Abstract

This thesis examines choice-of-law problems in wrongful death actions arising from multistate aircraft accident litigation. Although federal law extensively regulates air traffic safety and carrier operations, compensation for dependents of accident victims remains governed by divergent state wrongful death statutes, creating acute conflict-of-laws difficulties. The study traces the historical dominance of the lex loci delicti doctrine and demonstrates its particular inadequacy in aviation cases, where the situs of a crash bears little rational connection to the parties. It then surveys judicial escape devices — procedural characterization, public policy exceptions, and renvoi — as well as the modern approaches that followed Babcock v. Jackson, including the "most significant relationship" test, governmental interest analysis, principles of preference, choice-influencing considerations, and the lex fori doctrine. While these modern theories sought to remedy the arbitrariness of lex loci delicti, the study shows that each introduces its own deficiencies — particularly vagueness, unpredictability, and susceptibility to forum-shopping — which are magnified in aircraft litigation involving numerous contacts, multiple statutes, and competing state interests.

The thesis concludes that neither the traditional rule nor any modern replacement can achieve the fundamental goals of certainty, predictability, and uniformity in this field. Drawing an analogy to the Death on the High Seas Act, which resolved comparable difficulties in maritime wrongful death cases through federal legislation, the author argues that the solution lies not in further refinement of conflicts doctrine but in the enactment of a federal substantive aviation liability law under Congress's commerce clause power. Such a statute would eliminate choice-of-law problems altogether by establishing uniform liability standards for wrongful death arising from aircraft accidents, securing the predictable and equitable adjudication that both the air carrier industry and the dependents of accident victims require.

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