Corcoran Gallery Art v. Petty
| Docket Number | 21-CV-0695 |
| Decision Date | 23 March 2023 |
| Citation | 291 A.3d 217 |
| Parties | The CORCORAN GALLERY OF ART and the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Appellants, v. Susanne Jill PETTY, Appellee. |
| Court | D.C. Court of Appeals |
Charles A. Patrizia, Washington, DC, with whom Stephen B. Kinnaird, Washington, DC, and David S. Julyan were on the brief, for appellants.
Hannah Wigger, Washington, DC, with whom Jim Burgess, Paul Werner, and Calla Simeone, Washington, DC, were on the brief, for appellee.
Before Deahl and AliKhan, Associate Judges, and Glickman, Senior Judge.*
The Constitution's Full Faith and Credit Clause generally obliges the District of Columbia courts to give conclusive effect to judgments issued by other states' courts. U.S. Const. art IV, § 1. That is not an inexorable command, however, and we "may inquire into the jurisdictional basis of the foreign court's decree."
Underwriters Nat'l Assurance Co. v. N.C. Life & Accident & Health Ins. Guar. Ass'n , 455 U.S. 691, 705, 102 S.Ct. 1357, 71 L.Ed.2d 558 (1982). Except, that is, where the jurisdictional issues were themselves "fully and fairly litigated and finally determined" in the foreign court, in which case we owe those jurisdictional determinations full faith and credit as well. Id. at 714, 102 S.Ct. 1357.
This case presents an interesting twist on those well-established principles. A California trial court issued a judgment with some reason to doubt, and without any apparent consideration of, its jurisdiction to do so. The District's courts have now been asked to enforce that judgment. If that judgment were standing alone, our courts would be free to scrutinize whether the California trial court had jurisdiction to issue its judgment, as appellant, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, now asks us to do. But the twist is that the Corcoran appealed the California trial court's judgment to the California Court of Appeal, where it litigated its jurisdictional challenges, and the California Court of Appeal squarely rejected them. The issue before us is thus whether that appellate court decision precludes us from scrutinizing the trial court's exercise of jurisdiction in the first instance. Put another way, we must decide whether the full faith and credit analysis encompasses the appellate court's affirmance of the trial court's judgment. The D.C. Superior Court answered in the affirmative, in the order now on appeal, and concluded that the California Court of Appeal had conclusively rejected the Corcoran's jurisdictional challenges. The Corcoran disagrees, and urges us to reject the Superior Court's reasoning and to consider its jurisdictional challenges anew.
We agree with the D.C. Superior Court and conclude that we owe full faith and credit to the California Court of Appeal's decision rejecting the Corcoran's jurisdictional challenges. Where another state's appellate court has already considered a jurisdictional challenge to an underlying judgment, that consideration effectively inheres in the judgment itself, and we will not second-guess it. Because the jurisdictional challenges raised in this appeal were already fully and fairly litigated before the California Court of Appeal, we will not reconsider them now. We affirm the Superior Court's judgment.
The Corcoran was a private art gallery in Washington, D.C., founded in 1869. In 1994, the Corcoran entered into an agreement with the Alice C. Tyler Art Trust, established by a philanthropist of that name. The Trust agreed to gift the Corcoran a collection of artwork by the artist Suzanne Regan Pascal, plus $1 million to maintain the collection, with the gift contingent on the Corcoran exhibiting the collection for at least two months per year and keeping at least one piece of artwork from the collection on display at all times. The Corcoran complied with those conditions until 2014.
In 2014, the Corcoran decided to close its gallery after years of financial struggles. The Corcoran trustees sought a cy pres order from the D.C. Superior Court to have the Corcoran's assets redistributed in a way that would align as much as possible with the intent of its founder. See D.C. Code § 19-1304.13. The Tyler Trust did not participate in the cy pres proceedings. The Superior Court issued a cy pres order, under which the National Gallery of Art could take or help redistribute the Corcoran's art collection. The agreement provided that "the Corcoran Deed of Trust and any other applicable instrument [wa]s deemed to be revised to the extent necessary to permit the [Corcoran] Trustees to enter into" their agreement with the National Gallery.
