Cole v. Cunningham

• Decision Date: 20 January 1890
• Parties: COLE et al. v. CUNNINGHAM et al. 1
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

133 U.S. 107

10 S.Ct. 269

33 L.Ed. 538

COLE et al. v. CUNNINGHAM et al.¹

January 20, 1890.

[Statement of Case from pages 107-109 intentionally omitted] Henry D. Hyde and M. F. Dickinson, Jr., for plaintiffs in error.

Eugene M. Johnson, for defendants in error.

Mr. Chief Justice FULLER, after stating the facts as above, delivered the opinion of the court:

The question to be determined is whether a decree of the supreme judicial court of Massachusetts, restraining citizens of that common wealth from the prosecution of attachment suits in New York, brought by them for the purpose of evading the laws of their domicile, should be reversed upon the ground that such judicial action in Massachusetts was in violation of article 4, §§ 1, 2, of the constitution of the United States, which reads as follows: '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. Sec. 2. The citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states.' The act of May 26, 1790, (1 St. 122,) now embodied in section 905 of the Revised Statutes, after providing the mode of authenticating the acts, records, and judicial proceedings of the states, declares 'And 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.' This does not prevent as inquiry into the jurisdiction of the court in which a judment is rendered to pronounce the judgment, nor into the right of the state to exercise authority over the parties or the subject-matter, nor whether the judgment is founded in, nd impeachable for, a manifest fraud. The constitution did not mean to confer any new power on the states, but simply to regulate the effect of their acknowledged jurisdiction over persons and things within their territory. It did not make the judgments of the states domestic judgments, to all intents and purposes, but only gave a general validity, faith, and credit to them as evidence. No execution can be issued upon such judgments without a new suit in the tribunals of other states; and they enjoy, not the right of priority or privilege or lien which they have in the state where they are pronounced, but that only which the lex fori gives to them, by its own laws, in their character of foreign judgments. McElmoyle v. Cohen, 13 Pet. 312, 328, 329; D'Arcy v. Ketchum, 11 How. 165; Thompson v. Whitman, 18 Wall. 457; Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U. S. 714; Wisconsin v. Insurance Co., 127 U. S. 265, 292, 8 Sup. Ct. 1370; Christmas v. Russell, 5 Wall. 290; Story, Const. § 1303 et seq.; and Story, confl. Laws, § 609. And other judicial proceedings can rest on no higher ground. These well-settled principles find pertinent illustration in the decisions of the highest tribunal of the state of New York, to one of which we refer, as the contention is that the decree under review was in some way an unconstitutional invasion of the jurisdiction of that state. In Dobson v. Pearce, 12 N. Y. 156, the plaintiff in a judgment, recovered in New York, brought an action upon it in the superior court of Connecticut, whereupon the defendant in the judgment filed a bill against the plaintiff on the equity side of the same court, alleging that the judgment was procured by fraud, and praying relief. The plaintiff in the judgment appeared in and litigated the equity suit, and the court adjudged that the allegations of fraud in obtaining the judgment were true, and enjoined him from prosecuting an action upon it. He assigned the judgment, and it was held in a suit in New York, brought thereon by the assignee, that a duly-authenticated copy of the record of the decree in the Connecticut court was conclusive evidence that the judgment was obtained by fraud. The court of appeals held that, while a judgment rendered by a court of competent jurisdiction could not be impeached collaterally for error or irregularity, yet it could be attacked upon the ground of want of jurisdiction, or of fraud or imposition; that the right of the plaintiff in the judgment was a personal right, and followed his person; that, when the courts of Connecticut obtained jurisdiction of his person by the due service of process within the state, these courts had full power to pronounce upon the rights of the parties in respect to the judgment, and to decree concerning it; that the jurisdiction of a court of equity any where, to restrain suit upon a judgment at law, upon sufficient grounds, was one of the firmly established parts of the authority of courts of equity; and that it could not be held that a court of equity in one state had no jurisdiction to restrain such a suit upon a judgment of a court of law of another state. If the objection to so doing was founded upon an assumed violation of the comity existing between the several states of the United States, that did not reach to the jurisdiction of the court, a rule of comity being a self-imposed restraint upon an authority actually possessed; and, as to the objection that the constitution of the United States, and the laws made in pursuance of it, inhibited the action of the Connecticut courts, this could not prevail, since full faith and credit are given to the judgment of a state court when, in the courts of another state, it receives the same faith and credit to which it was entitled in the state where it was pronounced. Pearce v. Olney, 20 Conn. 544; Engel v. Scheuerman, 40 Ga. 206; Cage v. Cassidy, 23 How. 109.

