In Milton H. Greene Archives, Inc. v. Marilyn Monroe LLC, which involved consolidated cases arising in California and Indiana, the Ninth Circuit simply ignored the Indiana statute's choice of law provision, relying instead on Indiana's general choice of law rules: "Indiana['s] choice-of-law rules dictate that in resolving these state law claims we must apply the law of Monroe's domicile, New York, as controlling on all substantive matters related to the estate and disposition of property."  Similarly, in another Marilyn Monroe case arising under Indiana's long-arm statute, the Southern District of New York found it appropriate to adopt Indiana's choice of law rules, rather than New York's, but did not apply the statutory choice of law provision, finding it "untenable" that a law enacted after Monroe's death could retroactively grant her a postmortem right.  Instead, the court applied Indiana's general choice of law rule for construing a decedent's will, which required applying the law of the decedent's domicile.   Even when Indiana is the forum state, federal courts have reached conflicting conclusions when asked to apply the statute to nondomiciliary decedents.
In 2010, the Southern District of Indiana applied the statutory choice of law rule to allow a claim to proceed where the decedent (1) was domiciled in Illinois, and (2) died before the statute was enacted. The judge found that there was "no question that the [s]tatute applies retroactively .. . .."In contrast, the same court refused to apply the postmortem provisions retroactively in a 2011 case involving John Dillinger.'  The conflicting decisions led the Indiana legislature to amend the statute in 2012 to make it explicitly retroactive.