Milkovich v. Saari
Minnesota Supreme Court
203 N.W.2d 408 (1973)
Several Ontario residents traveled to Duluth, Minnesota in a car owned by Emma Saari (defendant), registered and insured in Ontario, and got into an accident there injuring passenger Anne Milkovich (plaintiff), who was hospitalized in Minnesota for weeks before returning to Ontario. Milkovich sued Saari in Ontario and later in Minnesota; Ontario's guest statute required proof of gross negligence for a host-driver's liability to a passenger, while Minnesota law allowed liability based on ordinary negligence. The trial court denied the defendants' motion to dismiss for failure to allege gross negligence as Ontario law required, and the defendants appealed.
Whether the forum should resolve a conflict of laws by considering which law will better promote predictability of result, the preservation of interstate or international order, judicial ease in application, the forum's governmental interest, and the superior law.