Chapter 7: Recognition of Judgments Flashcards
FF&CC for Judgments
- At the most basic level, FF&CC means each state must recognize judgments rendered by courts in other state
- A state may not use a public policy exception to refuse to recognize the legal basis for another state’s judgment
- However, how a judgment from State A is enforced in State B is a matter for State B’s law
- FF&CC also prevents relitigation of the facts and law of one’s state’s judgments in another state
Preclusion and FF&CC: Claim Preclusion (Res Judicata)
Bars relitigation of claims between the same parties that have been litigated, or that could have been litigated, in earlier litigation
Preclusion and FF&CC: Collateral Estoppel (issue preclusion)
Bars relitigation of issues of fact or law that have been litigated in an earlier litigation between the same parties. Narrower than claim preclusion.
Preclusion and FF&CC: Exceptions
FF&CC need not be given to a judgment where the first court lacked jurisdiction or where the first judgment was not final or was procured by fraud
Preclusion and FF&CC: Durfee v. Duke
Facts: Petitioners filed suit against respondent to quiet title to land on the boundary of Nebraska and Missouri. Petitioners obtained a state court judgment that the land was in Nebraska. Respondent filed a second quiet title suit in Missouri. The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit held that the Missouri district court was not required to give full faith and credit to the Nebraska judgment. Petitioners sought certiorari review. The court reversed the judgment of the lower court.
Rule: A court in one state, when asked to give effect to the judgment of a court in another state, may constitutionally inquire into the foreign court’s jurisdiction to render that judgment. A judgment is entitled to full faith and credit – even as to questions of jurisdiction – when the second court’s inquiry discloses that those questions have been fully and litigated and finally decided in the court which rendered the original judgment.
Preclusion and FF&CC: Fall v. Eastin
Facts: A Washington state court awarded the wife a judgment of divorce, and the husband was ordered to deed land located in Nebraska to the wife. The husband failed to comply with the order and instead executed a mortgage on the land and eventually deeded the land to the grantee. The wife filed a suit to set the mortgage and the deed aside, but the state supreme court reversed a judgment for the wife.
Rule: The territorial limitation of the jurisdiction of courts of a State over property in another State has a limited exception in the jurisdiction of a court of equity, but it is an exception well defined. A court of equity having authority to act upon the person may indirectly act upon real estate in another State, through the instrumentality of this authority over the person. Whatever it may do through the party it may do to give effect to its decree respecting property, whether it goes to the entire disposition of it or only to effect it with liens or burdens. A court of equity having jurisdiction in personam has power to require a defendant to do or to refrain from doing anything beyond the limits of its territorial jurisdiction which it might have required to be done or omitted within the limits of such territory. A decree cannot operate beyond the State in which the jurisdiction is exercised. It is not in the power of one State to prescribe the mode by which real property shall be conveyed in another. This principle is too clear to admit of doubt.
Preclusion and FF&CC: Takeaways
- Only judgments rendered by courts with proper jurisdiction are entitled to FF&CC
- Whether the first forum had proper jurisdiction is an issue. If that issue was litigated and decided in F1, it is preclusive in F2. There is no exception for land issues
- However, under the traditional situs rule in real property, a court in F1 cannot directly alter title to land in F2; only an F2 court may do so
- A personal judgment rendered by F1 must be recognized in F2. F1 could also compel the party to seek the title transfer in F2 under penalty of contempt of court
Objections Based on Enforcing State’s Public Policy: Fauntleroy v. Lum
Facts: Plaintiff and defendant, Mississippi citizens, entered an illegal contract under Mississippi law. Plaintiff then obtained an arbitration award against defendant in Mississippi pursuant to their contract but sought to enforce the award in Missouri where defendant was temporarily located and served. The Missouri court entered judgment in favor of the plaintiff, who later sought to enforce the judgment in Mississippi. The supreme court of Mississippi ruled that their courts are not required to give full faith and credit to a judgment plaintiff obtained against defendant in Missouri because the action was unenforceable in Mississippi.
Rule: Under U.S. Const. art. IV, § 1, the judgment of a state court has the same credit, validity, and effect in every other court in the United States, which it had in the state where it was pronounced, and whatever pleas would be good to a suit thereon in such state, and no others, can be pleaded in any other court of the United States.
Objections Based on Enforcing State’s Public Policy: Baker v. GM
- There is “no roving ‘public policy exception’ to the FF&CCC due judgments”. For claim and issue preclusion purposes, the FF&CC clause gives a judgment “nationwide force.” The FF&CC requirement is exacting.
