Cuba Railroad v. Crosby

Citations

• 222 U.S. 473
• 32 S. Ct. 132
• 56 L. Ed. 274
• 1912 U.S. LEXIS 2199

Syllabus

<p>In dealing with rudimentary contracts, or torts made or committed abroad, courts may assume a liability to exist if nothing to the contrary appears, but they cannot assume that the rights and liabilities are fixed and measured in the same manner in foreign countries as they are in this.</p> <p>With rare exceptions, the liabilities of parties to each other are fixed by the law of the territorial jurisdiction within which the wrong is done and the parties are at the time of doing it.</p> <p>The extension of hospitality óf our courts to foreign suitors must not be made a cover for injustice to defendants of whom they may be able to lay hold.</p> <p>There is no general presumption that the law of Cuba as inherited from Spain and as since modified is the same as the common law. While as between two common-law countries the common law may be presumed to be the same in one as in the other, a statute of one would not be presumed to be the statute oí the other.</p> <p>A trial court of the United States cannot presume that the samé obligation rests upon an employer in Cuba as in this country to repair defects in machinery called to his attention, or in case of failure to repair to be deprived of the fellow-servants defense. Such a rule of law, if existent in a foreign jurisdiction, must be proved.</p> <p>170 Fed. Rep. 369; 95 C. C. A. 539, Reversed.</p>