A state has power to regulate the remedies by which contracts
and judgments are sought to be enforced in its courts of justice
unless its regulations are controlled by the Constitution of the
United States or by laws enacted under its authority.
Therefore, where a state passed a law declaring that all
judgments which had been obtained in any other state prior to the
passage of the law should be barred unless suit was brought upon
the judgment within two years after the passage of the act, this
law was within the power of the state, and not inconsistent with
the Constitution of the United States or any act of Congress.
And this was true although the person against whom the judgment
was given became a citizen of the said state upon the very day on
which he was sued. The legislature made no exception, and courts
can make none.
The facts were these.
On 7 February, 1843, the President and Directors of the Bank of
the State of Alabama recovered a judgment against Robert H. Dalton
for $1,844, with interest and costs, in the County Court of
Tuscaloosa County and State of Alabama.
On 24 February, 1844, the State of Mississippi passed an act
(Hutchinson's Mississippi Code, 830
et seq.), which
provided, among other things, that judgments rendered before the
passage of the act in any other state of the Union should be barred
unless suit was brought thereon within two years from the passage
of the act.
On 10 November, 1846, the President and Directors of the Bank of
the State of Alabama brought a suit against Dalton in the District
Court of the United States for the Northern District of
Mississippi, held at the Town of Pontotoc. It was an action of debt
brought upon the judgment recovered in the County Court of
Tuscaloosa County, in Alabama. The writ was served upon Dalton on
the same day that it was issued. The defendant pleaded the statute
of limitations of Mississippi in the following manner:
"And the said defendant, by his attorneys, comes and defends the
wrong and injury, when &c., and for plea says that the said
plaintiff his action aforesaid ought not to have or maintain
against him, because he says that the said judgment upon which this
suit is founded was obtained in a court out of the limits of the
State of Mississippi, to-wit, the County Court of the County of
Tuscaloosa, in the State of Alabama, and was rendered up against
said defendant on 7
Page 50 U. S. 523
February, 1843, and was then and there, on that day, in full
force and effect in said court."
"And defendant further says that by an Act of the Legislature of
the State of Mississippi entitled 'An act to amend the several acts
of limitations,' approved on 24 February, 1844, it is enacted and
declared, upon judgments obtained in any court out of the limits of
this state, actions shall be commenced within two years after the
passage of the said act, and not afterwards, and that this action
was not commenced by this plaintiff until the two years had expired
within which the said plaintiff was required to bring his suit as
aforesaid, and this he is ready to verify; wherefore he prays
judgment if the said plaintiff ought to have or maintain his
aforesaid action against him,"
&c.
To this plea the plaintiff filed the following replication:
"And the said plaintiff, for replication to the pleas of the
said defendant by him first above pleaded, says
precludi
non, because he says that the said defendant, at and from the
time of the rendition of the judgment in said plea and declaration
mentioned, and from thence until and within two years next before
the commencement of this suit, to-wit, on 10 November, A.D. 1846,
to-wit, at the district aforesaid, was and continued to be a
citizen of the State of Alabama, where the said plaintiff resided,
without the jurisdiction of this Court, and this they pray may be
inquired of by the country,"
&c.
The defendant demurred to this replication, and, upon argument,
the court sustained the demurrer.
To review this judgment, the bank brought the case up to this
Court.
Page 50 U. S. 526
MR. JUSTICE CATRON delivered the opinion of the Court.
An action was brought by the plaintiff to recover of the
defendant,
Page 50 U. S. 527
then a citizen of Mississippi, the sum of $1,844 debt, and $110
damages, the amount of a recovery had in the Circuit Court of
Tuscaloosa County and State of Alabama on 7 February, 1843, by the
plaintiff against the defendant. This suit was instituted in the
District Court of the United States for the Northern District of
Mississippi at Pontotoc. The writ was issued on 10 November, 1846.
The defendant, at the December term, 1846, pleaded the statute of
limitations of 1844, which bars (1) all suits on judgments
recovered within the state after the lapse of seven years, and (2)
all suits on judgments obtained out of the state in six years, in
cases of judgments thereafter rendered, and (3) all suits on
judgments obtained out of the state before the act was passed are
barred, unless suit be brought thereon within two years next after
the date of the act. On this latter provision the defense
depends.
To this plea of the statute of limitations the plaintiff replied
that at the time of the rendition of the judgment in Alabama, the
defendant was a citizen of the State of Alabama, and continued so
to be up to 10 November, 1846, the day on which this suit was
brought. To this replication there was a demurrer by the defendant,
which the court sustained upon the ground that the statute barred
the action.
It would seem that the defendant removed his domicile from
Alabama to Mississippi, and was followed by the judgment, and
immediately sued on reaching there, as he does not call in question
the allegation contained in the declaration that he was, when sued,
a citizen of Mississippi.
