Allstate Insurance v. Hague

449 U.S. 302, 101 S. Ct. 633, 66 L. Ed. 2d 521, 1981 U.S. LEXIS 52

Opinions

Justice Brennan

announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which Justice White, Justice Marshall, and Justice Blackmun joined.

This Court granted certiorari to determine whether the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment¹ or the Full Faith and Credit Clause of Art. IV, § 1,² of the United States Constitution bars the Minnesota Supreme Court’s choice of substantive Minnesota law to govern the effect of a provision in an insurance policy issued to respondent’s decedent. 444 U. S. 1070 (1980).

I

Respondent’s late husband, Ralph Hague, died of injuries suffered when a motorcycle on which he was a passenger was struck from behind by an automobile. The accident occurred in Pierce County, Wis., which is immediately across the Minnesota border from Red Wing, Minn. The operators of both vehicles were Wisconsin residents, as was the decedent, who, at the time of the accident, resided with respondent in Hager City, Wis., which is one and one-half miles from Red Wing. Mr. Hague had been employed in Red Wing for the 15 years immediately preceding his death and had commuted daily from Wisconsin to his place of employment.

Neither the operator of the motorcycle nor the operator of the automobile carried valid insurance. However, the decedent held a policy issued by petitioner Allstate Insurance Co. covering three automobiles owned by him and containing an uninsured motorist clause insuring him against loss incurred from accidents with uninsured motorists. The uninsured motorist coverage was limited to $15,000 for each automobile.³

After the accident, but prior to the initiation of this lawsuit, respondent moved to Red Wing. Subsequently, she married a Minnesota resident and established residence with her new husband in Savage, Minn. At approximately the same time, a Minnesota Registrar of Probate appointed respondent personal representative of her deceased husband’s estate. Following her appointment, she brought this action in Minnesota District Court seeking a declaration under Minnesota law that the $15,000 uninsured motorist coverage on each of her late husband’s three automobiles could be “stacked” to provide total coverage of $45,000. Petitioner defended on the ground that whether the three uninsured motorist coverages could be stacked should be determined by Wisconsin law, since the insurance policy was delivered in Wisconsin, the accident occurred in Wisconsin, and all persons involved were Wisconsin residents at the time of the accident.

The Minnesota District Court disagreed. Interpreting Wisconsin law to disallow stacking, the court concluded that Minnesota’s choice-of-law rules required the application of Minnesota law permitting stacking. The court refused to apply Wisconsin law as “inimical to the public policy of Minnesota” and granted summary judgment for respondent.⁴

The Minnesota Supreme Court, sitting en banc, affirmed the District Court.⁵ The court, also interpreting Wisconsin law to prohibit stacking,⁶ applied Minnesota law after analyzing the relevant Minnesota contacts and interests within the analytical framework developed by Professor Leflar.⁷ See Leflar, Choice-Influencing Considerations in Conflicts Law, 41 N. Y. U. L. Rev. 267 (1966). The state court, therefore, examined the conflict-of-laws issue in terms of (1) predictability of result, (2) maintenance of interstate order, (3) simplification of the judicial task, (4) advancement of the forum’s governmental interests, and (5) application of the better rule of law. Although stating that the Minnesota contacts might not be, “in themselves, sufficient to mandate application of [Minnesota] law,” ⁸ 289 N. W. 2d 43, 49 (1978), under the first four factors, the court concluded that the fifth factor — application of the better rule of law — favored selection of Minnesota law. The court emphasized that a majority of States allow stacking and that legal decisions allowing stacking “are fairly recent and well considered in light of current uses of automobiles.” Ibid. In addition, the court found the Minnesota rule superior to Wisconsin’s “because it requires the cost of accidents with uninsured motorists to be spread more broadly through insurance premiums than does the Wisconsin rule.” Ibid. Finally, after rehearing en banc,⁹ the court buttressed its initial opinion by indicating “that contracts of insurance on motor vehicles are in a class by themselves” since an insurance company “knows the automobile is a movable item which will be driven from state to state.” 289 N. W. 2d, at 50 (1979). From this premise the court concluded that application of Minnesota law was “not so arbitrary and unreasonable as to violate due process.” Ibid.

