Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

“ But when an action is brought upon a cause arising outside of the jurisdiction, it always should be borne in mind that the duty of the court is not to administer its notion of justice, but to enforce an obligation that has been created by a different law. ”

“ Whatever presumption there is is purely one of fact, that may be corrected by proof. Therefore the presumption should be limited to cases in which it reasonably may be believed to express the fact. Generally speaking, as between two common-law countries, the common law of one reasonably may be presumed to be what it is decided to be in the other, in a case tried in the latter state. But a statute of one would not be presumed to correspond to a statute in the other, and when we leave common-law territory for that where a different system prevails, obviously the limits must be narrower still. ”

“ The law of the forum is material only as setting a limit of policy beyond which such obligations will not be enforced there. With very rare exceptions the liabilities of parties to each other are fixed by the law of the territorial jurisdiction within which the wrong is done and the parties are at the time of doing it. ”