Legum v. Brown

• Decision Date: 18 October 2006
• Docket Number: No. 13, Sept. Term, 2006.,13, Sept. Term, 2006.
• Citation: 395 Md. 135,909 A.2d 672
• Parties: Alan H. LEGUM, Personal Representative of the Estate of Archie C. Brown, Jr. v. Shirley BROWN, Personal Representative of the Estate of Thomas Jordan Brown.
• Court: Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

909 A.2d 672

395 Md. 135

Alan H. LEGUM, Personal Representative of the Estate of Archie C. Brown, Jr. v. Shirley BROWN, Personal Representative of the Estate of Thomas Jordan Brown.

No. 13, Sept. Term, 2006.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

October 18, 2006.

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Alan H. Legum (Alan Hilliard Legum, P.A., on brief), Annapolis, MD, for Petitioner.

Cynthia E. Young, Annapolis, MD, for Respondent.

Argued before BELL, C.J., RAKER, WILNER, CATHELL, HARRELL, BATTAGLIA and GREENE, JJ.

WILNER, Judge.

The issue before us is whether, on this very sparse record, a plaintiff who recovered a money judgment against a Maryland decedent's Estate from a Colorado court is entitled to have that judgment accorded full faith and credit in Maryland. The Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County said "no." The Court of Special Appeals sent the case back for further proceedings. We shall say "yes."

In July, 2003, Shirley Brown, as personal representative of the Estate of her late husband, Thomas Brown, recovered from the District Court of El Paso, Colorado, a judgment by default for $60,000 against the Estate of Archie Brown. Archie and Thomas Brown were brothers. Archie lived and died in Maryland; Thomas lived and died in Colorado.

On December 4, 2003, Shirley filed a petition in the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County to "transfer" the Colorado judgment. A copy of the judgment, certified by the clerk of the Colorado court, was attached to the petition. The Clerk of the Circuit Court recorded the Colorado judgment and gave notice of the recording to petitioner, Alan Legum, as personal representative of the Estate of Archie Brown.

Mr. Legum filed a motion to strike the Colorado judgment on three grounds: (1) the Estate of Archie Brown had never been properly served with process in the Colorado case; (2) because Archie was neither a resident of Colorado nor conducted business there, the Colorado court had no jurisdiction over him; and (3) no claim had been filed by Shirley in the Orphans' Court for Anne Arundel County within six months after the death of Archie. Ms Brown, acting pro se, responded with a motion to "retain" the judgment, averring that the case was brought in Colorado because that is where "the injustice originated," that Archie did do business and had hired a lawyer in Colorado, that his Colorado lawyer did not inform her of Archie's death, and that the judgment was entitled to full faith and credit. After a hearing, the court entered a brief order striking the judgment. In a footnote in that order, the court stated that its order was based on "all the reasons stated by Defendant's counsel in his written brief and through oral arguments," but it found, specifically, that Ms. Brown failed to file her claim with the Estate of Archie Brown within six months of Archie's death and that she failed to make proper service on the Estate. Following a denial of her motion for reconsideration, Ms. Brown noted an appeal.

The Court of Special Appeals concluded that the Circuit Court had erred in relying on either of the two grounds noted specifically in the order. It held that there was proper service on Legum under Colorado law and that the relevant issue was not whether a claim against the Estate had been timely filed but only whether the Colorado court had fully litigated the question of its subject matter and personal jurisdiction and, if not, whether such jurisdiction existed. To that end, the appellate court vacated the Circuit Court's order striking the judgment and remanded the case for the Circuit Court "to confirm that the jurisdictional issues were not fully litigated in Colorado, and, if they were not, to decide the issues, should they continue to be pressed by the Estate." Brown v. Legum, 166 Md.App. 401, 413-14, 890 A.2d 771, 779 (2006). We granted Mr. Legum's petition for certiorari and shall reverse the judgment of the Court of Special Appeals. We do not believe that any remand is necessary.

The Legal Setting

Article IV, § 1 of the United States Constitution requires that full faith and credit be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State and authorizes Congress, by law, to prescribe the manner in which such Acts, Records, and Proceedings shall be proved. Congress has exercised that authority. Title 28 U.S.C. § 1738 provides, in relevant part, that the records and judicial proceedings of a court "shall be proved or admitted in other courts within the United States ... by the attestation of the clerk and seal of the court annexed, if a seal exists, together with a certificate of a judge of the court that the said attestation is in proper form." Section 1738 continues that such judicial proceedings, "so authenticated," shall have the same full faith and credit in every court within the United States as they have by law or usage in the State where they occurred.

