Hughes v. Fetter

341 U.S. 609, 71 S. Ct. 980, 95 L. Ed. 2d 1212, 95 L. Ed. 1212, 1951 U.S. LEXIS 1728

• Court: Supreme Court of the United States
• Decided: June 4, 1951
• Docket: 355
• Status: Published

Opinions

Me. Justice Black

delivered the opinion of the Court.

Basing his complaint on the Illinois wrongful death statute,¹ appellant administrator brought this action in the Wisconsin state court to recover damages for the death of Harold Hughes, who was fatally injured in an automobile accident in Illinois. The allegedly negligent driver and an insurance company were named as defendants. On their motion the trial court entered summary judgment “dismissing the complaint on the merits.” It held that a Wisconsin statute, which creates a right of action only for deaths caused in that state, establishes a local public policy against Wisconsin’s entertaining suits brought under the wrongful death acts of other states.² The Wisconsin Supreme Court affirmed, notwithstanding the contention that the local statute so construed violated the Full Faith and Credit Clause of Art. IV, § 1 of the Constitution.³ The case is properly here on appeal under 28 U. S. C. § 1257.

We are called upon to decide the narrow question whether Wisconsin, over the objection raised, can close the doors of its courts to the cause of action created by the Illinois wrongful death act.⁴ Prior decisions have established that the Illinois statute is a “public act” within the provision of Art. IV, § 1 that “Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts ... of every other State.” ⁵ It is also settled that Wisconsin cannot escape this constitutional obligation to enforce the rights and duties validly created under the laws of other states by the simple device of removing jurisdiction from courts otherwise competent.⁶ We have recognized, however, that full faith and credit does not automatically compel a forum state to subordinate its own statutory policy to a conflicting public act of another state; rather, it is for this Court to choose in each case between the competing public policies involved.⁷ The clash of interests in cases of this type has usually been described as a conflict between the public policies of two or more states.⁸ The more basic conflict involved in the present appeal, however, is as follows: On the one hand is the strong unifying principle embodied in the Full Faith and Credit Clause looking toward maximum enforcement in each state of the obligations or rights created or recognized by the statutes of sister states;⁹ on the other hand is the policy of Wisconsiri, as interpreted by its highest court, against permitting Wisconsin courts to entertain this wrongful death action.¹⁰

We hold that Wisconsin’s policy must give way. That state has no real feeling of antagonism against wrongful death suits in general.¹¹ To the contrary, a forum is regularly provided for cases of this nature, the exclusionary rule extending only so far as to bar actions for death not caused locally.¹² The Wisconsin policy, moreover, cannot be considered as an application of the jorum non con-veniens doctrine, whatever effect that doctrine might be given if its use resulted in denying enforcement to public acts of other states. Even if we assume that Wisconsin could refuse, by reason of particular circumstances, to hear foreign controversies to which nonresidents were parties,¹³ the present case is not one lacking a close relationship with the state. For not only were appellant, the decedent and the individual defendant all residents of Wisconsin, but also appellant was appointed administrator and the corporate defendant was created under Wisconsin laws. We also think it relevant, although not crucial here, that Wisconsin may well be the only jurisdiction in which service could be had as an original matter on the insurance company defendant.¹⁴ And while in the present case jurisdiction over the individual defendant apparently could be had in Illinois by substituted service,¹⁵ in other cases Wisconsin’s exclusionary statute might amount to a deprivation of all opportunity to enforce valid death claims created by another state.

Under these circumstances, we conclude that Wisconsin’s statutory policy which excludes this Illinois cause of action is forbidden by the national policy of the Full Faith and Credit Clause.¹⁶ The judgment is reversed and the cause is remanded to the Supreme Court of Wisconsin for proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.

Reversed and remanded.

1 Smith-Hurd’s Ill. Ann. Stat., 1936, c. 70, §§ 1, 2.

2 Wis. Stat., 1949, §331.03. This section contains language typically found in wrongful death acts but concludes as follows: “provided, that such action shall be brought for a death caused in this state.”