II

It is not for this Court to say whether the choice-of-law analysis suggested by Professor Leflar is to be preferred or whether we would make the same choice-of-law decision if sitting as the Minnesota Supreme Court. Our sole function is to determine whether the Minnesota Supreme Court’s choice of its own substantive law in this case exceeded federal constitutional limitations. Implicit in this inquiry is the recognition, long accepted by this Court, that a set of facts giving rise to a lawsuit, or a particular issue within a lawsuit, may justify, in constitutional terms, application of the law of more than one jurisdiction. See, e. g., Watson v. Employers Liability Assurance Corp., 348 U. S. 66, 72-73 (1954); n. 11, infra. See generally Clay v. Sun Insurance Office, Ltd., 377 U. S. (1964) (hereinafter cited as Clay II). As a result, the forum State may have to select one law from among the laws of several jurisdictions having some contact with the controversy.

In deciding constitutional choice-of-law questions, whether under the Due Process Clause or the Full Faith and Credit Clause,¹⁰ this Court has traditionally examined the contacts of the State, whose law was applied, with the parties and with the occurrence or transaction giving rise to the litigation. See Clay II, supra, at 183. In order to ensure that the choice of law is neither arbitrary nor fundamentally unfair, see Alaska Packers Assn. v. Industrial Accident Comm’n, 294 U. S. 532, 542 (1935), the Court has invalidated the choice of law of a State which has had no significant contact or significant aggregation of contacts, creating state interests, with the parties and the occurrence or transaction.¹¹

Two instructive examples of such invalidation are Home Ins. Co. v. Dick, 281 U. S. 397 (1930), and John Hancock Mutual Life Ins. Co. v. Yates, 299 U. S. 178 (1936). In both cases, the selection of forum law rested exclusively on the presence of one nonsignificant forum contact.

Home Ins. Co. v. Dick involved interpretation of an insurance policy which had been issued in Mexico, by a Mexican insurer, to a Mexican citizen, covering a Mexican risk. The policy was subsequent^ assigned to Mr. Dick, who was domiciled in Mexico and “physically present and acting in Mexico,” 281 U. S., at 408, although he remained a nominal, permanent resident of Texas. The policy restricted coverage to losses occurring in certain Mexican waters and, indeed, the loss occurred in those waters. Dick brought suit in Texas against a New York reinsurer. Neither the Mexican insurer nor the New York reinsurer had any connection to Texas.¹² The Court held that application of Texas law to void the insurance contract's limitation-of-actions clause violated due process.¹³

The relationship of the forum State to the parties and the transaction was similarly attenuated in John Hancock Mutual Life Ins. Co. v. Yates. There, the insurer, a Massachusetts corporation, issued a contract of insurance on the life of a New York resident. The contract was applied for, issued, and delivered in New York where the insured and his spouse resided. After the insured died in New York, his spouse moved to Georgia and brought suit on the policy in Georgia. Under Georgia law, the jury was permitted to take into account oral modifications when deciding whether an insurance policy application contained material misrepresentations. Under New York law, however, such misrepresentations were to be evaluated solely on the basis of the written application. The Georgia court applied Georgia law. This Court reversed, finding application of Georgia law to be unconstitutional.

Dick and Yates stand for the proposition that if a State has only an insignificant contact with the parties and the occurrence or transaction, application of its law is unconstitutional.¹⁴ Dick concluded that nominal residence — standing alone — was inadequate; Yates held that a postoccurrence change of residence to the forum State — standing alone — was insufficient to justify application of forum law. Although instructive as extreme examples of selection of forum law, neither Dick nor Yates governs this case. For in contrast to those decisions, here the Minnesota contacts with the parties and the occurrence are obviously significant. Thus, this case is like Alaska Packers, Cardillo v. Liberty Mutual Ins. Co., 330 U. S. 469 (1947), and Clay II — cases where this Court sustained choice-of-law decisions based on the contacts of the State, whose law was applied, with the parties and occurrence.

