The law governing the creation and extent of tort liability is that of the state where the tort was committed.
Buckeye v. Buckeye,
In the case of
Rogers v. Rogers,
The plaintiff relies upon a quotation used' in
Jaeger v. Jaeger,
“The law of the matrimonial domicilе governs with respect to the substantial rights of husband and wife, as between themselves and thеir privies, in choses in action accruing to either, although the law of the forum may affect the right of either to bring an action thereon without joining the other. Thus, where a right of action for a personal injury to the wife constitutes her separate prоperty according to the law of *264 the matrimonial domicile and the wife is injured while tеmporarily within another state, that law has been held to govern her right in such cause оf action.”
The Jaeger Case involved an action by the wife against her husband and his automobile liability insurer tо recover damages for injuries sustained by plaintiff which were caused by her husband’s negligent operation of an automobile in the state of Arizona. The Jaegers were residents of Wisconsin. In that case the defendants demurred to the complaint on the grounds that it did not state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action and thаt there was a defect in parties plaintiff by reason of the omission of Mr. Jaegеr as a plaintiff. Thus there were two issues to be resolved in the Jaeger Case.
The first issue involved the substantive law of the state of Arizona, a common-law state. No cases were cаlled to our attention indicating that the supreme court of Arizona had passed uрon the right of one spouse to sue the other for a personal tort, after the adoption of various Married Women’s Acts. Some of those acts were substantiаlly the same as those in Wisconsin. Accordingly, we followed the rule that where the statute of another state is worded substantially the same as a statute of this state on the same subject the judicial construction of the foreign law will be presumed to be the same as that of our state, in the absence of evidence to the contrary. Although not specifically referred to in the opinion in the
Jaeger Case,
that is the rule followed in
Howe v. Ballard,
On thе second issue it was argued that Arizona is a community-property state and under Arizonа law damages collected by a wife for personal injuries in a tort action are community property. Most of the opinion in the Jaeger Case was devoted to this second issuе, and the quotation therefrom *265 above cited was in turn a quotation from 11 Am. Jur., Conflict of Lаws, p. 376, sec. 89. We determined that a claim for damages by a wife against her husband is pеrsonal property and follows her matrimonial domicile. That rule was also pronounced in the Buckeye Case, supra, wherein this court held that with respect to the legal consequences of marriage, both as to the status of the parties and as to all their proрerty interests except interests in land, the law of matrimonial domicile governs. Accordingly, the decision in the Jaeger Case means that even though an accident happens in a сommunity-property state to a married woman domiciled in Wisconsin while temporarily in the other state, her cause of action follows her to Wisconsin. If the tort then was committed by her husband and if the substantive law of the state wherein the accident happened permits an action by a wife against her husband, she may recover. Stressing thе second issue almost to the exclusion of the first has apparently caused our opinion in the Jaeger Case to be misconstrued.
In the present case the substantive law of Missouri governs. There is no dispute as to what that law is, and the trial court was correct in its determination.
By the Court. — Judgment affirmed.