Guertin v. Harbour Assurance Co.

In February 1982, Wisconsin resident Frank Guertin suffered personal injuries in Illinois when he slipped and fell off a truck that he was employed to drive. In October 1984, Guertin sued, among others, International Harvester Company (IH) (defendant), which designed and manufactured the truck, Ryder Truck Rental, Inc. (Ryder) (defendant), which sold or leased the truck to Guertin’s employer, Guertin’s employer (defendant), Ryder’s insurer, Harbour Assurance Company (Harbour) (defendant), and Edward Krissman (defendant), who serviced and maintained the truck, in Wisconsin state court. IH and Ryder did business in Wisconsin, Krissman serviced and maintained the truck in Wisconsin, and Guertin’s employer was incorporated in Wisconsin. Under Wisconsin’s borrowing statute, in connection with a personal-injury case involving a foreign cause of action, a Wisconsin court had to apply the shorter of two statutes of limitations: the Wisconsin statute of limitations or the statute of limitations of the foreign jurisdiction in which the cause of action arose. IH, Ryder, and Krissman moved for summary judgment on statute-of-limitations grounds, arguing that Guertin’s suit involved a foreign cause of action because Guertin was injured in Illinois and thus Illinois’s two-year statute of limitations—rather than Wisconsin’s three-year statute of limitations—applied. Guertin responded that his claim did not involve a foreign cause of action simply due to the happenstance that he was hurt in Illinois. Rather, Guertin contended, whether a claim involved a foreign cause of action turned on whether Wisconsin or another jurisdiction had the most significant contacts with the relevant events, and Wisconsin had the most significant contacts here. The circuit court granted summary judgment against Guertin. The court of appeals affirmed. Guertin appealed.