Recognition of Judgments

Question 1

When will the court recognise an earlier judgement in a sister state?

Answer 1

What are the sister state;

1. Satisfies the requirements are for full faith and credits
2. There are no valid defences

Question 2

Which jurisdiction’s law do use to evaluate the adequacy of the system states prior judgement?

Answer 2

Law of the rendering jurisdiction (sister state)

Question 3

There are 3 requirements for determining whether the sister states satisfies full full faith and credit. What is the first requirement?

Answer 3

Requirement 1 = rendering state (sister state) must have had both PERSONAL JURISDICTION and SUBJECT MATTER JURISDICTION over the parties

Question 4

There are 3 requirements for determining whether the sister states satisfies full full faith and credit. What is the second requirement?

Answer 4

Requirement 2 = The judgement entered by the rendering state must have been on its merits.

Question 5

For the purposes of determining whether a judgement was on its merits, what does not count? There are 5 examples.

Answer 5

1. Dismissing the case because of the time bar
2. Jurisdictional dismissal
3. Dismissal based on improper joinder
4. Dismissal based on improper venue
5. Failure to state a claim

Question 6

Which type of judgements will count as being based on the merits?

Answer 6

Default judgements and consent judgements

Question 7

There are 3 requirements for determining whether the sister states satisfies full full faith and credit. What is the second requirement?

Answer 7

Requirement 3 = The rendering judgement must be final.

– appeals are not final, and

– a modifiable Decree for divorce payments is not final as to future payments but it is for past payments

Question 8

Once you have determined that the sister State’s judgement meets the requirements of full faith and credit, you need to determine whether there are any valid defences. What are the two valid defences?

Answer 8

1. Penal judgements are not entitled to recognition, except for tax related cases.
2. Judgments obtained through Extrinsic fraud

Question 9

Regarding valid defences, a penal judgement will usually involve who has the defendant?

Answer 9

The State

Question 10

Regarding valid defences, what is extrinsic fraud?

Answer 10

Fraud that could not have been corrected during the course of regular proceedings

Question 11

What are the Invalid Defences when it comes to recognising a sister state’s judgment?

Answer 11

1. Public Policy — even if the judgment is against Public Policy in the reviewing state, they’ll still enforce the judgments of the rendering state.
2. Mistake — even if there was an error made by the court in the rendering state, it’s undesirable to allow review/non-application in another jurisdiction

Question 12

If the rendering judgment was from court in a foreign country, what is the basis of a U.S. court enforcing the judgment?

Answer 12

Comity OR Treaty

Question 13

Because foreign country judgments are given full faith and credit under the principle of comity, that means that the court MUST apply them or has DISCRETION to apply the rendering judgment?

Answer 13

The recognising court has discretion

Question 14

There are two steps for the recognising court to determine whether the foreign court judgment should be applied. What are they?

Answer 14

(1) Did the foreign court have jurisdiction over the parties
(2) Were the procedures in the foreign court fair? (Apply the standards of the enforcing state)