ORDER AND REASONS

LANCE M. AFRICK, District Judge.

William Bell was regularly exposed to asbestos while serving as an engineman, machinery repairman, and a machinist mate in the United States Navy in the 1960s. The majority of Mr. Bell's exposure occurred while he was serving at sea on four ships, and it is settled that general maritime law governs liability for those exposures. But Mr. Bell also claims that he was exposed to asbestos during a six month period in which he was training at the land-based Naval Reactors Facility in Idaho. Through earlier summary judgment briefing, it became apparent that the parties disagreed as to whether Idaho law or Louisiana law applied to the Idaho exposures. The Court ordered additional briefing1 on the issue. Defendants argue that Idaho law applies, and plaintiffs argue that Louisiana law governs.

I.

Louisiana's choice of law rules determine which state's law applies. See Mumblow v. Monroe Broad., Inc., 401 F.3d 616, 620 (5th Cir. 2005). Under Louisiana's choice of law approach, "if the laws of the states do not conflict, then no choice of law analysis is necessary, and [courts should] simply apply the law of the forum state." Id.; see also Champagne v. Ward, 893 So.2d 773, 786 (La. 2005). Further, "[u]nder Louisiana's choice of law rules, a sweeping determination that the law of one state applies to the case, as opposed to an issue in a case, constitutes a derogation of the appropriate analysis." Favaroth v. Appleyard, 785 So.2d 262, 265 (La. App. 4 Cir. 2001). "When a conflict exists with regard to more than one issue, each issue should be analyzed separately." Id.; see also La. Civ. Code art. 3515, comment (d) ("This Article does not prohibit dépeçage[, however] [t]he unnecessary splitting of the case should be avoided, especially when it results in distorting the policies of the involved states.").

The parties identify two pertinent conflicts. First, Louisiana allows a survival action under these circumstances and Idaho does not.2 Second, Idaho allows the recovery of punitive damages in a wrongful death action and Louisiana does not.3 The Court analyzes each conflict separately and concludes that Louisiana law should apply to the survivorship claim, but that Idaho law should apply to the punitive damages issue.4

II.

Unlike many other American jurisdictions, Louisiana has always had codified choice of law rules. Trizec Properties, Inc. v. U.S. Mineral Prod. Co., 974 F.2d 602, 604-05 (5th Cir. 1992). Louisiana's general choice of law rules are set forth in Louisiana Civil Code article 3542. Marchesani v. Pellerin-Milnor Corp., 269 F.3d 481, 487 (5th Cir. 2001). Article 3542 provides:

La. Civ. Code art. 3542.

Louisiana Civil Code article 3515, in turn, is the "general and residual rule" that guides and informs Louisiana's approach to choice of law and is closely paralleled by article 3542. Marchesani, 269 F.3d at 486. Article 3515 provides that, except as otherwise specified in the part of the Civil Code addressing choice of law:

La. Civ. Code art. 3515.

Louisiana Civil Code articles 3543 through 3546 provide more specific choice of law rules which dictate the appropriate choice of law in certain scenarios. La. Civ. Code art. 3542, comment (b). When applicable, those articles generally prevail over the more generalized rules provided in article 3542. Id.; see also La. Civ. Code art. 3547. Because none of the more precise choice of law rules provided in articles 3543 through 3546 specifically apply under the facts of this case, however, the Court's analysis is guided primarily by articles 3542 and 3515.

A.

The Court first addresses the survival claim. Pursuant to articles 3515 and 3542, the Court begins the analysis by identifying "the pertinent contacts of each state," including "the place of conduct and injury, the domicile, habitual residence, or place of business of the parties, and the state in which the relationship, if any, between the parties was centered." La. Civ. Code arts. 3515, 3542; see also Marchesani, 269 F.3d at 487. The first contacts to identify are the place of the alleged tortious conduct and the place of injury. Although William Bell was diagnosed with mesothelioma in Louisiana in 2015, Louisiana law considers Idaho to be the place where William Bell's injury occurred for purposes of the survival action. See Rando v. Anco Insulations Inc., 16 So.3d 1065, 1083 (La. 2009) ("[Plaintiff's] injury occurred at the time of significant exposure to asbestos, not later when his disease (mesothelioma) manifested itself.").5 As for the place where the alleged tortious behavior occurred, Idaho is clearly the state with the pertinent connection. All of the alleged tortious conduct took place in Idaho, and none of the alleged exposures occurred in Louisiana.

