Recognition of Judgments

Question 1

What is the first step in any conflict of laws analysis?

Answer 1

Does the court deciding the case have proper jurisdiction?

Question 2

Under what circumstances do recognition of judgments issues arise?

Answer 2

Where a judgment has been previously issued by a rendering court and a party is seeking to have that judgment recognized and enforced in a second court (the recognizing court). This can be where a plaintiff is seeking recognition in order to access the recognizing jurisdiction’s enforcement mechanisms or where a defendant is seeking recognition for preclusive purposes.

Question 3

When the rendering jurisdiction is a sister state, what analysis is applied?

Answer 3

(1) Are the Constitutional requirements of full faith and credit satisfied?
(2) Are there any valid defenses?

Question 4

What if the recognition of judgments issues arise between a federal and a state court?

Answer 4

The full faith and credit analysis applies in the same ways as it does between sister states by federal statute.

Question 5

What are the full faith and credit requirements?

Answer 5

(1) There must have been proper jurisdiction in the rendering court over both the parties and the subject matter.
(2) The judgment must have been on the merits.
(3) The judgment must have been final.

This is all determined using the law of the rendering jurisdiction.

Question 6

What is the “bootstrap doctrine”?

Answer 6

To be accorded full faith and credit, the rendering court must have had personal and subject matter jurisdiction in the original action. However, where the question of jurisdiction was already fully and fairly litigated in the rendering court, that determination itself is res judicata and given full faith and credit without inquiry into whether the determination was erroneous.

Question 7

When is a judgment “on the merits”?

Answer 7

To be accorded full faith and credit, the rendering court’s judgment must have been on the merits, meaning it involved the substance of the plaintiff’s claim.

Question 8

What are common examples of decisions not on the merits?

Answer 8

Judgments predicated on procedural grounds like misjoinder, improper venue, lack of personal jurisdiction, statutes of limitations, or plaintiff’s lack of capacity

Question 9

When is a judgment on a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim on the merits?

Answer 9

Such a judgment is on the merits if dismissed with prejudice and not if the plaintiff can amend their pleading to state a clause of action.

Question 10

Are default and consent judgments on the merits?

Answer 10

Yes, they give rise to res judicata effects and are given full faith and credit. Note that they do not give rise to collateral estoppel (issue preclusion) because the issues themselves were not actually litigated.

Question 11

When is a judgment final?

Answer 11

To be accorded full faith and credit, the rendering court’s judgment must have been final. Finality means that no further judicial action by the rendering court is necessary to resolve litigation.

Question 12

Is a case being appealed considered final?

Answer 12

No, not until the appeal is concluded.

Question 13

Is a modifiable divorce decree final for purposes of being accorded full faith and credit?

Answer 13

In the majority of jurisdictions, the decree will only be enforceable in another state based on full faith and credit with regards to past due installments not subject to retroactive modification. It will not be final with regards to future payments or payments which still may be modified. A minority accord full faith and credit.

Question 14

Under what law are the requirements for full faith and credit analyzed?

Answer 14

The law of the state that rendered the judgment.

Question 15

What are the possible valid defenses to full faith and credit?

Answer 15

(1) Penal judgments do not have to be enforced.

(2) The judgment is subject to equitable defenses in the rendering state – usually extrinsic fraud.

Question 16

When is a judgment penal?

Answer 16

If it is imposed as a punishment for an offense to the public (never applicable to a judgment in favor of a private plaintiff on account of their injury).

Question 17

Are foreign judgments for taxes penal?

Answer 17

No, they are entitled to full faith and credit.

Question 18

What is the most common kind of equitable defense to full faith and credit?

Answer 18

Extrinsic fraud

Question 19

What is extrinsic fraud?

Answer 19

Fraud which could not have been corrected during the regular course of proceedings involving collateral circumstances. E.g., bribing a judge; fabrication of evidence; misrepresentation causing the other party not to present case fully or comply with procedural requirements. Intrinsic fraud is not a valid defense.

Question 20

Is public policy a defense to full faith and credit?

Answer 20

No.

Question 21

Is mistake in judgment by the rendering court a defense to full faith and credit?

Answer 21

No. Those should be challenged through appeal in the rendering state.

Question 22

If full faith and credit is applicable, what must be determined?

Answer 22

(1) What are the res judicata effects?

(2) Who may be bound by the former judgment?

Question 23

What are the types of res judicata effect?

