Opinion
February 2, 1990
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Erie County, Miller, J.
Present — Callahan, J.P., Denman, Green, Balio and Lawton, JJ.
Order unanimously affirmed with costs. Memorandum: Plaintiff Marc LaForge was injured when the vehicle in which he was a passenger collided with another vehicle at an intersection in the City of Syracuse. Defendants Normandin and Touchette, the operator and owner of the vehicle transporting plaintiff, moved to dismiss the complaint upon the ground that, under the No-Fault Law of Quebec, there is no legal action to recover damages for injuries arising out of an automobile accident. We conclude that Supreme Court correctly determined that New York law should govern this cause of action.
Although plaintiff and the moving defendants are all residents of Quebec, four codefendants are domiciliaries of New York, and one of the codefendants is a municipal corporation. We thus are presented with a matter involving domiciliaries of different jurisdictions with conflicting loss-distribution rules. In such cases, "the law of the place of the tort will normally apply, unless displacing it `"will advance" the relevant substantive law purposes without impairing the smooth working of the multi-state system or producing great uncertainty for litigants'" (Schultz v Boy Scouts, 65 N.Y.2d 189, 201, quoting from Neumeier v Kuehner, 31 N.Y.2d 121, 128). In our view, New York's interest in protecting the contribution and apportionment rights of its domiciliaries is a significant interest, and we perceive no persuasive reason to displace the law of this State in the circumstances of this case.