No. 5-99-0830 IN THE APPELLATE COURT OF ... - Appellate.net

laws of the State where the policy is sold.” Hartliep Transit Co. v. Central Mut. Ins. Co.,
288 Ill.App. 140, 144 (2d Dist. 1936) (applying Iowa law to claim against Illinois insurer).
Finally, the circuit court’s expansive reading of ICFA flies in the face of interstate
comity. See Schoeberlein v. Purdue Univ., 129 Ill.2d 372, 378 (1989) (noting importance
of “[i]nterstate comity” to “encourage amiable and respectful relations among individual
States”). To read ICFA to apply to the extraterritorial transactions of Illinois companies is
to claim for Illinois a sovereign power that Illinois would deny its fellow states: under the
circuit court’s reading of ICFA, the law of another state will not control what its companies
do here or what Illinois-headquartered companies do there. The Illinois General Assembly
could not have intended such a result when it enacted ICFA to protect the “people of this
State.”
Accordingly, for all of the foregoing reasons, this Court should read ICFA the way
its drafters wrote it: to apply to local transactions, but not to out-of-state transactions.
2. Illinois’ Choice-Of-Law Rules Preclude Applying ICFA
Nationwide.
Even if ICFA could be applied to out-of-state transactions, Illinois’ choice-of-law
rules require that it not be applied when, as here, another state has a greater interest in
regulating those transactions. The Illinois Supreme Court has held that, when the conflicting
laws of two or more states could potentially apply to the same transaction, “the local law of
the State where the injury occurred should determine the rights and liabilities of the parties,
unless [another state] has a more significant relationship with the occurrence and with the
parties.” Ingersoll v. Klein, 46 Ill.2d 42, 45 (1970).
In the context of automobile insurance, the Illinois courts follow the Restatement rule
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