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Scotland v. Allstate Insurance Co.11/4/2005
es an "interest analysis" in order to determine which jurisdiction has the greater interest in having its law applied to the litigation. Laws distributing the loss after the accident happens, such as contribution or charitable immunity, may implicate significant governmental interests (see Matter of Allstate Ins. Co. [Stolarz—N.J. Mfrs. Ins. Co.], 81 NY2d 219, 225 ). Loss-allocating rules are those which "prohibit, assign, or limit liability after the tort occurs" (Padula v Lilarn Props. Corp., 84 NY2d 519, 522 ), such as charitable immunity statutes, guest statutes and vicarious liability statutes. New York's law requiring a "serious injury" threshold has been held to involve issues of loss allocation (see Kranzler v Austin, 189 Misc 2d 369 [App Term, 2d & 11th Jud Dists 2001]; Jean v Francois, 168 Misc 2d 48 ). Where the specific issue raised relates to allocating losses which result from tortious conduct, both the situs of the tort as well as the domiciles of the litigants will be examined (see Neumeier v Kuehner, 31 NY2d 121 ).
The accident location and situs of the loss or injury are in New York. Plaintiff's counsel has conceded herein that, at the time of the accident, plaintiff had moved from Virginia to New York, and in fact based venue upon his residence in Queens County. Moreover, strong policy considerations underlie New York's serious injury threshold requirement. The rationale underlying the "serious injury" requirement was to reduce the number of litigated automobile personal injury accident cases by keeping minor personal injury cases out of court (see Licari v Elliott, 57 NY2d 230 ; Kranzler v Austin, 189 Misc 2d 369, supra; see also Restatement [Second] of Conflict of Laws § 6). Were the New York courts not to apply the threshold requirement, the rationale for the New York law would be seriously eroded.
In view of the foregoing, the law of New York should be applied, and plaintiff should be required to demonstrate that he sustained a "serious injury." Accordingly, the court below did not err in denying plaintiff's motion to dismiss defendant's first three affirmative defenses.
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