A contract (to pay money) was made in Dakota by a married woman and was pay able there. The Dakota law permitted her to contract and to sue, and be sued as though she were unmarried. She owned land in Missouri which the Dakota sought to attach. By the law of Missouri (lexi fort) a married woman (for purposes of this case) was competent to be sued personally, but her property could not be attached. The ques tion was whether the particular remedy of attachment related to the obligation of the contract (to be governed by Dakota law) or to the remedy merely, in which case the law of Missouri should control. By a divided court it was held that the Missouri law should control; Ruhe v. Buck, 124 Mo. 178, 27 S. W. 412, 25 L. R. A. 178, 46 Am. St. Rep. 439.
Where an action was brought in Massachu setts upon a contract made in New York to convey land situated in Massachusetts, it was held that the measure of damages for the breach of contract was part of the ob ligation of the contract to be determined by New York law, not a mere matter of remedy to be controlled by the lex fort; Atwood v. Walker, 179 Mass. 514, 61 N. E. 58.
Prof. Beale (23 Harv. L. Rev.) considers very fully the laws governing the validity of contracts and reaches substantially the following results (here summarized by per mission): Story states as a general principle that the law of the place of making governs, but there is an exception where the contract is to be elsewhere performed, and hence the law of the place of performance governs. The rule that the intention of the parties shall govern may be directly traced to the dictum of Lord Mansfield in Robinson v. Bland, 2 Burr. 1077, and was derived by him from the doctrines of the Civil Law. The rule that the law of the place of performance gov erns may be traced to the statement of Judge Story in his Conflict of Laws § 280, often repeated verbatim in the cases ; and it was on his part a restatement of his opinion in Van Reimsdyk v. Kane, 1 Gall. 371, 375, Fed. Cas. No. 16,871. The present tendency greatly stimulated by the late English and federal cases, is toward the adoption of the law intended by the parties. Though the greater number of states still profess ad herence to Judge Story's rule, it is being superseded by the other rule. In enumerat ing the states which accept one or the other of the principal rules, it must be pointed out that in several the question appears not to have arisen ; in others, the decisions or dicta are not sufficiently clear to justify including the state in either list.
Cases adopting the law of the place of making : Wolf v. Burke, 18 Colo. 264, 32 Pac. 427, 19 L. R. A. 792; Garrigue v. Kellar,
164 Ind. 676, 74 N. E. 523, 69 L. R. A. 870, 108 Am. St. Rep. 324 ; New York Security & Trust Co. v. Davis, 96 Md. 81, 53 Atl. 669; Polson v. Stewart, 167 Mass. 211, 45 N. E. 737, 36 L. R. A. 771, 57 Am. St. Rep. 452; Gray v. Telegraph Co., 108 Tenn. 39, 64 S. W. 1063, 56 L. R. A. 301, 91 Am. St. Rep. 706; Galloway v. Ins. Co., 45 W. Va. 237, 31 S. E. 969.
Cases adopting the law of the place of per formance : Southern Exp. Co. v. Gibbs, 155 Ala. 303, 46 South. 465, 18 L. R. A. (N..S.) 874, 130 Am. St. Rep. 24; Midland Valley R. Co. v. Mfg. Co., 80 Ark. 399, 97 S. W. 679, 10 Ann. Cas. 372 ; Progresso S. S. Co. v. Ins. Co., 146 Cal. 279, 79 Pac. 967; Odom v. Se curity Co., 91 Ga. 505, 18 S. E. 131; Spinney v. Chapman, 121 Ia. 38, 95 N. W. 230, 100 Am. St. Rep. 305 ; Alexander v. Barker, 64 Kan. 396, 67 Pac. 829 ; Western Union Tel. Co. v. Eubanks, 100 Ky. 591, 38 S. W. 1068, 36 L. R. A. 711, 66 Am. St. Rep. 361; Lynch v. Postlethwaite, 7 Mart. ( 0. S.) 69, 12 Am. Dec. 495 ; Stanton v. Harvey, 44 La. Ann. 511, 10 South. 778; Emerson Co. v. Proctor, 97 Me. 360, 54 Atl. 849 ; Arbuckle v. Reaume, 96 Mich. 243, 55 N. W. 808 ; Limerick Nat. Bank v. Howard, 71 N. H. 13, 51 Atl. 641, 93 Am. St. Rep. 489; Brownell v. Freese, 35 N. J. L. 285, 10 Am. Rep. 239 ; Montana Coal & Coke Co. v. Coal & Coke Co., 69 Ohio St. 351, 69 N. E. 613 ; Bennett v. Loan Ass'n, 177 Pa. 233, 35 Atl. 684, 34 D. R. A. 595, 55 Am. St. Rep. 723; First Nat. Bank v. Doeden, 21 S. D. 400, 113 N. W. 81.
Cases adopting the law intended by the parties : Beggs v. Bartels, 73 Conn. 132, 46 Atl. 874, 84 Am. St. Rep. 152; Burson v. Vogel, 29 App. D. C. 396; Illinois Cent. R. Ca. v. Beebe, 174 Ill. 13, 50 N. E. 1019, 43 L. R. A. 210, 66 Am. St. Rep. 253 ; Security Co. of Hartford, Connecticut v. Eyer, 36 Neb. 507, 54 N. W. 838, 38 Am. St. Rep. 735; Wilson V. Mill Co., 150 N. Y. 314, 44 N. E. 959, 55 Am. St. Rep. 680; Williams v. Mutual Reserve Fund Life Ass'n, 145 N. C. 128, 58 S. E. 802, 13 Ann. Cas. 51; U. S. Savings & Loan Co.
v. Shaba, 8 N. D. 136, 77 N. W. 1006; Gallet ley v. Strickland, 74 S. C. 394, 54 S. E. 576 ; Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Bradley, 98 Tex. 230, 82 S. W. 1031, 68 L. R. A. 509; Union Central Life Ins. Co. v. Pollard, 94 Va. 146, 26 S. E. 421, 36 L. R. A. 271, 64 Am. St. Rep. 715; Benjamin Bank v. Doherty, 42 Wash. 317, 84 Pac. 872, 4 L. R. A. (N. S.) 1191, 114 Am. St. Rep. 123 ; Brown v. Gates, 120 Wis. 349, 97 N. W. 221, 98 N. W. 205, 1 Ann. Cas. 85; and, in usury cases, also the federal -courts and Alabama, Georgia, Kansas, Mis souri, Mississippi, Ohio, and Tennessee.