In Alaska Packers, the Court upheld California’s application of its Workmen’s Compensation Act, where the most significant contact of the worker with California was his execution of an employment contract in California. The worker, a nonresident alien from Mexico, was hired in California for seasonal work in a salmon canning factory in Alaska. As part of the employment contract, the employer, who was doing business in California, agreed to transport the worker to Alaska and to return him to California when the work was completed. Even though the employee contracted to be bound by the Alaska Workmen’s Compensation Law and was injured in Alaska, he sought an award under the California Workmen’s Compensation Act. The Court held that the choice of California law was not “so arbitrary or unreasonable as to amount to a denial of due process,” 294 U. S., at 542, because “[wjithout a remedy in California, [he] would be remediless,” ibid., and because of California’s interest that the worker not become a public charge, ibid.15

In Cardillo v. Liberty Mutual Ins. Co., supra, a District of Columbia resident, employed by a District of Columbia employer and assigned by the employer for the three years prior to his death to work in Virginia, was killed in an automobile crash in Virginia in the course of his daily commute home from work. The Court found the District’s contacts with the parties and the occurrence sufficient to satisfy constitutional requirements, based on the employee’s residence in the District, his commute between home and the Virginia workplace, and his status as an employee of a company “engaged in electrical construction work in the District of Columbia and surrounding areas.” Id., at 471.¹⁶

Similarly, Clay II upheld the constitutionality of the application of forum law. There, a policy of insurance had issued in Illinois to an Illinois resident. Subsequently the insured moved to Florida and suffered a property loss in Florida. Relying explicitly on the nationwide coverage of the policy and the presence of the insurance company in Florida and implicitly on the plaintiff’s Florida residence and the occurrence of the property loss in Florida, the Court sustained the Florida court’s choice of Florida law.

The lesson from Dick and Yates, which found insufficient forum contacts to apply forum law, and from Alaska Packers, Cardillo, and Clay II, which found adequate contacts to sustain the choice of forum law,¹⁷ is that for a State’s substantive law to be selected in a constitutionally permissible manner, that State must have a significant contact or significant aggregation of contacts, creating state interests, such that choice of its law is neither arbitrary nor fundamentally unfair. Application of this principle to the facts of this case persuades us that the Minnesota Supreme Court’s choice of its own law did not offend the Federal Constitution.

Ill

Minnesota has three contacts with the parties and the occurrence giving rise to the litigation. In the aggregate, these contacts permit selection by the Minnesota Supreme Court of Minnesota law allowing the stacking of Mr. Hague’s uninsured motorist coverages.

First, and for our purposes a very important contact, Mr. Hague was a member of Minnesota’s work force, having been employed by a Red Wing, Minn., enterprise for the 15 years preceding his death. While employment status may implicate a state interest less substantial than does resident status, that interest is nevertheless important. The State of employment has police power responsibilities towards the nonresident employee that are analogous, if somewhat less profound, than towards residents. Thus, such employees use state services and amenities and may call upon state facilities in appropriate circumstances.

In addition, Mr. Hague commuted to work in Minnesota, a contact which was important in Cardillo v. Liberty Mutual Ins. Co., 330 U. S., at 475-476 (daily commute between residence in District of Columbia and workplace in Virginia), and was presumably covered by his uninsured motorist coverage during the commute.¹⁸ The State’s interest in its commuting nonresident employees reflects a state concern for the safety and well-being of its work force and the concomitant effect on Minnesota employers.

