the private-international-law sense, such that New York courts should refuse to enforce it.
2. Whether enforcing the Massachusetts statute in New York was barred by New York public policy because the Massachusetts damages measure was tied to culpability and could operate in a quasi-punitive manner.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeals held the Massachusetts wrongful death statute was not “penal” in the conflicts sense because the action and recovery were for the benefit of private parties rather than the state.
- The Court held New York public policy did not preclude enforcement merely because Massachusetts measured damages differently from New York and permitted a culpability-based (potentially punitive) recovery.
- The Court reversed the Appellate Division and affirmed the order allowing the Massachusetts-based action to proceed in New York.

## Legal Principles

- A forum generally will not enforce another jurisdiction’s penal laws, but “penal” in conflicts law means a sanction vindicating public justice where recovery runs to the state or a public representative, not a private remedy payable to survivors.
- A foreign statutory cause of action is enforceable in the forum unless it is penal in the conflicts sense or enforcement would violate a fundamental forum policy grounded in basic justice, morals, or a deep-rooted tradition.
- Differences between the forum’s remedial scheme and the foreign law’s measure of damages, including a culpability-based or punitive component, do not alone justify refusal to enforce a foreign-created right when the forum recognizes the same general type of civil liability.

## Conclusion

New York courts could entertain an action under Massachusetts’s wrongful death statute because the statute created a private right for survivors rather than a public penalty, and enforcing it did not offend any fundamental New York policy despite Massachusetts’s differing, culpability-based damages framework.


Loucks v. Standard Oil Co. of N.Y., 224 N.Y. 99, 120 N.E. 198 (N.Y. 1918)