The next contact to identify is the place of domicile. Under Louisiana choice of law rules, courts look to the domicile of the decedent when considering a survival action. See La. Civ. Code art. 3544, comment (b). Although he spent a number of years outside of the State due to his naval service, William Bell was officially domiciled in Louisiana his entire life. The defendants are domiciled in various states, but none of them is domiciled in Louisiana or Idaho. As for the place where the relationship between William Bell and the defendants was centered, that must be Idaho as well. Indeed, both the alleged wrongful conduct and the injury occurred there.

Having identified the relevant contacts, the second step pursuant to articles 3515 and 3542 requires the Court to consider the state policies that might be implicated in the choice of law. See La. Civ. Code arts. 3515, 3542; Marchesani, 269 F.3d at 487. Both Idaho and Louisiana may have policy interests which could be implicated by the choice of law. Idaho, like all states, has an interest in regulating conduct within its borders. Louisiana, on the other hand, has an interest in seeing its injured citizens fully compensated—irrespective of where their injury occurs. After all, even when Louisiana domiciliaries are not injured in Louisiana, the effects and especially the expense of an injury will surely be felt here.

The third step of the choice of law analysis set forth by articles 3515 and 3542 requires the Court to evaluate the "strength and pertinence" of each state's policy interests in light of "the policies and needs of the interstate and international systems" so as to determine which state's policies would be "most severely impaired" if its law was not applied. See La. Civ. Code arts. 3515, 3542; Marchesani, 269 F.3d at 487. After doing so, the Court concludes that Louisiana's interests are stronger and would be more severely impaired if its survival law was not applied under these circumstances. See Louisiana Practice Series § 12:5 ("[E]ach state having factual contacts with a given multi-state case may not have an equally strong interest in regulating all issues in the case, but only those issues that actually implicate its policies in a significant way.").

The Court notes that in the tort context, Louisiana choice of law rules distinguish "issues pertaining to standards of conduct and safety" from "issues of loss distribution and financial protection." Compare La. Civ. Code art. 35436 with La. Civ. Code art. 3544.7 The commentary to the Civil Code explains that the distinction "draws from the substantive law of torts and its two fundamental objectives— deterrence and compensation." La. Civ. Code art. 3543, comment (a). While the line between the two categories of law is not always clear, rules relating to conduct and safety generally encompass the so-called "rules of the road," or rules which regulate conduct. See id.; S. Symeonides, Louisiana's New Law of Choice of Law for Tort Conflicts: An Exegesis, 66 Tul. Law Rev. 677, 699-705 (1992). Issues of loss distribution and financial protection, on the other hand, include rules which—for example—impose a ceiling on the amount of compensatory damages available or rules which provide immunity from suit. See id.

According to the Civil Code's commentary, "[a] state's policy of deterrence embodied in its conduct-regulating rules is implicated in all substandard conduct that occurs within its territory, even if the parties involved are not domiciled in that state." Id. "Conversely, a state's loss-distribution policy may or may not extend to nondomiciliaries acting within its territory, but does extend to domiciliaries even when they act outside the state." Id. In other words, conduct-regulating rules are, generally speaking, tied to territoriality whereas loss-compensating rules are tied to domicile. Symeonides, 66 Tul. Law Rev. at 703. The distinction between conduct-regulating rules and loss-compensating rules is important to the choice of law decision between Louisiana's survivorship law and Idaho's survivorship law.

In Marchesani, the Fifth Circuit emphasized that under Louisiana's choice of law rules, "the ultimate question is not which state has the most significant interest in the dispute, but rather which state's policies would be most seriously impaired if its law were not applied to the issue." 269 F.3d at 488 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). Furthermore, the Fifth Circuit noted that the Louisiana legislature "has made clear that `[w]hat is to be evaluated is not the wisdom or goodness of a state policy, either in the abstract or vis-à-vis the policy of another state, but rather the strength and pertinence of this policy in space.'" Id. (quoting La. Civ. Code art. 3515, Revision Comment (c)).

On the one hand, the alleged wrongful conduct and injury occurred in Idaho. On the other hand, the consequences of that conduct and injury are felt most acutely here in Louisiana where William Bell resided, where he was diagnosed with mesothelioma and died, and where his brother John Bell currently resides. As such, Louisiana's interests would suffer the greater impairment if a Louisiana domiciliary's injury remained unremedied by the operation of another state's law. Idaho's interests, in contrast, cannot be viewed as greatly impaired by the application of Louisiana law under these circumstances.