That Mr. Hague was not killed while commuting to work or while in Minnesota does not dictate a different result. To hold that the Minnesota Supreme Court’s choice of Minnesota law violated the Constitution for that reason would require too narrow a view of Minnesota’s relationship with the parties and the occurrence giving rise to the litigation. An automobile accident need not occur within a particular jurisdiction for that jurisdiction to be connected to the occurrence.¹⁹ Similarly, the occurrence of a crash fatal to a Minnesota employee in another State is a Minnesota contact.²⁰ If Mr. Hague had only been injured and missed work for a few weeks, the effect on the Minnesota employer would have been palpable and Minnesota’s interest in having its employee made whole would be evident. Mr. Hague’s death affects Minnesota’s interest still more acutely, even though Mr. Hague will not return to the Minnesota work force. Minnesota’s work force is surely affected by the level of protection the State extends to it, either directly or indirectly. Vindication of the rights of the estate of a Minnesota employee, therefore, is an important state concern.

Mr. Hague’s residence in Wisconsin does not — as Allstate seems to argue — constitutionally mandate application of Wisconsin law to the exclusion of forum law.²¹ If, in the instant case, the accident had occurred in Minnesota between Mr. Hague and an uninsured Minnesota motorist, if the insurance contract had been executed in Minnesota covering a Minnesota registered company automobile which Mr. Hague was permitted to drive, and if a Wisconsin court sought to apply Wisconsin law, certainly Mr. Hague’s residence in Wisconsin, his commute between Wisconsin and Minnesota, and the insurer’s presence in Wisconsin should be adequate to apply Wisconsin’s law.²² See generally Cardillo v. Liberty Mutual Ins. Co., supra; Alaska Packers Assn. v. Industrial Accident Comm’n, 294 U. S. 532 (1935); Home Ins. Co. v. Dick, 281 U. S., at 408, n. 5. Employment status is not a sufficiently less important status than residence, see generally Carroll v. Lanza, 349 U. S. 408 (1955); Alaska Packers Assn. v. Industrial Accident Comm’n, supra, when combined with Mr. Hague’s daily commute across state lines and the other Minnesota contacts present, to prohibit the choice-of-law result in this case on constitutional grounds.

Second, Allstate was at all times present and doing business in Minnesota.²³ By virtue of its presence, Allstate can hardly claim unfamiliarity with the laws of the host jurisdiction and surprise that the state courts might apply forum law to litigation in which the company is involved. “Particularly since the company was licensed to do business in [the forum], it must have known it might be sued there, and that [the forum] courts would feel bound by [forum] law.” ²⁴ Clay v. Sun Insurance Office Ltd., 363 U. S. 207, 221 (1960) (Black, J., dissenting).²⁵ Moreover, Allstate’s presence in Minnesota gave Minnesota an interest in regulating the company’s insurance obligations insofar as they affected both a Minnesota resident and court-appointed representative — respondent — and a longstanding member of Minnesota’s work force Mr. Hague. See Hoopeston Canning Co. v. Cullen, 318 U. S. 313, 316 (1943).

Third, respondent became a Minnesota resident prior to institution of this litigation. The stipulated facts reveal that she first settled in Red Wing, Minn., the town in which her late husband had worked.²⁶ She subsequently moved to Savage, Minn., after marrying a Minnesota resident who operated an automobile service station in Bloomington, Minn. Her move to Savage occurred “almost concurrently,” 289 N. W. 2d, at 45, with the initiation of the.instant case.²⁷ There is no suggestion that Mrs. Hague moved to Minnesota in anticipation of this litigation or for the purpose of finding a legal climate especially hospitable to her claim.²⁸ The stipulated facts, sparse as they are, negate any such inference.

While John Hancock Mutual Life Ins. Co. v. Yates, 299 U. S. 178 (1936), held that a postoccurrence change of residence to the forum State was insufficient in and of itself to confer power on the forum State to choose its law, that case did not hold that such a change of residence was irrelevant. Here, of course, respondent’s bona fide residence in Minnesota was not the sole contact Minnesota had with this litigation. And in connection with her residence in Minnesota, respondent was appointed personal representative of Mr. Hague’s estate by the Registrar of Probate for the County of Goodhue, Minn. Respondent’s residence and subsequent appointment in Minnesota as personal representative of her late husband’s estate constitute a Minnesota contact which gives Minnesota an interest in respondent’s recovery, an interest which the court below identified as full compensation for “resident accident victims” to keep them “off welfare rolls” and able “to meet financial obligations.” 289 N. W. 2d, at 49.