- However, orders from F1 commanding action or inaction can be denied enforcement when they purport to accomplish an “official act within the exclusive province of” F2
- The court arguably creates a new exception to FF&CC for judgments: a court in one state cannot “control courts elsewhere” by, in effect deciding evidentiary issues
Objections Based on Enforcing State’s Public Policy: Wamsley v. Nodak Mutual Insurance Co
- The paradigm case for FF&CC is when F1 has rendered judgment, then recognition is sought in later litigation in F2.
- Auto accident in MT, defendant insurance company from ND
- Defendant anticipates being sued in MT under MT law. So, defendant files declaratory action ND. Plaintiffs file suit in MT a few days later
- ND court renders judgment under ND law for defendant. Then, in ongoing litigation in MT, defendant asks MT court to give preclusive effect to the ND judgment
- MT SCt: No – no FF&CC. Doing so would be improper interference with the important interests of MT and needlessly expand a single cause of action into multi-state litigation
The Enforcing State’s Law of Judgments: Domesticating a Judgment
- Under FF&CC, enforcement mechanisms do not travel with a judgment from one state to another
- Therefore, domesticating an F1 judgment in F2 is necessary to gain access to enforcement mechanisms in F2, e.g. liens on the judgment’s debtor’s assets, changing title to property
- Generally, today, domesticating an F1 judgment in F2 is a formality that does not require new litigation
Enforcing State’s Law of Judgments: Union National Bank v. Lamb
- After petitioner obtained a Colorado judgment against respondent, he revived it in that state and had it served on respondent in Missouri. The Missouri state supreme court refused to enforce it, holding that the Constitution’s Full Faith and Credit Clause did not require Missouri to recognize Colorado’s more lenient policy on the issue of revival of judgments. On further appeal, the Supreme Court of the United States reversed, holding first that Fed. R. Civ. P. 6(a) applied to 28 U.S.C.S. §2101(c); thus, the appeal did not fail for lack of timeliness. On the merits, the Court concluded that once the court of a sister state had jurisdiction over the parties and of the subject matter, its judgment was valid and could not be impeached in the state of the forum, even though it could not have been obtained there. Any other result would have defeated the aim of the Full Faith and Credit Clause and 28 U.S.C.S. § 1738, the statute enacted pursuant to it.
- The Court reversed the order of the Missouri state supreme court.
Enforcing State’s Law of Judgments: Watkins v. Conway
Facts: This litigation began when appellant Watkins brought a tort action against Conway in a circuit court of Florida. On October 5, 1955, that court rendered a $ 25,000 judgment for appellant. Five years and one day later, appellant sued upon this judgment in a superior court of Georgia. Appellee raised § 3-701 of the Georgia Code as a bar to the proceeding, which states that all suits upon judgments obtained out of this State shall be brought within five years after such judgments shall have been obtained. The Georgia trial court gave summary judgment for appellee. In so doing, it rejected appellant’s contention that § 3-701, when read against the longer limitation period on domestic judgments set forth in Ga. Code §§ 110-1001, 110-1002 (1935), was inconsistent with the Full Faith and Credit and Equal Protection Clauses of the Federal Constitution. The Georgia Supreme Court affirmed.
Rule: Section 3-701 of the Georgia Code bars suits on foreign judgments only if a plaintiff cannot revive his judgment in the State where it was originally obtained. For the relevant date in applying § 3-701 is not the date of the original judgment, but rather it is the date of the latest revival of the judgment.
Enforcing State’s Law of Judgments: In the Matter of Cleopatra Gift Trust
- CA husband and wife divorce. Husband gets custody of their two children. Wife is ordered to pay child support to husband
- Wife is beneficiary of a spendthrift trust established by her father. A spendthrift trust allows disbursements at the sole discretion of the trustee. The beneficiary cannot compel disbursements. This means trustee can refuse payments of trust funds to the beneficiary’s creditors
- A CA appellate decision allows an exception to spendthrift trusts for child support payments: A court may overcome the trustee’s discretion… when there is an enforceable child support judgment that the trustee refuses to satisfy
- Accordingly, CA family court orders direct payments from wife’s trust to husband
- Wife, invoking her power under the trust to do so, moves the situs of the trust from CA to SD
- New trust company in SD refuses to continue making the direct child support payments, saying they were contrary to the trust’s spendthrift provision and the SD legislature’s intent regarding rights of creditors. Trust company also regarded the direct payments as improvident considering the trust’s rapidly depleting assets
- Wife seeks declaration from SD court, which holds that under SD law, the trust is prohibited from making the direct child support payments
