Thurs. Apr. 14

Preclusion Res Judicata

Fauntleroy v Lum (US 1908)

The main argument urged by the defendant to sustain the judgment below is addressed to the jurisdiction of the Mississippi courts. The laws of Mississippi make dealing in futures a misdemeanor, and provide that contracts of that sort, made without intent to deliver the commodity or to pay the price, "shall not be enforced by any court." The defendant contends that this language deprives the Mississippi courts of jurisdiction, and that the case is like Anglo-American Provision Co. v. Davis Provision Co. There, the New York statutes refused to provide a court into which a foreign corporation could come, except upon causes of action arising within the state, etc., and it was held that the State of New York was under no constitutional obligation to give jurisdiction to its supreme court against its will. One question is whether that decision is in point.

The case quoted concerned a statute plainly dealing with the authority and jurisdiction of the New York court. The statute now before us seems to us only to lay down a rule of decision. The Mississippi court in which this action was brought is a court of general jurisdiction, and would have to decide upon the validity of the bar if the suit upon the award or upon the original cause of action had been brought there. The words "shall not be enforced by any court" are simply another, possibly less emphatic, way of saying that an action shall not be brought to enforce such contracts.

Assume the Mississippi statute had been jurisdictional Would that have made a difference?

Anglo-Am Provision v Davis NY could refuse jurid. to out of state corporate Ps for suits on judgments rendered out of state between out of state corp’s where the original cause of action arose out of state

“Of course, a want of jurisdiction over either the person or the subject matter might be shown. But, as the jurisdiction of the Missouri court is not open to dispute, the judgment cannot be impeached in Mississippi even if it went upon a misapprehension of the Mississippi law.”

Does it make sense to have broad allowance for public policy in choice of law and to forbid it for recognition of judgments?

Yarborough v Yarborough (US 1933)

First. It was contended below in the trial court, and there held, that the provision of the decree of the Georgia court directing the payment to R. D. Blowers, trustee, of $1,750 to be “expended by him in his discretion for the benefit of the minor child, including her education, support, maintenance, medical attention and other necessary items of expenditure,” was not intended to relieve the father from all further liability to support Sadie. This contention appears to have been abandoned.

Third. It is contended that the Georgia decree is not binding upon Sadie, because she was not a formal party to the suit, was not served with process, and no guardian ad litem was appointed for her therein. In Georgia, as elsewhere, a property right of a minor can ordinarily be affected by legal proceedings only if these requirements are complied with.

Is SC treating the Ga judgment any worse than its own judgments?

Stone, J., dissenting “For present purposes, we may take it that the Georgia decree, as the statutes and decisions of the state declare, is unalterable, and, as pronounced, is effective to govern the rights of the parties in Georgia. But there is nothing the decree itself or in the history of the proceedings which led to it to suggest that it was rendered with any purpose or intent to regulate or control the relationship of parent and child, or the duties which flow from it, in places outside the State of Georgia where they might later come to reside.”

“It would be going further than this Court has been willing to go in any decision to say that the power of a state to pass judgment upon the sanity of its own citizen could be foreclosed by an earlier judgment of the court of some other state dealing with the same subject matter.”

“Parties who have in one state litigated the proper construction of a will disposing of realty are not, by the judgment there, concluded in another state where the testator's realty is located. Nor will a divorce decree seeking to apportion the rights of the parties to realty be conclusive with respect to land outside the state. The interest of a state in controlling all the legal incidents of real property located within its boundaries is deemed so complete and so vital to the exercise of its sovereign powers of government within its own territory as to exclude any control over them by the statutes or judgments of other states.”

“More than once, this Court has approved the doctrine that a state need give no effect to judgments for conviction of crime or for penalties procured in a sister state.”

Georgia has mutuality requirement for issue preclusion Alabama does not P sues D in Georgia state court D is found negligent P2 sues D in Alabama state court concerning same accident May P2 issue preclude D from relitigating his negligence?

Durfee v Duke (US 1963)

Kalb v Feuerstein (US 1940) State ct took jurisd over a foreclosure proceeding – as a result farmer lost farm State judgment not given FF&C because at the time a bankruptcy action was pending, which deprived state ct of jurisd State court was unaware of bankruptcy action as dictum SCt said that even if state ct found that it had jurisd over an action despite bankruptcy, the judgment could be ignored