Kenney v. Supreme Lodge of the World, Loyal Order of Moose, s. 269 and 303

• Citation: 64 L.Ed. 638,10 A.L.R. 716,40 S.Ct. 371,252 U.S. 411
• Decision Date: 19 April 1920
• Docket Number: Nos. 269 and 303,s. 269 and 303
• Parties: KENNEY v. SUPREME LODGE OF THE WORLD, LOYAL ORDER OF MOOSE
• Court: United States Supreme Court

252 U.S. 411

40 S.Ct. 371

64 L.Ed. 638

KENNEY

v SUPREME LODGE OF THE WORLD, LOYAL ORDER OF MOOSE.

Nos. 269 and 303.

Argued March 23, 1920.

Decided April 19, 1920.

Mr. Griffith R. Harsh, of Birmingham, Ala., for petitioner and plaintiff in error.

Messrs. E. J. Henning, of San Diego, Cal., and Ralph C. Putnam, of Aurora, Ill., for respondent and defendant in error.

[Argument of Counsel from page 412-413 intentionally omitted] Mr. Justice HOLMES delivered the opinion of the Court.

This is an action of debt brought in Illinois upon a judgment recovered in Alabama. The defendant pleaded to the jurisdiction that the judgment was for negligently causing the death of the plaintiff's intestate in Alabama. The plaintiff demurred to the plea, setting up Article IV, sections 1 and 2 of the Constitution of the United States. A statute of Illinois provided that no action should be brought or prosecuted in that State for damages occasioned by death occurring in another State in consequence of wrongful conduct. The Supreme Court of Illinois held that as by the terms of the statute the original action could not have been brought there, the Illinois Courts had no jurisdiction of a suit upon the judgment. The Circuit Court of Kane County having ordered that the demurrer be quashed its judgment was affirmed. 285 Ill. 188, 120 N. E. 631, 4 A. L. R. 964.

In the Court below and in the argument before us reliance was placed upon Anglo-American Provision Co. v. Davis Provision Co., No. 1, 191 U. S. 373, 24 Sup. Ct. 92, 48 L. Ed. 225, and language in Wisconsin v. Pelican Insurance Co., 127 U. S. 265, 8 Sup. Ct. 1370, 32 L. Ed. 239, the former as showing that the clause requiring full faith and credit to be given to judgments of other State does not require a State to furnish a Court, and the latter as sanctioning an inquiry into the nature of the original cause of action in order to determine the jurisdiction of a court to enforce a foreign judgment founded upon it. But we are of opinion that the conclusion sought to be built upon these premises in the present case cannot be sustained.

Davis Provision Co. v. Anglo-American Provision Co. was a suit by a foreign corporation on a foreign judgment against a foreign corporation. The decision is sufficiently explained without more by the views about foreign corporations that had prevailed unquestioned since Bank of Augusta v. Earle, 13 Pet. 579, 589-591, 10 L. Ed. 274; cited 191 U. S. 375, 24 Sup. Ct. 92, 48 L. Ed. 225. Moreover no doubt there is truth in the proposition that the Constitution does not require the State to furnish a Court. But it also is true that there are limits to the power of exclusion and to the power to consider the nature of the cause of action before the foreign judgment based upon it is given effect.

In Fauntleroy v. Lum, 210 U. S. 230, 28 Sup. Ct. 641, 52 L. Ed. 1039, it was held that the Courts of Mississippi were bound to enforce a judgment rendered in Missouri upon a cause of action arising in Mississippi and illegal and void there. The policy of Mississippi was more actively contravened in that case than the policy of Illinois is in this. Therefore the fact that here the original cause of action could not have been maintained in Illinois is not an answer to a suit uo n the judgment. See Christmas v. Russell, 5 Wall. 290, 18 L. Ed. 475; Converse v. Hamilton, 224 U. S. 243, 32 Sup. Ct. 415, 56 L. Ed. 749, Ann. Cas. 1913D, 1292. But this being true, it is plain that a State cannot escape its constitutional obligations...