1. Lecture 22 Apr. 2, 2018

2. can the state creating a cause of action prohibit sister-state courts from entertaining it?

3. Tennessee Coal, Iron & RR Co v George (US 1914)

4. Crider v Zurich Ins Co (US 1965)
Alabaman injured in Ala while working for Ga corporation
Ala Ct awarded remedy under Ga workers comp statute even though Ga statute said action had to be brought before Ga Comp board
The rule of Tennessee Coal “has been eroded by the line of cases beginning with Alaska Packers and Pacific Insurance.”

5. Privileges & Immunities Clause

6. Unless there is a substantial reason for discrimination
State cannot withhold from non-residents something important (something bearing on the vitality of the nation as a single entity)
not a right to an elk hunting license…
Unless there is a substantial reason for discrimination
and the means chosen (namely state citizenship) bears a substantial relationship to achieving the end

7. CT has guest statute, New York does not
NY guest and host get into accident in CT
Guest sues host in CT court, which – using interest analysis – does not apply guest statute
Is the P&I Clause violated, because CT provides a protection to CT defendants but not NY defendants?

8. - What if NY guest sues CT host in CT state ct for accident in CT - ct resolves true conflict by applying NY law - any P&I violation? - ct resolves true conflict by applying CT guest statute - any P&I violation?

9. What if CT guest sues NY host for accident in CT state ct
CT court, using interest analysis, does not apply guest statute (because no worry about effect of fraud in CT)
Is the P&I Clause violated, because CT provides a protection to CT defendants but not NY defendants?

10. Preclusion Res Judicata

11. state courts’ obligations to respect sister state court judgments?

12. Article IV, Section 1.
Full faith and credit shall be given in each state to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state. And the Congress may by general laws prescribe the manner in which such acts, records, and proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof.

13. federal courts’ obligations to respect state court judgments?

14. 28 U.S. Code § The Acts of the legislature of any State, Territory, or Possession of the United States, or copies thereof, shall be authenticated by affixing the seal of such State, Territory or Possession thereto. … Such Acts, records and judicial proceedings or copies thereof, so authenticated, shall have the same full faith and credit in every court within the United States and its Territories and Possessions as they have by law or usage in the courts of such State, Territory or Possession from which they are taken.

15. state courts’ obligation to respect federal court judgments?

16. Article VI … This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.

17. Fauntleroy v Lum (US 1908)

18. how did the MO court conclude that the contract was enforceable?

19. did the MO court violate the Constitution?

20. was the MO judgment binding in MO court?

21. what did the MS court do? refuse jurisdiction or take jurisdiction of the case, refuse to recognize the MO judgment, and dismiss under MS law for failure to state a claim?

22. 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.

23. 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.

24. Assume the Mississippi statute had been jurisdictional
Would that have made a difference?
Was the suit in MS a suit to enforce a gambling contract?

25. Anglo-Am Provision v Davis NY could refuse jurid
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

26. “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.”

27. could the MS court have refused to enforce the MO judgment on the ground that there was no jurisdiction in the MO court?

28. P(MO) sues D(MS) in MS court concerning a gambling contract entered into in MO with performance in MO gambling contracts are valid under MO law and invalid under MS law is it a violation of FF&C for the MS court to apply MS law?

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

30. Yarborough v Yarborough (US 1933)

31. 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.

32. what if the GA judgment was modifiable in GA?

33. can a child support judgment ever really be final
can a child support judgment ever really be final? isn’t that a violation of due process?

34. 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.

35. is SC treating the Ga judgment any worse than its own judgments?

36. 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.”

37. assume that under GA law the GA judgment is binding only in GA court, not in other court systems – what result? how can we answer the question of whether the GA judgment was intended by GA officials to bind sister state (or federal) courts?

38. “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.”

39. “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.”

40. § 103 Limitations on Full Faith and Credit A judgment rendered in one State of the United States need not be recognized or enforced in a sister State if such recognition or enforcement is not required by the national policy of full faith and credit because it would involve an improper interference with important interests of the sister State.

41. what about giving the sister state judgment greater effect than it has in sister state court?

42. 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?

43. foreclosure of jurisdictional issues

44. Durfee v Duke (US 1963)

45. but assume the land really is in MO that means that the NE court did not have jurisdiction so how can the NE court’s judgment that the property was in NE be binding?

46. isn’t it a violation of due process for a NE court to bind Missourians concerning property in MO?

47. does the jurisdictional issue have to be litigated to be decided?

48. personal jurisdiction

49. subject matter jurisdiction

50. - P sues D in federal court - there is no federal SMJ but no one notices - the time for appeal is over - P then sues D in state court on the federal judgment - can D collaterally attack the judgment for lack of SMJ?

51. 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

52. Judgment in Calif. state ct FF&C ignored, resulting in an incompatible judgment in Nevada state ct Which judgment should an Oregon state ct respect?