## Facts

- A married couple, both domiciled and residing in New York, were involved in an automobile accident in Connecticut.
- The wife alleged she was injured while riding as a passenger in a car owned, controlled, and driven by her husband, and that the injuries were caused by his negligence.
- The wife sued her husband for personal-injury damages in New York courts.
- New York common law barred one spouse from suing the other for personal injuries caused by negligence.
- The wife alleged Connecticut law permitted interspousal tort actions because Connecticut had removed the common-law disability.
- The trial court dismissed the complaint; the intermediate appellate court affirmed; the wife appealed to the New York Court of Appeals.

## Issues

1. Whether a New York wife may maintain, in New York courts, a tort action against her New York husband for injuries occurring in Connecticut where Connecticut law allows interspousal negligence suits.
2. Whether interspousal immunity is treated as a substantive rule governed by the place of the wrong or as a forum-controlled rule of capacity and remedy.
3. Whether New York’s policy barring interspousal personal-injury suits prevents enforcement of a sister state’s contrary rule in New York courts.

## Decision

- The New York Court of Appeals affirmed dismissal of the complaint.
- The court held that New York law controlled the parties’ capacity to sue each other and the availability of a remedy in New York courts.
- Even assuming Connecticut law would recognize liability between spouses for negligent injuries occurring there, New York courts would not entertain such an action between spouses because New York law disabled each spouse from suing the other for personal injuries.

## Legal Principles

- In conflict-of-laws cases, the forum’s law governs jurisdiction, the capacity of parties to sue or be sued in the forum, and the remedies and procedures available in the forum.
- A state where a tort occurs may define what conduct is wrongful and what liabilities arise there, but it cannot require another state’s courts to disregard the forum’s rules on capacity and remedies.
- Under then-existing New York law, interspousal tort actions for personal injuries were barred as a matter of the parties’ legal disability to sue each other, and change to that rule was for the legislature rather than judicial revision.

## Conclusion

New York courts would not permit a wife to sue her husband for negligent personal injuries in a New York action, even when the injury occurred in a state that allows interspousal tort suits, because New York treated the bar as a forum-controlled rule of spousal capacity and remedy.


Mertz v. Mertz, 271 N.Y. 466, 3 N.E.2d 597 (N.Y. 1936)