What Law Governs? : U.S. Choice of Law Rules and Maritime Wrongful Death

Choice of law is considered one of the most complex areas of American law. Determining the law applicable to a dispute is a critical and strategic decision that affects how the case will be proven. There have been numerous theories in U.S. to determine the question: which law shall govern the mattered case? This article is for exploring brief history of various theories of choice of law in U.S. from reviewing a milestone case of maritime wrongful death action. At the mattered case, the deceased, a twelve year old girl who was a non-seafarer died operating a jet-ski produced by defendant, Japanese Corporation. The place of accident was Puerto Rico and Pennsylvania was domicile of the plaintiff, family of the deceased. The Supreme Court of the United States determined that the case fell within admiralty jurisdiction and then concluded that inasmuch as the decedent had not been a “seafarer” the federal interest in uniformity was not controlling. It also observed that there was no controlling federal statute. Finally, the court concluded that the damages are properly governed by state law. However, the Court left it open the choice-of-law question of which jurisdiction's law should apply. The main goal of this article is to explore the rationality of the court decision in two aspects: the applicable laws between federal statutes and state statutes, and choice-of-law matters among the state statutes.