The stringency of the case is that the act of limitations of
Mississippi invites to the state and protects absconding debtors
from other states, by refusing the creditor a remedy on his
judgment, which is in full force in the state whence the debtor
absconded. And it is insisted on behalf of the plaintiff that here
is a case where the laws of Mississippi did not operate on either
party plaintiff or defendant, nor on the foreign judgment, until
the day on which suit was brought, and that therefore no bar could
be interposed founded on the lapse of time, as none had
intervened.
That acts of limitation furnish rules of decision, and are
equally binding on the federal courts as they are on state courts,
is not open to controversy; the question presented is one of
legislative power, and not practice.
In administering justice to enforce contracts and judgments, the
states of this Union act independently of each other, and their
courts are governed by the laws and municipal regulations
Page 50 U. S. 528
of that state where a remedy is sought unless they are
controlled by the Constitution of the United States or by laws
enacted under its authority. And one question standing in advance
of others is whether the courts of Mississippi stood thus
controlled, and were bound to reject the defense set up under the
state law, because, by the supreme laws of the Union, it could not
be allowed.
The Constitution declares that
"Full faith and credit shall be given in each state to the
public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every 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."
No other part of the Constitution bears on the subject.
The act of 26 May, 1790, provides the mode of authentication,
and then declares that
"The said records and judicial proceedings, authenticated as
aforesaid, shall have such faith and credit given to them in every
court within the United States, as they have by law or usage in the
courts of the state from whence the said records are or shall be
taken."
The legislation of Congress amounts to this -- that the judgment
of another state shall be record evidence of the demand, and that
the defendant, when sued on the judgment, cannot go behind it and
controvert the contract or other cause of action on which the
judgment is founded; that it is evidence of an established demand
which, standing alone, is conclusive between the parties to it.
This is the whole extent to which Congress has gone. As to what
further "effect" Congress may give to judgments rendered in one
state and sued on in another does not belong to this inquiry; we
have to deal with the law as we find it, and not with the extent of
power Congress may have to legislate further in this respect. That
the legislation of Congress, so far as it has gone, does not
prevent a state from passing acts of limitation to bar suits on
judgments rendered in another state is the settled doctrine of this
Court. It was established, on mature consideration, in the case of
McElmoyle v.
Cohen, 13 Pet. 312, and to the reasons given in
support of this conclusion we refer.
But the argument here is that the law of Mississippi carries
with it an exception, for the palpable reason that neither party
nor the cause of action was within the operation of the act for a
single day before suit was brought.
1. The act itself makes no exception in favor of a party suing
under the circumstances of these plaintiffs. So the Supreme Court
of Mississippi held in the case of
McClintock v. Rogers,
12 Smedes & Marsh. 702, and this is manifestly true on the face
of the act.
Page 50 U. S. 529
2. The legislature having made no exception, the courts of
justice can make none, as this would be legislating. In the
language of this Court in the case of
McIver
v. Ragan, 2 Wheat. 29,
"Wherever the situation of the party was such as, in the opinion
of the legislature, to furnish a motive for excepting him from the
operation of the law, the legislature has made the exception, and
it would be going far for this Court to add to those
exceptions."
The rule is established beyond controversy. It was so held by
the supreme court of New York in
Troup v. Smith, 20 Johns.
33. and again in
Callis v. Waddy, 2 Munf. 511, by the
Court of Appeals of Virginia, and also in
Hamilton v.
Smith, 3 Murph. 115, by the Supreme Court of North Carolina,
and in
Cocke and Jack v. McGinnis, Mart. & Yerg. 361,
in the Supreme Court of Tennessee. Nor are we aware that at this
time the reverse is held in any State of this Union. It is the
doctrine maintained in
Stowell v. Zouch, found in
Plowden's Reports and not departed from by the English courts, even
in cases of civil war, when the courts of justice were closed and
no suit could be brought.
In the first place, as the act of limitations of Mississippi has
no exception that the plaintiff can set up, and as none can be
implied by the courts of justice, and secondly, as the state law is
not opposed to the Constitution of the United States or to the act
of Congress of 1790, it is our duty to affirm the judgment.
The case of
Dulles, Wilcox, and Welsh against Richard S.
Jones, No. 108, being in all its features like the one next
above, the judgment therein is also affirmed for the reasons stated
in the foregoing opinion.
Order
This cause came on to be heard on the transcript of the record
from the District Court of the United States for the Northern
District of Mississippi and was argued by counsel. On consideration
whereof it is now here ordered and adjudged by this Court that the
judgment of the said district court in this cause be and the same
is hereby affirmed with costs.
