Recognition of foreign judgments Flashcards
Claim preclusion
For claim preclusion to apply, a prior judgment must be:
(1) Valid, although not necessarily “correct”;
(2) Final; and
(3) On the merits.
Full Faith and Credit: public policy defense
There is no public policy defense to enforcing sister state judgments, even if the prior judgment was a product of the misapplication of home state law by the sister state.
Full Faith and Credit: judgment requirements
To be entitled to Full Faith and Credit, a judgment must be:
(1) Valid: The judgment was rendered by a court with proper jurisdiction, unless the issue of jurisdiction was not litigated in the original action;
(2) Final: There are no outstanding appeals, and the judgment is not modifiable under the law of the rendering state;
(3) On the merits: A court reached and decided substantive issues.
Full Faith and Credit judgment requirements
To be entitled to Full Faith and Credit, a judgment must be:
(1) Valid: The judgment was rendered by a court with proper jurisdiction, unless the issue of jurisdiction was not litigated in the original action;
(2) Final: There are no outstanding appeals, and the judgment is not modifiable under the law of the rendering state;
(3) On the merits: A court reached and decided substantive issues.
Full Faith and Credit: extrinsic fraud
For example, extrinsic fraud can include bribing the judge.
Judgments that are the result of extrinsic fraud are not entitled to Full Faith and Credit.
Special judgments: workers’ compensation
If an employee wins an award in one state, she can still obtain a supplemental award in a second state—unless the first state bars additional recovery using unmistakable language.
Special judgments: bilateral divorce decrees
If the court granting the divorce has personal jurisdiction over both spouses, the divorce judgment is “bilateral.”
A bilateral divorce decree is entitled to complete Full Faith and Credit treatment.
Special judgments: ex parte divorces
If the court has personal jurisdiction only over one party and not the other, the divorce judgment is “ex parte.”
Although an ex parte divorce is entitled to full faith and credit, under the “divisible divorce doctrine,” the enforcing state need not give full faith and credit to:
(1) The divorcing state’s determination of domicile, which is a jurisdiction fact that can be relitigated;
(2) Orders other than the dissolution of marital status, e.g., those affecting property, alimony, child custody, and child support.
Special judgments: child custody
Under the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act (“UCCJEA”), one state gets exclusive jurisdiction to make the initial custody decision.
The state is usually the child’s “home state” or state of domicile. All other states must give full faith and credit to that state’s decision.
A custody determination can only modified by a new state if:
(1) The original state no longer has a significant connection to the child or parents; and
(2) The new court meets the test for exclusive jurisdiction.
Foreign country judgments
Foreign country judgments are not subject to full faith and credit. Instead, they are usually enforced as a matter of comity.
Foreign country judgments: repugnancy
U.S. courts have sometimes refused to enforce foreign country judgments where the underlying law was repugnant to the forum’s public policy.
Foreign country judgments: Uniform Foreign Money Judgment Recognition Act
The Act has been adopted in most states. Under the Act:
(1) Foreign money judgments are enforceable in the same manner as sister state judgments;
(2) Foreign nonmoney judgments are not covered by the statute but are usually enforced under comity.
Full Faith and Credit judgment requirements: collateral attack
If the question of subject matter jurisdiction was fully and fairly litigated, the judgment is not subject to collateral attack.
Thus, even if the challenger raised a jurisdictional challenge in the initial proceeding, she must take an appeal on the issue of jurisdiction rather than wait to collaterally challenge the trial court’s determination of jurisdiction.