Answer 23

(1) Merger – when the final judgment is rendered and plaintiff prevails, the plaintiff’s cause of action is merged into the judgment, foreclosing them from maintaining a new suit on the same cause of action. (The defendant cannot relitigate the merits either.)
(2) Bar – when a final judgment is rendered in favor of the defendant, the plaintiff is barred from suing them again on the same cause of action?
(3) Collateral estoppel (a/k/a issue preclusion) – An issue resolved in the first litigation and raised again in a second suit will be binding on the parties to the second suit where it was (a) actually litigated, (b) essential to the judgment, and (c), if raised non mutually, the estopped party must have been given a full and fair opportunity to be heard on the issue (traditionally could not be done).

Question 24

Who will be bound by a former judgment?

Answer 24

The parties and their privies (those persons whose interests have been represented by a party to the action – e.g., beneficiaries, holders of future interests, successors in interest, class members).

Question 25

What is the consequence of full faith and credit?

Answer 25

A judgment entitled to full faith and credit must be enforced even if erroneous.

Question 26

What law governs the method of enforcing a judgment?

Answer 26

The law of the recognizing state.

Question 27

What is the effect of the Uniform Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Act?

Answer 27

Most states have this. It allows a judgment creditor to file a properly authenticated judgment from the rendering state with the district court clerk of the recognizing state. This gives it the same effect and is subject to the same procedures as if initially rendered in that state.

Question 28

What happens when the judgment of one federal district court is sought to be enforced in a second state’s federal district court?

Answer 28

The enforcement process is expedited. The judgment is registered and enforced as if it had been rendered there.

Question 29

Does full faith and credit extend to administrative adjudications like workers’ compensation awards?

Answer 29

Yes

Question 30

When the rendering court is the court of a foreign country, what is the source of the obligation to recognize the judgment?

Answer 30

Either comity or a treaty. Foreign courts are not entitled to full faith and credit.

Question 31

What is comity?

Answer 31

A principle of voluntary recognition of a foreign judgment in the absence of a treaty specifying mutual recognition and enforcement of judgments. A recognizing court will exercise discretion in determining whether to recognize the judgment on comity principles.

Question 32

What two requirements do recognizing courts look to when applying the discretionary comity principle to foreign judgments?

Answer 32

(1) Did the foreign court have jurisdiction? (May scrutinize more closely than for full faith and credit analysis).
(2) Were the procedures in the foreign court fair?

The recognizing court applies its own standards in making these judgments.

Question 33

When do courts give full faith and credit to divorce decrees of the courts of sister states?

Answer 33

Where (1) the sister state had proper jurisdiction (satisfied if one of the spouses is domiciled in the state granting the divorce), and (2) the decree is valid in the sister state.

Question 34

What is an ex parte divorce?

Answer 34

A divorce based on the domicile of only one spouse. The foreign divorce decree has a rebuttable presumption as to the domicile of the plaintiff. The person attacking the presumption bears the burden of proof.

Question 35

What happens if the recognizing state determines that an ex parte divorce was improperly granted for lack of jurisdiction?

Answer 35

It may treat the spouses as still being married.

Question 36

Is it enough for full faith and credit that the rendering court had personal jurisdiction over both spouses?

Answer 36

No, there must be subject matter jurisdiction (jurisdiction over the marriage). This only exists when at least one spouse is domiciled in the forum).

Question 37

When is a divorce judgment a valid bilateral divorce?

Answer 37

When both parties are before the court and at least one is domiciled in the forum state.

Question 38

When is a party estopped from collaterally attacking the validity of another state’s divorce decree?

Answer 38

(1) they were a party to prior proceedings
(2) If they are a privy of a party who might be estopped (determined based on law of state granting the divorce)
(3) the person attacking is a stranger to the original proceedings who would not have standing to challenge them in the rendering jurisdiction
(4) A person who has accepted a foreign divorce and remarried

Question 39

When are alimony and property rights provisions in divorce decrees entitled to full faith and credit?

Answer 39

They are in a valid bilateral divorce decree. An ex parte divorce decree can only grant divorce and generally cannot affect property rights or rights to support. This can only be one by a court having personal jurisdiction over both parties. (doctrine of divisible divorce)

Question 40

What is the effect of the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act?

Answer 40

Enacted in substantial majority of states. A court has jurisdiction to make a custody determination if it is the child’s home state and all other states must give full faith and credit. The court retains jurisdiction over custody and no other state’s court may modify the order unless the original court has no remaining significant connection with the child or any of the parties in the dispute.

Question 41

Can a party validly divorced in on state remarry in another despite an applicable prohibition on remarriage in the state in which the divorce was obtained?

Answer 41

Yes (majority view)