## Facts

- Anne L. Milkovich, an Ontario resident, rode as a guest passenger in a car owned by Erma Saari, also an Ontario resident.
- Saari initially drove from Thunder Bay, Ontario, to Duluth, Minnesota, for shopping and to attend a play.
- After entering Minnesota at Pigeon River, Judith Rudd (an Ontario resident) took over driving.
- About 40 miles south of the border, the car left the roadway and struck rocks adjacent to the road, seriously injuring Milkovich.
- Milkovich was hospitalized in Duluth for about six weeks before returning to Ontario.
- The vehicle was garaged, registered, and insured in Ontario.
- Ontario law imposed a guest-passenger limitation requiring proof of gross negligence; Minnesota had no guest statute and allowed recovery on ordinary negligence.

## Issues

1. Whether Minnesota should apply Ontario’s guest statute (gross-negligence requirement) or Minnesota’s ordinary-negligence rule to an accident occurring in Minnesota involving Ontario domiciliaries and an Ontario-registered vehicle.
2. Whether Minnesota should abandon the lex loci delicti rule in tort choice-of-law cases and, if so, what methodology should replace it.

## Decision

- The Minnesota Supreme Court affirmed the orders denying defendants’ motion to dismiss and striking the Ontario-law affirmative defense.
- The court abandoned lex loci delicti for tort conflicts and adopted a “choice-influencing factors” methodology associated with Leflar, including consideration of the “better rule of law.”
- Applying those factors, the court held Minnesota negligence law governed, not Ontario’s guest statute.

## Legal Principles

- Minnesota tort choice-of-law disputes are resolved by evaluating choice-influencing factors rather than mechanically applying the law of the place of injury.
- The choice-influencing factors include: predictability of results; maintenance of interstate and international order; simplification of the judicial task; advancement of the forum’s governmental interests; and application of the better rule of law.
- In guest-statute conflicts, predictability and ease of administration typically carry limited weight compared to governmental interests and the substantive quality of the competing rules.
- A forum may apply its own negligence law when the forum has meaningful contacts with the occurrence and applying forum law serves legitimate forum policies, including rejection of restrictive guest statutes.

## Conclusion

Minnesota applied a factor-based choice-of-law approach and selected Minnesota’s ordinary-negligence rule for a Minnesota accident involving Ontario residents, rejecting Ontario’s guest statute and formally discarding lex loci delicti in Minnesota tort conflicts.


Milkovich v. Saari, 295 Minn. 155, 203 N.W.2d 408 (Minn. 1973)