The intention of section 2, art. 4, was to confer on the citizens of the several states a general citizenship, and to communicate all the privil ges and immunities which the citizens of the same state would be entitled to under the like circumstances; and this includes the right to institute actions. The fact of the citizenship of Butler and Hayden did not affect their privilege to sue in New York, and have the full use and benefit of the courts of that state in the assertion of their legal rights; but, as that fact might affect the right of action as between them and the citizens of their own state, the courts of New York might have held that its existence put an end to the seizure of their debtor's property by Butler and Hayden in New York. If, however, those courts declined to take that view, it would not follow that the courts of Massachusetts violated any privilege orimmunity of Massachusetts' own citizensin exercising their undoubted jurisdiction over them. Discharges under state insolvent laws exemplify the principle. Where the effect of the insolvent law is to relieve the debtor from liability on his contracts, such discharge, if the creditor and debtor have acommon domicile, or the creditor, though non-resident, has voluntarily become a party to the proceedings, avails the defendant in all courts and places. It was decided in Sturges v. Crowninahield, 4 Wheat. 122, that state legislatures have authority to pass a bankrupt or insolvent law, provided there be no act of congress in force, establishing a uniform system of bankruptcy, conflicting with such laws, and provided the law itself be so framed that it does not impair the obligation of contracts. Eight years later, in Ogden v. Saunders, 12 Wheat. 213, the court held that the power of congress to establish uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States did not exclude the right of the states to legislate on the same subject, except when the power had actually been exercised by congress, and the state laws conflicted with those of congress; that a bankrupt or insolvent law of any state which discharged both the person of the debtor and his future acquisitions of property was not a law impairing the obligation of contracts, so far as respected debts contracted subsequent to the passage of the law; that a certificate of discharge under such law could not be pleaded in bar of an action brought by a citizen of another state in the courts of the United States, or of any other state than that where the discharge was obtained. The insolvent law could have no extraterritorial operation, and the tribunal administering it would have no jurisdiction over citizens of other states. But this objection would not lie where such citizens had become parties to the proceedings. Hence, in Clay v. Smith, 3 Pet. 411, it was held, where a citizen of Kentucky sued a citizen of Louisiana, and the defendant pleaded his discharge by the bankrupt law of Louisiana, that the plaintiff, who had received a dividend on his debt declared by the assignees of the defendant in Louisiana, had voluntarily made himself a party to those proceedings, abandoned his extraterritorial immunity from the bankrupt law of Louisiana, and was bound by that law to the same extent to which the citizens of Louisiana were bound. And it may be considered as settled that state insolvent laws are not only binding upon such persons as were citizens of the state at the time the debt was contracted, but also upon foreign creditors, if they make themselves parties to proceedings under these insolvent laws by accepting dividends, becoming petitioning creditors, or in some other way appearing and assenting to the jurisdiction. Baldwin v. Hale, 1 Wall. 223; Gilman v. Lockwood, 4 Wall. 409.

In New York, an attachment is obtained on application to a judge of the supreme court, or a county judge, affidavit being made as to the validity of the claim and the grounds of the attachment, and a bond furnished, with sufficient sureties. The judge, in his discretion, makes an order that a warrant of attachment be granted. The warrant is directed to the sheriff, and is subscribed...