## Facts

- Kay Black and William Black, Ohio residents, were passengers in a car owned and driven by Ruby Black, also an Ohio resident.
- The collision occurred in Ontario, Canada, when Ruby Black’s car struck a vehicle driven by an Ontario resident.
- Ruby Black’s automobile liability policy was negotiated, issued, and delivered in Ohio and covered an Ohio vehicle; the insurer was State Farm, which was not an Ohio corporation.
- Kay and William Black submitted bodily-injury claims to State Farm under Ruby Black’s liability policy.
- State Farm denied the claims, asserting that Ontario’s no-fault law governed and barred tort liability by Ruby Black to her passengers, eliminating any duty to indemnify her for those injuries.
- Kay and William Black then made claims under their own Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company policy for uninsured-motorist (UM) benefits; Nationwide, an Ohio corporation, paid the claims.
- After paying UM benefits, Nationwide filed an action in an Ohio common pleas court against Ruby Black and State Farm (and included the passenger insureds in the declaratory action) seeking a declaration that Ohio substantive law applied.
- Nationwide’s requested declaration would require State Farm to indemnify Ruby Black for the damages corresponding to the UM payments Nationwide made, allowing Nationwide to recover those amounts through subrogation.
- The trial court applied Ontario law and, because Ontario’s no-fault scheme would make Ruby Black not liable to her passengers, entered judgment against Nationwide.
- Nationwide appealed to the Ohio Ninth District Court of Appeals.

## Issues

1. Whether the trial court erred in applying Ontario substantive law, rather than Ohio law, to determine the parties’ rights and obligations arising from an Ontario automobile accident involving Ohio residents and Ohio-issued automobile policies.
2. Under Ohio choice-of-law principles and the Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws, whether Ohio had the most significant relationship to the liability and indemnity dispute such that Ontario’s no-fault limitations should not control.

## Decision

- The court of appeals reversed the trial court’s judgment and remanded.
- The appellate court held that Ohio substantive law, not Ontario law, governed the dispute.
- The court concluded the trial court treated the place of injury as controlling and did not properly weigh the Restatement factors showing Ohio’s stronger connections to the parties and the insurance relationships.

## Legal Principles

- Ohio applies the Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws to select the governing law, focusing on which jurisdiction has the “most significant relationship” to the occurrence and the parties.
- In personal-injury cases, Restatement § 146 creates a presumption that the law of the place of injury applies, but that presumption can be displaced when another jurisdiction has a more significant relationship under Restatement § 6.
- Restatement § 145 directs courts to consider contacts such as: (a) the place of injury, (b) the place where the conduct causing the injury occurred, (c) the domiciles/residences of the parties, and (d) where the parties’ relationship is centered.
- Restatement § 6 calls for consideration of factors including: relevant policies of the forum and other interested jurisdictions, protection of justified expectations, and the desirability of consistent and predictable results.
- When the accident location is essentially incidental and the parties are domiciliaries of another state where the vehicle is registered and garaged and where the insurance policies were issued and delivered, the accident location may carry less weight than the home-state contacts.
- In disputes that turn on an Ohio insured’s tort liability to other Ohio residents and the resulting duty of an insurer to indemnify under an Ohio-issued policy, Ohio has a strong interest in applying its substantive law.
- A UM insurer that pays benefits may pursue recovery through subrogation against the alleged tortfeasor and the tortfeasor’s liability insurer; the viability of that subrogation claim depends on the law governing the tort liability and the indemnity obligation.

## Conclusion

Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company v. Black held that, although the collision occurred in Ontario, Ohio law governed Nationwide’s subrogation and declaratory-judgment action because the driver and passengers were Ohio residents, the vehicle and insurance relationships were centered in Ohio, and the Ontario accident location was not enough to outweigh Ohio’s connections under the Restatement choice-of-law analysis; the appellate court therefore reversed the trial court’s application of Ontario’s no-fault law and remanded for further proceedings under Ohio law.


Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company v. Black, 102 Ohio App. 3d 235, 656 N.E.2d 1352 (1995)