After all, it is not as if Idaho prohibits all survival actions in all circumstances. As the Court observed in supra note 2, if a decedent's death occurred "from causes not related to the wrongful act or negligence," a survival action is permitted under Idaho law. See Idaho Code § 5-327(2). It follows that the application of Louisiana's survivorship provision—albeit in circumstances not recognized in Idaho—cannot be said to completely undermine Idaho public policy.

Further, because the availability of a survivorship action is better characterized as a loss-compensating rule and not a conduct-regulating rule, the personal contacts of this litigation to Louisiana are more significant than the territorial contacts of this litigation to Idaho with respect to the survivorship issue. Although the specific choice of law provisions set forth in articles 3543 to 3546 of the Louisiana Civil Code are not determinative of the inquiry under these facts, they are nevertheless instructive in gauging the strength of Louisiana's policy interests. In light of Louisiana's strong interest in ensuring that its domiciliaries are compensated—even when their injury occurs outside of Louisiana, and considering that Idaho's policy with respect to its survivorship law will not be greatly undermined by the application of Louisiana law in these circumstances, the Court concludes that Louisiana's policy interests would suffer the greater impairment if its law was not applied.

B.

Next, the Court considers whether Idaho law or Louisiana law should apply to the question of punitive damages in a wrongful death suit. The Court again begins the analysis by identifying the pertinent contacts. As previously explained, Idaho is the state where the alleged tortious conduct occurred. But unlike the injury in the survival action, the injury in the wrongful death action is deemed to have occurred in Louisiana. As a wrongful death action is meant to compensate a survivor for the injury he suffers upon the death of a relative or spouse, John Bell did not sustain an injury until his brother William died. See Watkins v. Exxon Mobil Corp., 145 So.3d 237, 241 (La. 2014) ("The wrongful death action is intended to compensate the beneficiaries for compensable injuries suffered from the moment of death and thereafter.") (citation omitted). Because William Bell died in this state, that is where John Bell's injury occurred.

Louisiana is also the state with the relevant domiciliary connection. Under Louisiana choice of law rules, courts look to the domicile of the surviving plaintiff when considering a wrongful death action. See La. Civ. Code art. 3544, comment (b). As previously noted, John Bell—the wrongful death claimant—is domiciled in Louisiana. Also as previously noted, none of the defendants are domiciled in Louisiana or Idaho. With respect to "the state in which the relationship, if any, between the parties was centered," see La. Civ. Code art. 3542, the Court concludes that the relationship between John Bell and the defendants cannot be considered "centered" in either Louisiana or Idaho. After all, the conduct occurred in one state and the injury occurred in another.

Turning to the policies implicated by the pertinent contacts, Idaho undoubtedly has a policy interest in regulating the behavior of companies that operate within its borders. As punitive damages are intended to deter wrongful conduct, Idaho has an interest in seeing its punitive damages law applied to alleged tortious conduct occurring in Idaho. But the Court has difficulty locating a relevant Louisiana policy interest. While Louisiana surely has an interest in seeing its injured citizens fully compensated, punitive damages are intended not to compensate but to punish, and none of the alleged reckless behavior in this case occurred in Louisiana.8

The Court finds that Idaho's interests would suffer the greater impairment if its law was not applied. As explained in the previous section, Louisiana's choice of law analysis distinguishes between conduct-regulating rules and loss-allocating rules. According to the Civil Code's commentary, "[a] state's policy of deterrence embodied in its conduct-regulating rules is implicated in all substandard conduct that occurs within its territory, even if the parties involved are not domiciled in that state." La. Civ. Code art. 3543, comment (a). As punitive damages are intended to regulate conduct and not to compensate victims, it is difficult to understand why Louisiana would have a strong policy interest in seeing its punitive damages law applied in this context. Idaho's interests, on the other hand, would be more severely undermined if its conduct-regulating rules were not applied to Idaho conduct.

Further, the "policies and needs of the interstate and international systems, including the policies of upholding the justified expectations of parties and of minimizing the adverse consequences that might follow from subjecting a party to the law of more than one state," counsel in favor of applying Idaho law. See La. Civ. Code art. 3515. As the defendants emphasize, it would be unreasonable to subject companies doing business in Idaho to different and perhaps even conflicting standards of conduct depending on where individual employees are domiciled. Upholding the justified expectations of the parties requires application of Idaho law to regulate Idaho conduct. Idaho law should apply to the punitive damages issue on the wrongful death claim.

III.

For the foregoing reasons,

IT IS ORDERED that, with respect to the alleged Idaho exposures, Louisiana law will apply to the survivorship claim and Idaho law will apply to the punitive damages issue in this wrongful death claim.