Vocabulary Flashcards
Rendering Jurisdiction
The place where the judgment was originally entered.
Recognizing Jurisdiction
The place where recognition is being sought.
Requirements for Full Faith and Credit of a Sister State Judgment
The sister state must have had jurisdiction over the parties (personal) and the subject matter.
The judgment was based on the merits.
The judgment entered by the other court must be final.
These three requirements are evaluated using the law of the rendering state.
Judgments That are Not Based on the Merits
Dismissals due to Jurisdiction, Misjoinder, Statute of Limitations.
Also defects due to improper venue and some dismissals for failure to state a claim.
A Summary Judgement IS based on the merits because it treats all factual contentions as true.
Defenses to Full Faith and Credit
A penal judgment is a judgment that punishes an offense against the public, usually this means it was brought by the state against the defendant, and it is not entitled to full faith and credit, unless it is a state tax judgment.
A judgment obtained by extrinsic fraud (aka fraud that could not be corrected in the regular course of proceedings) is not entitled to full faith and credit.
Invalid Defenses
There is no public policy exception to full faith and credit.
If a mistake is made by the rendering state, it should be challenged by that state’s appeals. The judgment is still entitled to full faith and credit.
Recognition of Foreign Judgments
The source of the obligation to recognize the judgment comes from either comity or treaty. A recognizing court will exercise discretion to decide whether a foreign judgment will be recognized using the same tests as sister states, but they will also examine whether the procedures in the foreign court that led to the judgment were fair.
Choice of Law Main Rule
The governing law is the law selected by the forum court according to its choice of law approach.
The only exception is that a federal court sitting in diversity applies the choice of law approach of the state in which it sits and in transferred federal court cases, the federal court applies the law of the transferor court (which is the court where the case was originally pending).
Restrictions the Occasionally Limit the Forum Court’s Choice of Law
Due Process may impose a limit only if a state’s law is chosen and that state has no significant contact with and/or legitimate interest in the litigation.
Similarly, if the forum state has a statute that directs choice of law (such as a borrowing statute) that statute would apply.
