Abstract
Dean Kay's lament should give solace to the courts that decided choice of law issues during this Survey period. Again, courts struggled to merely identify the proper choice of law rules in the Second Restatement of Conflict of Laws. Yet, choice of law issues accounted for relatively few of the conflicts cases during this Survey period (October 1, 1992 through September 30, 1993). This is not surprising, however, since conflict of laws encompasses more than just choice of law: "Conflict of Laws" describes generally the body of law dealing with the questions of when and why the courts of one jurisdiction take into consideration the elements of foreign law or fact patterns in a case or consider the prior determination of another state or of a foreign nation in a case pending before them.
Other conflicts topics covered in this Article include recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments, personal jurisdiction, and retroactivity. Much of the action occurred in personal jurisdiction, with the cases applying established Texas law without much innovation. Similarly, retroactivity continued to develop consistently with prior case law. Innovation, however, seemed the general rule in the area of recognition and enforcement of foreign judgements. Here, the cases struggled with the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the Federal Constitution. Additionally, a court of appeals invoked the rarely used doctrine of "comity" in support of its result.