Grant v. McAuliffe
Citation and Court
41 Cal. 2d 859 (1953), California Supreme Court
Facts
All parties — the plaintiff and the tortfeasor — were California domiciliaries involved in an automobile accident in Arizona. The tortfeasor died before the plaintiffs brought their claims, and his estate was being administered in California. Arizona law did not allow tort claims to survive the tortfeasor’s death (claims abated), while California law permitted survival actions. The plaintiffs sued the estate in California.
Issue
Whether Arizona law (lex loci delicti, where the accident occurred) or California law (domicile of all parties and site of estate administration) should govern the survival of the tort action.
Holding
California law applied to the question of survival because survival is a procedural matter relating to the administration of a decedent’s estate — a matter in which California had the dominant interest as the domicile of all parties and the site of estate administration.
Rule / Doctrine
Whether a cause of action survives the death of the tortfeasor is characterized as a matter of the administration of estates (substantive for some purposes, but here governed by domicile law), not simply as a matter of the substantive law of the place of the tort. When California has the dominant interest, California law applies even though the accident occurred in another state.
Significance
Grant v. McAuliffe is an early California case departing from mechanical lex loci delicti in favor of a more flexible interest-based approach, anticipating Babcock v. Jackson (1963) and the broader shift to interest analysis in American conflicts of law. It is particularly important for the characterization of “survival” as an estate administration issue.