Under the agreement, the National Gallery could choose whether to accession—meaning, take into its collection—each piece of art from the Corcoran collection. If it chose not to accession a piece, the National Gallery would work with the Corcoran trustees to identify museums or institutions within the District—or, as a last resort, outside the District—that could take the works. The agreement also provided that no artwork covered by the order could be removed from the District without permission of the Attorney General of the District of Columbia. The National Gallery decided not to accession the Pascal collection. While the Corcoran and National Gallery were deciding how to distribute it, the Pascal collection was kept in storage.
In 2018, Susanne Jill Petty, as trustee of the Alice C. Tyler trust, sued the Corcoran in the probate division of the California Superior Court for failing to abide by the terms of its agreement with the trust. She filed a petition seeking the return of the Pascal collection and the $1 million cash gift. The court held an initial hearing at which an attorney for the Corcoran appeared and Petty asked for an extension of time to properly serve her petition on the Corcoran. The Corcoran did not object to the extension, and it indicated that it wanted the additional time to file its objections in any event. A few weeks later, and five days before the next hearing was scheduled to take place, the probate court added a note to the case's "probate notes"—notes about the case that the parties can view on the court's website—pointing out deficiencies in Petty's service of the petition. See L.A. Cnty. Super. Ct. R. 4.4. The probate court's local rules state that any outstanding matters in the probate notes must be cleared two court days before a hearing. L.A. Cnty. Super. Ct. R. 4.4(b). The local rules also give the probate court discretion as to whether to waive its rules in any given case. L.A. Cnty. Super. Ct. R. 4.2.
Petty responded to the note just one court day before the hearing, stating that, even if she had not timely served process on the Corcoran, it had actual notice of the hearing because its attorney had been present when the hearing was scheduled. At the hearing three days later (there was an intervening weekend), no representative for the Corcoran appeared. The probate court indicated that it would enter a default judgment against the Corcoran, stating: The probate court ordered the Corcoran to return the Pascal collection and the $1 million cash gift to the Tyler trust. Petty was later awarded costs of $1,365.94 and attorneys' fees of $58,353.62.
The Corcoran filed a motion for reconsideration, claiming both that the probate court lacked jurisdiction to issue the order and that its order conflicted with the D.C. Superior Court's cy pres order. The Corcoran argued that it had "never submitted to ourt's jurisdiction" and had not been timely served with process. It also argued that Petty had not timely responded to the probate notes. On the merits, the Corcoran argued that it could not comply with the probate court's order to move the collection to California without violating the cy pres order, because, under the Corcoran's agreement with the National Gallery, the collection could not be removed from the District of Columbia without the permission of the Attorney General.
Several days later, with no indication that it saw the motion for reconsideration, the probate court entered judgment, ordering the Corcoran to return the artwork and cash gift. After the probate court entered judgment, Petty filed an opposition to the Corcoran's motion for reconsideration. She argued that, now that the probate court had entered judgment, it was no longer able to reconsider its order. The Corcoran filed a reply, insisting that the probate court had erred in entering judgment without considering its motion. The probate court never ruled on the Corcoran's motion.
The Corcoran appealed to the California Court of Appeal, which affirmed the probate court's judgment in a comprehensive unpublished opinion. See Petty v. Corcoran Gallery of Art , No. B293796, 2020 WL 4877542, at *1 (Cal. Ct. App. Aug. 20, 2020). The Court of Appeal held that the Corcoran's motion for reconsideration was improper because the Corcoran had raised no new facts, circumstances, or law that could provide a basis for the probate court to reconsider its decision. Id. at *8-9. Even if the motion were considered, the court held, it lacked merit. First, the court rejected the Corcoran's argument that the probate court lacked jurisdiction over it. Id. at *9. Under California law, a party who makes a "general appearance" in court has "relinquished all objections based on lack of personal jurisdiction or defective process or service of process." Id. at *11 (quoting In re Marriage of Obrecht , 245 Cal.App.4th 1, 199 Cal. Rptr. 3d 438, 443 (2016) ). A party makes a general appearance when it "takes part in the action or in some manner recognizes the authority of the court to proceed." Obrecht , 199 Cal. Rptr. 3d at 443 (...
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