In sum, Minnesota had a significant aggregation ²⁹ of contacts with the parties and the occurrence, creating state interests, such that application of its law was neither arbitrary nor fundamentally unfair. Accordingly, the choice of Minnesota law by the Minnesota Supreme Court did not violate the Due Process Clause or the Pull Faith and Credit Clause.

Affirmed.

Justice Stewart took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.

1 The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment provides that no State “shall . . . deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law . . . .”

2 The Full Faith and Credit Clause, Art. IV, § 1, provides:

“Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records, and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.”

3 Ralph Hague paid a separate premium for each automobile including an additional separate premium for each uninsured motorist coverage.

4 App. C to Pet. for Cert. A-29.

5 289 N. W. 2d 43 (1978).

6 Respondent has suggested that this case presents a “false conflict.” The court below rejected this contention and applied Minnesota law. Even though the Minnesota Supreme Court’s choice of Minnesota law followed a discussion of whether this case presents a false conflict, the fact is that the court chose to apply Minnesota law. Thus, the only question before this Court is whether that choice was constitutional.

7 Minnesota had previously adopted the conceptual model developed by Professor Leflar in Milkovich v. Saari, 295 Minn. 155, 203 N. W. 2d 408 (1973).

8 The court apparently was referring to sufliciency as a matter of choice of law and not as a matter of constitutional limitation on its choice-of-law decision.

9 289 N.W. 2d, at 50 (1979).

10 This Court has taken a similar approach in deciding choice-of-law eases under both the Due Process Clause and the Full Faith and Credit Clause. In each instance, the Court has examined the relevant contacts and resulting interests of the State whose law was applied. See, e. g., Nevada v. Hall, 440 U. S. 410, 424 (1979). Although at one time the Court required a more exacting standard under the Full Faith and Credit Clause than under the Due Process Clause for evaluating the constitutionality of choice-of-law decisions, see Alaska Packers Assn. v. Industrial Accident Comm’n, 294 U. S. 532, 549-550 (1935) (interest of State whose law was applied was no less than interest of State whose law was rejected), the Court has since abandoned the weighing-of-interests requirement. Carroll v. Lanza, 349 U. S. 408 (1955); see Nevada v. Hall, supra; Weintraub, Due Process and Full Faith and Credit Limitations on a State’s Choice of Law, 44 Iowa L. Rev. 449 (1959). Different considerations are of course at issue when full faith and credit is to be accorded to acts, records, and proceedings outside the choice-of-law area, such as in the case of sister state-court judgments.

11 Prior to the advent of interest analysis in the state courts as the “dominant mode of analysis in modem choice of law theory,” Silberman, Shaffer v. Heitner: The End of an Era, 53 N. Y. U. L. Rev. 33, 80, n. 259 (1978); cf. Richards v. United States, 369 U. S. 1, 11-13, and nn. 26-27 (1962) (discussing trend toward interest analysis in state courts), the prevailing choice-of-law methodology focused on the jurisdiction where a particular event occurred. See, e. g., Restatement of Conflict of Laws (1934). For example, in cases characterized as contract cases, the law of the place of contracting controlled the determination of such issues as capacity, fraud, consideration, duty, performance, and the like. Id., § 332; see Beale, What Law Governs the Validity of a Contract, 23 Harv. L. Rev. 260, 270-271 (1910). In the tort context, the law of the place of the wrong usually governed traditional choice-of-law analysis. Restatement, supra, § 378; see Richards v. United States, supra, at 11-12.

