## Facts

- Jean Macey (plaintiff) was injured as a nonpaying passenger in an automobile owned by Vincent Rozbicki and driven by Rita Rozbicki; all parties were New York domiciliaries residing primarily in Buffalo and were close family members.
- In late June 1962, Macey visited the Rozbickis at their summer residence in Waverly Beach, Ontario.
- The parties took a pleasure trip by car from the Ontario summer home toward Niagara Falls, Ontario.
- On an Ontario highway, the car left the road and crashed, injuring Macey.
- Ontario had a guest statute barring a guest passenger’s recovery absent gross negligence or similarly aggravated fault; New York allowed recovery upon ordinary negligence.
- Defendants asserted Ontario law as an affirmative defense and sought summary judgment on the ground that the guest statute barred the claim.

## Issues

1. Whether New York or Ontario law governs a negligence claim by a New York guest passenger against New York host driver/owner when the accident occurred in Ontario during a visit to the hosts’ Ontario summer residence.
2. Whether Ontario’s guest statute applies to bar the action, or New York’s ordinary negligence standard applies under New York choice-of-law principles.

## Decision

- The New York Court of Appeals reversed the dismissal and vacated summary judgment for defendants.
- New York law governed the host-guest liability issue; Ontario’s guest statute did not bar the action.
- The case was remanded for further proceedings under New York substantive negligence law.

## Legal Principles

- In tort conflicts, the governing law is determined by interest analysis rather than a mechanical application of the law of the place of injury.
- For guest-statute disputes, the domicile of the parties and the locus of their relationship are central; when both parties are New York domiciliaries and their relationship is New York-centered, New York has the dominant interest in defining their rights and liabilities inter se.
- A foreign guest statute that limits recovery will not be applied when doing so would be largely fortuitous and would not materially advance the foreign jurisdiction’s policy interests as to the parties before the court.

## Conclusion

Because the parties were New York domiciliaries whose family host-guest relationship was centered in New York, New York had the dominant interest in applying its ordinary negligence rules, notwithstanding that the accident occurred in Ontario and Ontario had a guest statute that would otherwise bar recovery.


Macey v. Rozbicki, 18 N.Y.2d 289, 221 N.E.2d 380, 274 N.Y.S.2d 591 (N.Y. 1966)