## Facts

- A death message was filed with Western Union in South Carolina addressed to Brown in Washington, D.C.: “Come at once. Your sister died this morning.”
- The telegram was promptly transmitted to Washington, D.C., but was not delivered there due to negligence as found by the jury.
- Brown alleged the nondelivery caused him to miss his sister’s funeral in South Carolina and suffer mental anguish.
- South Carolina law created a cause of action for mental anguish from negligent handling of telegrams even without bodily injury.
- Brown sued in South Carolina state court under that statute for the nondelivery that occurred in Washington, D.C.

## Issues

1. Whether South Carolina could apply its mental-anguish statute to impose liability for a tortious omission occurring in Washington, D.C., exceeding liability recognized by the law of the place of the tort.
2. Whether a state may legislate to affect conduct and liability within a territory under exclusive federal jurisdiction (the District of Columbia).
3. Whether applying South Carolina’s statute to an interstate telegram constitutes an unconstitutional state regulation of interstate commerce.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the judgment affirming Brown’s $750 verdict.
- The Court held that recovery for a tort committed in another jurisdiction must rest on the law of the place of the tort, which also sets the maximum recoverable liability.
- Applying South Carolina’s statute to negligence in Washington, D.C. was unconstitutional because it attempted to regulate conduct within territory under exclusive federal jurisdiction.
- As applied to messages sent from South Carolina to be delivered in another jurisdiction, the statute was also unconstitutional as an attempt to regulate interstate commerce.

## Legal Principles

- For an out-of-state tort litigated in a forum state, the obligation arises under the law of the place where the tort occurred, and that law both creates and limits the maximum recovery.
- A state may not impose its statutory standards of liability on conduct occurring outside its borders in an area subject to exclusive federal legislative authority.
- A state may not determine the conduct required of a telegraph company in transmitting interstate messages by fixing the consequences of failures occurring in another jurisdiction.

## Conclusion

The Court invalidated South Carolina’s application of its mental-anguish telegraph statute to a nondelivery occurring in Washington, D.C., holding that tort liability is governed and capped by the law of the place of the tort and that states may not use such statutes to regulate conduct in exclusive federal territory or to control interstate telegraph commerce.


Western Union Tel. Co. v. Brown, 234 U.S. 542 (1914)