In an action on a sister state judgment, a state court may
inquire whether there was personal jurisdiction in the prior
proceedings, notwithstanding the question was raised by the
judgment defendant and affirmatively decided against him after full
hearing both in the trial court which rendered the judgment and in
the appellate courts of the same state to which he took the case
for review.
The claim that a money judgment by a state court violates due
process for want of jurisdiction over the defendant's person is not
sustainable if the jurisdiction was questioned by him by plea in
abatement and by proceedings in the state courts of review, and
sustained after fair hearings before the judgment became finally
effective.
A judgment rendered in such circumstances, being sued upon in
the courts of another state, was sustained upon the ground that the
matter of personal jurisdiction could not be reopened.
Held that no violation of due process was involved, since
the original judgment satisfied due process, and the reason
assigned for upholding it, if erroneous, amounted only to a mistake
concerning the law of the state in which the judgment was
rendered.
A decision of a state court upholding a judgment of another
state raises no question in this Court under the Full Faith and
Credit Clause.
What documentary matter should be filed with the declaration in
an action in a state court upon a sister state judgment is a local
question not reviewable by this Court.
190 Ill.App. 70 affirmed.
The case is stated in the opinion.
Page 244 U. S. 28
MR. JUSTICE HOLMES delivered the opinion of the Court:
This is a suit in Illinois upon a judgment recovered in
Tennessee against the Insurance Companies, plaintiffs in error.
They pleaded and set up at the trial that there never was a valid
service upon them in Tennessee, and
Page 244 U. S. 29
that the judgment was void. The defendant in error (the
plaintiff) showed in reply, without dispute, that the defense was
urged in Tennessee by pleas in abatement; that, upon demurrer to
one plea and upon issue joined on the other, the decision was for
the plaintiff, and that the judgment was affirmed by the higher
courts. The plaintiff had judgment at the trial in Illinois, the
judgment was affirmed by the appellate court, and a writ of
certiorari was denied by the supreme court of that state. The
Insurance Companies say that the present judgment deprives them of
their property without due process of law. Other sections of the
Constitution are referred to in the assignments of error, but they
have no bearing upon the case.
The ground upon which the present judgment was sustained by the
appellate court was that, as the issue of jurisdiction over the
parties was raised and adjudicated after full hearing in the former
case, it could not be reopened in this suit. The matter was thought
to stand differently from a tacit assumption or mere declaration in
the record that the court had jurisdiction.
A court that renders judgment against a defendant thereby
tacitly asserts, if it does not do so expressly, that it has
jurisdiction over that defendant. But it must be taken to be
established that a court cannot conclude all persons interested by
its mere assertion of its own power,
Thompson
v. Whitman, 18 Wall. 457, even where its power
depends upon a fact and it finds the fact (
Tilt v. Kelsey,
207 U. S. 43,
207 U. S. 51). A
divorce might be held void for want of jurisdiction although the
libellee had appeared in the cause.
Andrews v. Andrews,
188 U. S. 14,
188 U. S. 16-17,
188 U. S. 38.
There is no doubt of the general proposition that, in a suit upon a
judgment, the jurisdiction of the court rendering it over the
person of the defendant may be inquired into.
National Exchange
Bank v. Wiley, 195 U. S. 257;
Haddock v. Haddock, 201 U. S. 562,
201 U. S. 573.
But when the power of the court in all other respects is
established, what acts of the
Page 244 U. S. 30
defendant shall be deemed a submission to its power is a matter
upon which states may differ. If a statute should provide that
filing a plea in abatement, or taking the question to a higher
court, should have that effect, it could not be said to deny due
process of law. The defendant would be free to rely upon his
defense by letting judgment go by default.
York v. Texas,
137 U. S. 15;
Western Life Indemnity Co. v. Rupp, 235 U.
S. 261,
235 U. S. 272.
If, without a statute, a court should decide as we have supposed
the statute to enact, it would infringe no rights under the
Constitution of the United States. That a party that has taken the
question of jurisdiction to a higher court is bound by its decision
was held in
Forsyth v. Hammond, 166 U.
S. 506,
166 U. S. 517.
It can be no otherwise when a court so decides as to proceedings in
another state. It may be mistaken upon what to it is matter of
fact, the law of the other state. But a mere mistake of that kind
is not a denial of due process of law.
Pennsylvania Fire
Insurance Co. v. Gold Issue Mining & Milling Co.,
243 U. S. 93,
243 U. S. 96.
Whenever a wrong judgment is entered against a defendant, his
property is taken when it should not have been; but whatever the
ground may be, if the mistake is not so gross as to be impossible
in a rational administration of justice, it is no more than the
imperfection of man, not a denial of constitutional rights. The
decision of the Illinois courts, right or wrong, was not such a
denial. If the Tennessee judgment had been declared void in
Illinois, this court might have been called upon to decide whether
it had been given due faith and credit.
National Exch. Bank v.
Wiley, 195 U. S. 257. But
a decision upholding it upon the ground taken in the present case
does not require us to review the Tennessee decision or to go
further than we have gone. An objection that a copy of the document
sued upon should have been filed with the declaration is a matter
of state procedure, and not open here.
Judgment affirmed.
