Did Texas law or New Mexico law apply to knock-for-knock indemnity provisions in a Master Work and Services Agreement? When a contract explicitly calls for Texas law, that is likely to be the outcome, as it was in North American Tubular Services LLC v. BOPCO, LP.
Takeaways
- Decide before something bad happens what law you want to apply to a transaction.
- Think about it. You’ll have to live with the choice.
- Providing a safe work place is a moral imperative; financial risk goes a long way toward assuring the imperative is satisfied.
- (Better left for another post: Does that also apply to leaking methane?)
- The parties’ choice of law was was bolstered because under the contract the indemnity and insurance requirements would be liberally construed in order to effectuate their enforceability.
- It would have helped the choice of law if the contract had also said that the choice was without regard for the chosen state’s conflict of law provisions.
Co-author Brittany Blakey*