Hartford Accident & Indemnity Co. v. Delta & Pine Land Co., 292 U. S. 143 (1934), can, perhaps, best be explained as an example of that period. In that case, the Court struck down application by the Mississippi courts of Mississippi law which voided the limitations provision in a fidelity bond written in Tennessee between a Connecticut insurer and Delta, both of which were doing business in Tennessee and Mississippi. By its terms, the bond covered misapplication of funds “by any employee ‘in any position, anywhere Id., at 145. After Delta discovered defalcations by one of its Mississippi-based employees, a lawsuit was commenced in Mississippi.

That case, however, has scant relevance for today. It implied a choice-of-law analysis which, for all intents and purposes, gave an isolated event— the writing of the bond in Tennessee — controlling constitutional significance, even though there might have been contacts with another State (there Mississippi) which would make application of its law neither unfair nor unexpected. See Martin, Personal Jurisdiction and Choice of Law, 78 Mich. L. Rev. 872, 874, and n. 11 (1980).

12 Dick sought to obtain quasi-in-rem jurisdiction by garnishing the reinsurance obligation of the New York reinsurer. The reinsurer had never transacted business in Texas, but it “was cited by publication, in accordance with a Texas statute; attorneys were appointed for it by the trial court; and they filed on its behalf an answer which denied liability.” 281 U. S., at 402. There would be no jurisdiction in the Texas courts to entertain such a lawsuit today. See Rush v. Savchuk, 444 U. S. 320 (1980); Shaffer v. Heitner, 433 U. S. 186 (1977); Silberman, supra, at 62-65.

13 The Court noted that the result might have been different if there had been some connection to Texas upon “which the State could properly lay hold as the basis of the regulations there imposed.” 281 U. S., at 408, n. 5; see Watson v. Employers Liability Assurance Corp., 348 U. S. 66, 71 (1954).

14 See generally, Weintraub, supra n. 10, at 455-457.

15 The Court found no violation of the Full Faith and Credit Clause, since California’s interest was considered to be no less than Alaska’s, 294 , even though the injury occurred in Alaska while the employee was performing his contract obligations there. While Alaska Packers balanced the interests of California and Alaska to determine the full faith and credit issue, such balancing is no longer required. See Nevada v. Hall, 440 U. S., at 424; n. 10, supra.

16 The precise question raised was whether the Virginia Compensation Commission “had sole jurisdiction over the claim.” 330 U. S., at 472-473. In finding that application of the District’s law did not violate either due process or full faith and credit requirements, the Court in effect treated the question as a constitutional choice-of-law issue.

17 The Court has upheld choice-of-law decisions challenged on constitutional grounds in numerous other decisions. See Nevada v. Hall, supra (upholding California’s application of California law to automobile accident in California between two California residents and a Nevada official driving car owned by State of Nevada while engaged in official business in California); Carroll v. Lanza, 349 U. S. 408 (1955) (upholding Arkansas’ choice of Arkansas law where Missouri employee executed employment contract with Missouri employer and was injured on job in Arkansas but was removed immediately to a Missouri hospital); Watson v. Employers Liability Assurance Corp., 348 U. S. 66 (1954) (allowing application of Louisiana direct action statute by Louisiana resident against insurer even though policy was written and delivered in another State, where plaintiff was injured in Louisiana); Pacific Employers Ins. Co. v. Industrial Accident Comm’n, 306 U. S. 493 (1939) (holding Full Faith and Credit Clause not violated where California applied own Workmen’s Compensation Act in case of injury suffered by Massachusetts employee temporarily in California in course of employment). Thus, Nevada v. Hall, supra, and Watson v. Employers Liability Assurance Corp., supra, upheld application of forum law where the relevant contacts consisted of plaintiff’s residence and the place of the injury. Pacific Employers Ins. Co. v. Industrial Accident Comm’n, supra, and Carroll v. Lanza, supra, relied on the place of the injury arising from the respective employee’s temporary presence in the forum State in connection with Iris employment.