In its own partial implementation of the full faith and credit mandate, Maryland has adopted the Uniform Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Act, which appears in Maryland Code, §§ 11-801 through 11-807 of the Cts. & Jud. Proc. Article (CJP).¹ Section 11-802 requires that a foreign judgment over certain specified amounts that is "authenticated in accordance with an act of Congress or statutes of this State" may be filed with the clerk of the Circuit Court, and that a foreign judgment so filed "has the same effect and is subject to the same procedures, defenses, and proceedings for reopening, vacating, staying, enforcing, or satisfying as a judgment of the court in which it is filed." (Emphasis added).

The italicized language is important. CJP § 10-204(a) provides, in relevant part, that a copy of a public record or proceeding of any agency of the government of any State shall be received in evidence "if certified as a true copy by the custodian of the record ... or proceeding...." Section 10-204(c) provides that the certification shall include "[t]he signature and title of the custodian or other person authorized to make the certification, the official seal, if any, of the office, and a statement certifying that the copy is a true copy of the public record." Unlike the Federal statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1738, CJP § 10-204 does not require that a judge certify the propriety of the clerk's attestation.

The Order of Judgment that accompanied Ms. Brown's petition contains what purports to be an original certificate by the clerk of the Colorado court that the document is "a true, and correct copy of the original in my custody" and a seal of the court, but it does not contain any certification of a judge that the clerk's attestation was in proper form. The document would thus not pass muster under § 1738. The case law makes clear, however, that the mode of authenticating State court records specified in § 1738 is not exclusive and that judicial documents from another State will be admitted into evidence and enforced in a forum State if they are attested or certified in a manner that complies with the law of the forum State. See General Acceptance Corporation v. Holbrook, 254 Miss. 78, 179 So.2d 845, 846 (1965); State v. Wolfskill, 421 S.W.2d 193, 195 (Mo.1967); Price v. Price, 4 Ohio App.3d 217, 447 N.E.2d 769, 772 (1982); Murphy v. Murphy, 581 P.2d 489, 492 (Okla.App.1978); Commonwealth v. Halteman, 192 Pa.Super. 379, 162 A.2d 251, 254 (1960); United States v. Mathies, 350 F.2d 963 (3rd Cir.1965); Donald v. Jones, 445 F.2d 601 (5th Cir.1971), cert. denied, 404 U.S. 992, 92 S.Ct. 537, 30 L.Ed.2d 543 (1971). It is evident—and Legum has not disputed—that the copy of the judgment that accompanied Ms. Brown's petition was attested in the manner required by CJP §§ 10-204 and 11-802 and that, at least in form, it was therefore eligible for being accorded full faith and credit.

In Durfee v. Duke, 375 U.S. 106, 84 S.Ct. 242, 11 L.Ed.2d 186 (1963), the Supreme Court construed the Constitutional command of full faith and credit as a requirement that every State give the judgment of a court of another State "at least the res judicata effect which the judgment would be accorded in the State which rendered it." Id. at 109, 84 S.Ct. at 244, 11 L.Ed.2d at 190. See also Underwriters Assur. Co. v. N.C. Guaranty Assn., 455 U.S. 691, 704, 102 S.Ct. 1357, 1366, 71 L.Ed.2d 558, 570 (1982). Consistent with that principle is the caveat, confirmed in both Durfee and Underwriters, that "a judgment of a court in one State is conclusive upon the merits in a court in another State only if the court in the first State had power to pass on the merits—had jurisdiction, that is, to render the judgment." Durfee, supra, 375 U.S. at 110, 84 S.Ct. at 244, 11 L.Ed.2d at 190; Underwriters, supra, 455 U.S. at 704, 102 S.Ct. at 1366, 71 L.Ed.2d at 570. See also Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co., Ltd. v. Epstein, 516 U.S. 367, 386, 116 S.Ct. 873, 884, 134 L.Ed.2d 6, 25 (1996). That caveat allows the court in the forum State, when asked to give effect to the judgment of a court of another State, to "inquire into the foreign court's jurisdiction to render that judgment." Durfee, supra, 375 U.S. at 111, 84 S.Ct. at 245, 11 L.Ed.2d at 191. See also Adam v. Saenger, 303 U.S. 59, 58 S.Ct. 454, 82 L.Ed. 649 (1938); Van Wagenberg v. Van Wagenberg, 241 Md. 154, 160-61, 215 A.2d 812, 815 (1966), cert. denied, 385 U.S. 833, 87 S.Ct. 73, 17 L.Ed.2d 68 (1966); Imperial Hotel v. Bell Atlantic, 91 Md. App. 266, 270, 603 A.2d 1371, 1373 (1992).

An independent inquiry into the foreign court's jurisdiction is not automatic, however, and, when undertaken in response to a jurisdictional attack, is subject to some limitations. It has long been recognized that, when a foreign judgment is properly authenticated and it appears on the face of the judgment that the court was a court of record of general jurisdiction, "jurisdiction over the cause and the parties is to be presumed unless disproved by extrinsic evidence or by the...