17 N.Y.3d 306, 952 N.E.2d 1033, 929 N.Y.S.2d 41 (2011)
On January 19, 2005, near Geneseo, New York, a charter bus carrying members of an Ontario women’s hockey team plowed into the rear end of a tractor-trailer parked on the shoulder of the highway.1 Three bus passengers and the tractor-trailer’s driver died, and several bus passengers were seriously hurt.2
The bus’s driver was Ryan A. Comfort, his employer was Erie Coach Lines Company, and the company that leased the bus was Trentway-Wagar, Inc. All of these entities and the injured and deceased passengers were Ontario domiciliaries.3 The tractor-trailer’s driver was Ernest Zeiset, a Pennsylvania domiciliary. His employer was Joseph French doing business as J&J Trucking. The companies that hired the trailer were Verdelli Farms, Inc. and VF Transportation, Inc.4
The injured passengers and the representatives of those who died filed multiple wrongful death and personal injury lawsuits in New York Supreme Court against the bus defendants and the trailer defendants.5 Following extensive discovery, the bus defendants and the trailer defendants moved for orders determining that Ontario law applied to all loss allocation issues in the cases.6 Supreme Court granted both motions on March 23, 2009.7
The trial of these cases was bifurcated. During the course of the jury trial on liability the parties reached a settlement of that issue in which the bus defendants agreed to 90 percent and the trailer defendants to 10 percent liability.8 Plaintiffs appealed Supreme Court’s orders determining that Ontario law would govern any award of noneconomic damages. The Appellate Division affirmed those orders.9 The Appellate Division granted plaintiffs permission to appeal and certified the question whether its orders were properly made. The Court of Appeals granted review to address the certified questions arising from the choice-of-law rulings and the procedural handling of the foreign-law issue.10
Whether defendants' failure to plead the applicability of Ontario law in their answers under CPLR 3016(e) precluded the courts from taking judicial notice of that law under CPLR 4511(b)?11
CPLR 4511(b) permits a court to take judicial notice of the laws of foreign countries if a party requests it, furnishes sufficient data, and gives notice to adverse parties in the pleadings or prior to the presentation of any evidence at trial.12 This requirement must be read together with CPLR 3016(e) so that omission to plead the foreign law is not fatal.13
No. The bus defendants and the trailer defendants complied with CPLR 4511(b) when they made their pretrial motions requesting that Supreme Court take judicial notice of Ontario law and provided notice to the plaintiffs.14 Although the defendants did not plead the substance of Ontario law in their answers as CPLR 3016(e) requires, the statute is not rigid.15 The court retains discretion to take judicial notice prior to the presentation of evidence at trial.16 The split-domicile nature of the lawsuits made a choice-of-law issue inevitable, so plaintiffs had no reason to assume the issue had vanished during discovery.17
Defendants' failure to plead the applicability of Ontario law in their answers under CPLR 3016(e) did not preclude the courts from taking judicial notice of that law under CPLR 4511(b).18
Whether choice-of-law analysis in a multi-tortfeasor action arising from a single incident requires a single Neumeier analysis applied jointly to all defendants or separate analyses for each defendant?19
The Neumeier rules call for a plaintiff-by-defendant inquiry because they are designed to assure predictability and uniformity on the basis of present knowledge and experience.20 Precedent in Schultz v. Boy Scouts of Am. applied the rules separately to multiple defendants subject to joint and several liability.21
No. The correct way to conduct choice-of-law analysis is to consider each plaintiff vis-a-vis each defendant separately.22 This is the approach the Appellate Division took.23 It is consistent with the path traveled in Schultz.24 Separate analyses were performed for the Boy Scouts and the Franciscan Brothers even though both defendants were subject to joint and several liability for their allegedly tortious acts.25
The rules in the Neumeier framework by their very nature call for a plaintiff-by-defendant inquiry rather than a single joint analysis.26
Choice-of-law analysis in a multi-tortfeasor action arising from a single incident requires separate Neumeier analyses for each defendant rather than a single joint analysis.27
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Judge Ciparick dissented. She argued that a single Neumeier analysis should be applied where nondomiciliary defendants are jointly and severally liable to nondomiciliary plaintiffs in a tort action arising out of a single incident within New York. She reasoned that the facts here differ from Schultz because the causes of action arise from a single incident and the liability of the defendants is interrelated.28 Applying different laws creates additional unpredictability and may lead to grossly inequitable results when the trailer defendants end up paying more than their stipulated share due to the Ontario cap.29
Applying a single analysis would further the goals of predictability and uniformity that the Neumeier rules were intended to achieve.30
Whether Ontario law governs the recovery of noneconomic damages against the bus defendants who share a common Ontario domicile with the plaintiffs?31
Under the first Neumeier rule, when the plaintiff and the defendant share a common domicile, that law should control.32 The domiciliary jurisdiction has weighed the competing considerations underlying the loss allocation rule and has the greater interest in enforcing the decisions of both parties to accept the benefits and burdens of identifying with that jurisdiction.33
Yes. The bus defendants, including Erie Coach Lines Company, Trentway-Wagar, Inc., and Ryan A. Comfort, share a common Ontario domicile with the plaintiffs and the injured and deceased passengers.34 Under the first Neumeier rule, Ontario law therefore governs the recovery of noneconomic damages against the bus defendants.35
Ontario has weighed the interests of tortfeasors and their victims in cases of catastrophic personal injury and has elected to safeguard its domiciliaries from large awards for nonpecuniary damages.36 New York courts should respect that decision in lawsuits brought by Ontario domiciliaries against Ontario domiciliaries.37
Ontario law governs the recovery of noneconomic damages against the bus defendants who share a common Ontario domicile with the plaintiffs.38
Whether Ontario law governs the recovery of noneconomic damages against the trailer defendants who are domiciled in Pennsylvania?39
Under the third Neumeier rule, the law of the state where the accident occurred governs unless displacing that normally applicable rule will advance the substantive law purposes without impairing the smooth working of the multi-state system or producing great uncertainty for litigants.40 The number and intensity of contacts with the place of the tort are relevant when deciding whether to deviate from lex loci delicti.41
No. The trailer defendants, including Joseph French doing business as J&J Trucking, Verdelli Farms, Inc., and VF Transportation, Inc., are domiciled in Pennsylvania while the plaintiffs are domiciled in Ontario and the place of the tort is New York.42 The third Neumeier rule makes New York law the normally applicable choice.43 There is no reason to displace New York law under the proviso because the trailer defendants had no contacts with Ontario other than the happenstance that the plaintiffs and the bus defendants were domiciled there.44 The stipulation of settlement on liability is not relevant to interest analysis.45
The trailer defendants declined to advocate for Pennsylvania law and therefore cannot take advantage of the Ontario cap.46
Ontario law does not govern the recovery of noneconomic damages against the trailer defendants who are domiciled in Pennsylvania; New York law applies.47
Related opinions on this issue
Judge Ciparick would have held that New York law applies to all defendants under a single Neumeier analysis.48 She reasoned that the exception to the third rule does not apply because New York was the site of the accident and the only state in which jurisdiction over all defendants could be acquired.49 Both sets of defendants are commercial enterprises that perform significant business in New York and are frequent users of its highways.50
New York has a strong interest in regulating the conduct of commercial vehicles on its highways and in ensuring that those vehicles maintain insurance to compensate victims.51 Ontario's interest in capping nonpecuniary losses to keep insurance costs low need not extend to commercial vehicles operating outside Ontario.52