18 The policy issued to Mr. Hague provided that Allstate would pay to the insured, or his legal representative, damages “sustained by the insured, caused by accident and arising out of the ownership, maintenance or use of [an] uninsured automobile. . . .” No suggestion has been made that Mr. Hague’s uninsured motorist protection is unavailable because he was not killed while driving one of his insured automobiles.

19 Numerous cases have applied the law of a jurisdiction other than the situs of the injury where there existed some other link between that jurisdiction and the occurrence. See, e. g., Cardillo v. Liberty Mutual Ins. Co., 330 U. S. 469 (1947); Alaska Packers Assn. v. Industrial Accident Comm’n, 294 U. S. 532 (1935); Rosenthal v. Warren, 475 F. 2d 438 (CA2), cert. denied, 414 U. S. 856 (1973); Clark v. Clark, 107 N. H. 351, 222 A. 2d 205 (1966); Tooker v. Lopez, 24 N. Y. 2d 569, 249 N. E. 2d 394 (1969); Babcock v. Jackson, 12 N. Y. 2d 473, 191 N. E. 2d 279 (1963).

20 The injury or death of a resident of State A in State B is a contact of State A with the occurrence in State B. See cases cited in n. 19, supra.

21 Petitioner’s statement that the instant dispute involves the interpretation of insurance contracts which were “underwritten, applied for, and paid for by Wisconsin residents and issued covering cars garaged in Wisconsin,” Brief for Petitioner 6, is simply another way of stating that’Mr. Hague was a Wisconsin resident. Respondent could have replied that the insurance contract was underwritten, applied for and paid for by a Minnesota worker, and issued covering cars that were driven to work in Minnesota and garaged there for a substantial portion of the day. The former statement is hardly more significant than the latter since the accident in any event did not involve any of the automobiles which were covered under Mr. Hague’s policy. Recovery is sought pursuant to the uninsured motorist coverage.

In addition, petitioner’s statement that the contracts were “underwritten ... by Wisconsin residents” is not supported by the stipulated facts if petitioner means to include itself within that phrase. Indeed, the policy, which is part of the record, recites that Allstate signed the policy in Northbrook, Ill. Under some versions of the hoary rule of lex loci contractus, and depending on the precise sequence of events, a sequence which is unclear from the record before us, the law of Illinois arguably might apply to govern contract construction, even though Illinois would have less contact with the parties and the occurrence than either Wisconsin or Minnesota. No party sought application of Illinois law on that basis in the court below.

22 Of course Allstate could not be certain that Wisconsin law would necessarily govern any accident which occurred in Wisconsin, whether brought in the Wisconsin courts or elsewhere. Such an expectation would give controlling significance to the wooden lex loci delicti doctrine. While the place of the accident is a factor to be considered in choice-of-law analysis, to apply blindly the traditional, but now largely abandoned, doctrine, Silberman, supra n. 11, at 80, n. 259; see n. 11, supra, would fail to distinguish between the relative importance of various legal issues involved in a lawsuit as well as the relationship of other jurisdictions to the parties and the occurrence or transaction. If, for example, Mr. Hague had been a Wisconsin resident and employee who was injured in Wisconsin and was then taken by ambulance to a hospital in Red Wing, Minn., where he languished for several weeks before dying, Minnesota’s interest in ensuring that its medical creditors were paid would be obvious. Moreover, under such circumstances, the accident itself might be reasonably characterized as a bistate occurrence beginning in Wisconsin and ending in Minnesota. Thus, reliance by the insurer that Wisconsin law would necessarily' govern any accident that occurred in Wisconsin, or that the law of another jurisdiction would necessarily govern any accident that did not occur in Wisconsin, would be unwarranted. See n. 11, supra; cf. Rosenthal v. Warren, supra (Massachusetts hospital could not have purchased insurance with expectation that Massachusetts law would govern damages recovery as to New York patient who died in hospital and whose widow brought suit in New York).

