Big Conflicts Little Conflicts
Katherine Florey. Choice-of-law doctrine today increasingly presents two distinct faces. When it comes to garden-variety tort and contract cases, conflicts doctrine often produces uncontroversial results with surprisingly little drama. In more complicated litigation, however, the picture is starkly different. It is fair to say that choice-of-law issues represent perhaps the most serious obstacle to consolidating complex cases. Further, conflicts issues even in simpler cases have proven deeply problematic when they implicate not just the interests of individuals, but larger questions about the proper allocation of state power. What accounts for the divergent performance of conflicts doctrine in, on the one hand, small-scale litigation and, on the other, litigation that affects more people or raises broader policy concerns? This Article argues that domestic U.S. choice-of-law doctrines serve two distinct functions, and…