Conflicts of law analysis for a Florida Car accident Below Material from Choice of Law in the American Courts in 2009: Twenty-Third Annual Survey* By Symeon C. Symeonides**

What happens in Cases where a company who leasses a car gets sued when the person they leased the car to gets sued. A 2005 federal statute now relieves car rental companies from these kind of law suits. In the case of Erickson v. U-Haul Intern.,58 the Supreme Court of Nebraska said that the car rental company's liability was governed by the law of Nebraska, where the car was leased from the rental car company instead of the law of Iowa, where the car accident occurred. The court reasoned that, under the Restatement (Second), Nebraska had the more significant contacts/relationship because 1. it was the state of the lessor-lessee relationship had formed and 2. the home state of the lessee and (coincidentally) of the car accident victim as well. The court held that the car accident victim was not entitled to recovery, however, because Nebraska’s lessor-liability law was limited to cases in which the injury resulted from the car’s operation in Nebraska; Both Nebraska as well as Iowa’s corresponding statute exempted from its scope certain trucks which, like the truck involved in this case, were leased for less than a year. Thus, the court interpreted the Nebraska statute as delineating the maximum reach of Nebraska law.
However, it would be equally plausible to hold that the statute simply delineated the minimum reach of Nebraska law. In other words, the court could have reasoned that, although the statute guaranteed recovery for accidents occurring in Nebraska, the statute did not necessarily preclude recovery for accidents occurring elsewhere, as long as the accident was caused by a car leased in Nebraska and Nebraska had the most significant relationship. In Cates v. Hertz Corp., the car was leased in Florida by a Florida rental company to a Florida resident who drove to Texas and caused an accident there, injuring a Texas resident. Under Florida’s dangerous instrumentality doctrine, the car rental company would be liable, while under Texas law the company would not be liable. In an earlier phase of the case, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the district court’s application of Texas law and held that, because of Florida’s contacts with the case, Florida had the most significant relationship and its law should govern under the Restatement (Second). The court remanded the case to the district court with instructions to determine whether Florida courts would apply the dangerous instrumentality doctrine in cases arising from accidents outside Florida and not involving Florida victims. The district court answered this question in the affirmative, and the Fifth Circuit affirmed. Rejecting the company’s argument that the doctrine was intended to protect only Florida domiciliaries, the court stressed the doctrine’s deterrent function, noting, inter alia, that the doctrine “enforces the principle that, the owner of an instrumentality which has the capability of causing death or destruction should in justice answer for misuse of this instrumentality by anyone operating it with his knowledge and consent.” The court quoted approvingly the trial court’s conclusion that the doctrine should be applicable when “the rental transaction is entered into in Florida, the parties to the contract have ties to Florida, and where the terms of the agreement necessitate travel on Florida roads,” even if the accident occurs in another state and causes injury to domiciliaries of that state.