Pennsylvania Choice-Of-Law Principles

The Pennsylvania Superior Court in Gillan v. Gillan, 236 Pa. Super. 147, 345 A.2d 742, 744 (Pa. Super. 1975), set forth the relevant sections of the Restatement beginning with Section 6, as follows: Choice-of-Law Principles (1) a court, subject to constitutional restrictions, will follow a statutory directive of its own state on choice of law. (2) When there is no such directive, the factors relevant to the choice of the applicable rule of law include (a) the needs of the interstate and international systems, (b) the relevant policies of the forum, (c) the relevant policies of other interested states and the relative interests of those states in the determination of the particular issue, (d) the protection of justified expectations, (e) the basic policies underlying the particular field of law, (f) certainty, predictability and uniformity of result, and (g) ease in the determination and application of the law to be applied. More particularly with respect to contracts, Section 188(1) provides: The rights and duties of the parties with respect to an issue in contract are determined by the local law of the state which, with respect to that issue, has the most significant relationship to the transaction and the parties under the principles in Section 6. Id. at 744. Section 188(2) sets forth the contacts that are generally considered significant to resolving a choice of law concerning a contract, as follows: (2) In the absence of an effective choice of law by the parties (see 187), the contacts to be taken into account in applying the principles of 6 to determine the law applicable to an issue include: (a) the place of contracting, (b) the place of negotiation of the contract, (c) the place of performance, (d) the location of the subject matter of the contract, and (e) the domicil, residence, nationality, place of incorporation and place of business of the parties.Id. at 744 n.1.