Louisiana's Conflicts Codification: Some Empirical Observations Regarding Decisional Predictability
10 Pages Posted: 8 May 2006
Abstract
In 1992, Louisiana became the first (and still the only) state to codify its choice-of-law doctrine. The conflicts rules that it created in statutory form are far removed from the pre-conflicts-revolution rules such as the lex loci delicti rule in tort cases. Rather, the Louisiana codification consists of somewhat softer and narrower rules. This article attempts to measure whether this codification has produced any improvement in decisional predictability in Louisiana courts. As a proxy for decisional predictability it uses the affirmance rates of Louisiana courts in conflicts case before and after the codification. The article concludes that the Louisiana codification produced a statistically significant increase in the affirmance rate and thus by inference in the decisional predictablity of Louisiana conflicts decisions.
Keywords: conflict of laws, choice of law, Louisiana, codification
JEL Classification: K10, K19, K33, K39
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
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