3 257 Wis. 35,42 N. W. 2d 452.

4 The parties concede, as they must, that if the same cause of action had previously been reduced to judgment, the Full Faith and Credit Clause would compel the courts of Wisconsin to entertain an action to enforce it. Kenney v. Supreme Lodge, 252 U. S. 411.

5 E. g., Broderick v. Rosner, 294 U. S. 629, 644; Bradford Elec. Co. v. Clapper, 286 U. S. 145, 154-155; John Hancock Ins. Co. v. Yates, 299 U. S. 178, 183.

6 E. g., Broderick v. Rosner, 294 U. S. 629, 642-643; Converse v. Hamilton, 224 U. S. 243, 260-261; cf. Kenney v. Supreme Lodge, 252 U. S. 411, 415; Angel v. Bullington, 330 U. S. 183, 188. The reliance of the Supreme Court of Wisconsin on Chambers v. Baltimore & O. R. Co., 207 U. S. 142, was misplaced. That case does not hold that one state, consistently with Art. IV, § 1, can exclude from its courts causes of action created by another state for, as pointed out in Broderick v. Rosner, supra at 642, n. 3, in Chambers “no claim was made under the full faith and credit clause.”

7 E. g., Pink v. A. A. A. Highway Express, 314 U. S. 201, 210-211; Pacific Ins. Co. v. Commission, 306 U. S. 493, 502; Alaska Packers Assn. v. Commission, 294 U. S. 532, 547.

8 See, e. g., Alaska Packers Assn. v. Commission, 294 U. S. 532, 547-550.

9 This clause “altered the status of the several states as independent foreign sovereignties, each free to ignore rights and obligations created under the laws or established by the judicial proceedings of the others, by making each an integral part of a single nation . . . .” Magnolia Petroleum Co. v. Hunt, 320 U. S. 430, 439. See also Milwaukee County v. White Co., 296 U. S. 268, 276-277; Order of Travelers v. Wolfe, 331 U. S. 586.

10 The present case is not one where Wisconsin, having entertained appellant’s lawsuit, chose to apply its own instead of Illinois’ statute to measure the substantive rights involved. This distinguishes the present case from those where we have said that “Prima facie every state is entitled to enforce in its own courts its own statutes, lawfully enacted.” Alaska Packers Assn. v. Commission, 294 U. S. 532, 547; see also, Williams v. North Carolina, 317 U. S. 287, 295-296.

11 It may well be that the wrongful death acts of Wisconsin and Illinois contain different provisions in regard to such matters as maximum recovery and disposition of the proceeds of suit. Such differences, however, are generally considered unimportant. See cases collected 77 A. L. R. 1311, 1317-1324.

12 See note 2, supra.

13 See Broderick v. Rosner, 294 U. S. 629, 643; compare Anglo-American Provision Co. v. Davis Co., 191 U. S. 373, with Kenney v. Supreme Lodge, 252 U. S. 411.

14 Cf. Tennessee Coal Co. v. George, 233 U. S. 354, 359-360.

15 Smith-Hurd’s Ill. Ann. Stat., 1950, c. 95%, § 23.

16 In certain previous cases, e. g., Pacific Ins. Co. v. Commission, 306 U. S. 493, 502; Alaska Packers Assn. v. Commission, 294 U. S. 532, 547, this Court suggested that under the Full Faith and Credit Clause a forum state might make a distinction between statutes and judgments of sister states because of Congress’ failure to prescribe the extra-state effect to be accorded public acts. Subsequent to these decisions the Judicial Code was revised so as to provide: “Such Acts [of the legislature of any state] . . . and judicial proceedings . . . shall have the same full faith and credit in every court within the United States ... as they have ... in the courts of such State . . . from which they are taken.” (Italics added.) 28 U. S. C. (1946 ed., Supp. Ill) § 1738. In deciding the present appeal, however, we have found it unnecessary to rely on any changes accomplished by the Judicial Code revision.