If the law of a jurisdiction other than Wisconsin did govern, there was a substantial likelihood, with respect to uninsured motorist coverage, that stacking would be allowed. Stacking was the rule in most States at the time the policy was issued. Indeed, the Wisconsin Supreme Court, in Nelson v. Employers Mutual Casualty Co., 63 Wis. 2d 558, 563-566, and nn. 2, 3, 217 N. W. 2d 670, 672, 674, and nn. 2, 3 (1974), identified 29 States, including Minnesota, whose law it interpreted to allow stacking, and only 9 States whose law it interpreted to prohibit stacking. Clearly then, Allstate could not have expected that an antistaeMng rule would govern any particular accident in which the insured might be involved and thus cannot claim unfair surprise from the Minnesota Supreme Court’s choice of forum law.

23 The Court has recognized that examination of a State’s contacts may result in divergent conclusions for jurisdiction and choice-of-law purposes. See Kulko v. California Superior Court, 436 U. S. 84, 98 (1978) (no jurisdiction in California but California law “arguably might” apply); Shaffer v. Heitner, 433 U. S., at 215 (no jurisdiction in Delaware, although Delaware interest “may support the application of Delaware law”); cf. Hanson v. Denckla, 357 U. S. 235, 254, and n. 27 (1958) (no jurisdiction in Florida; the “issue is personal jurisdiction, not choice of law,” an issue which the Court found no need to decide). Nevertheless, “both inquiries ‘are often closely related and to a substantial degree depend upon similar considerations.’ ” Shaffer, 433 U. S., at 224-225 (Brennan, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). Here, of course, jurisdiction in the Minnesota courts is unquestioned, a factor not without significance in assessing the constitutionality of Minnesota’s choice of its own substantive law. Cf. id., at 225 (“the decision that it is fair to bind a defendant by a State’s laws and rules should prove to be highly relevant to the fairness of permitting that same State to accept jurisdiction for adjudicating the controversy”).

24 There is no element of unfair surprise or frustration of legitimate expectations as a result of Minnesota’s choice of its law. Because Allstate was doing business in Minnesota and was undoubtedly aware that Mr. Hague was a Minnesota employee, it had to have anticipated that Minnesota law might apply to an accident in which Mr. Hague was involved. See Clay II, 377 U. S. 179, 182 (1964); Watson v. Employers Liability Assurance Corp., 348 U. S., at 72-73; Alaska Packers Assn. v. Industrial Accident Comm’n, 294 U. S., at 538-543; cf. Home Ins. Co. v. Dick, 281 U. S., at 404 (neither insurer nor reinsurer present in forum State). Indeed, Allstate specifically anticipated that Mr. Hague might suffer an accident either in Minnesota or elsewhere in the United States, outside of Wisconsin, since the policy it issued offered continental coverage. Cf. id., at 403 (coverage limited to losses occurring in certain Mexican waters which were outside of jurisdiction whose law was applied). At the same time, Allstate did not seek to control construction of the contract since the policy contained no choice-of-law clause dictating application of Wisconsin law. See Clay II, supra, at 182 (nationwide coverage of policy and lack of choice-of-law clause).

25 Justice Black’s dissent in the first Clay decision, a decision which vacated and remanded a lower-court determination to obtain an authoritative construction of state law that might moot the constitutional question, subsequently commanded majority support in the second Clay decision. Clay II, supra, at 180-183.

26 The stipulated facts do not reveal the date on which Mrs. Hague first moved to Red Wing.

27 These proceedings began on May 28, 1976. Mrs. Hague was remarried on June 19, 1976.

28 The dissent suggests that considering respondent’s postoecurrence change of residence as one of the Minnesota contacts will encourage forum shopping. Post, at 337. This overlooks the fact that her change of residence was bona fide and not motivated by litigation considerations.

29 We express no view whether the first two contacts, either together or separately, would have sufficed to sustain the choice of Minnesota law made by the Minnesota Supreme Court.