Nader v. Serody

• Citation: 43 A.3d 327
• Decision Date: 10 May 2012
• Docket Number: No. 09–CV–906.,09–CV–906.
• Parties: Ralph NADER, Appellant, v. Linda S. SERODY, et al., Appellees.
• Court: D.C. Court of Appeals

43 A.3d 327

Ralph NADER, Appellant,

v.Linda S. SERODY, et al., Appellees.

No. 09–CV–906.

District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

Argued April 21, 2010.

Decided May 10, 2012.

Oliver B. Hall for appellant.

Nathan R. Fennessy, with whom Daniel I. Booker and Douglas K. Spaulding, Washington, DC, were on the brief, for appellees.

Before GLICKMAN and THOMPSON, Associate Judges, and RUIZ, Associate Judge, Retired.^*

RUIZ, Associate Judge, Retired:

Ralph Nader challenges the trial court's denial of his Rule 60(b) and Rule 41(b) motions to set aside a Pennsylvania judgment that appellees sought to enforce in the District of Columbia. We affirm the judgment of the trial court enforcing the Pennsylvania judgment, as consistent with the principles of the Full Faith and Credit Clause.

I. Procedural Posture

This case arrived at the doorstep of the Superior Court after a long and convoluted history in the courts of Pennsylvania. Appellees are registered voters in Pennsylvania. They successfully challenged, in the Pennsylvania courts, the validity of signatures on papers nominating appellant Ralph Nader and his running mate, Peter Miguel Camejo, for the 2004 presidential election in Pennsylvania. The Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania, an appellate court that hears election-related matters, engaged in an extensive review of the nominating papers and, in a lengthy opinion issued on October 13, 2004, concluded that the papers failed to include the required number of valid signatures.¹In re Nader, 865 A.2d 8, 18 (Pa.Cmwlth.2004). On October 19, 2004, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania issued a per curiam order affirming the Commonwealth Court's decision, with one justice dissenting. In re Nader, 580 Pa. 134, 860 A.2d 1 (2004). The Supreme Court of the United States denied Nader's petition for certiorari. Nader v. Serody, 543 U.S. 1052, 125 S.Ct. 884, 160 L.Ed.2d 773 (2005). On October 14, 2004, the Commonwealth Court assessed litigation costs ² against the Nader–Camejo campaign and the candidates individually, and on January 14, 2005, approved appellees' bill of costs in the amount of $81,102.19. In re Nader, 588 Pa. 450, 905 A.2d 450, 455 (2006) (citing Commonwealth Court's two unpublished orders of Oct. 14, 2004, and Jan. 14, 2005, in 568 M.D.2004). On August 22, 2006, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania affirmed the cost assessment, with two justices dissenting. Id. at 460. On January 8, 2007, the Supreme Court of the United States denied Nader's petition for certiorari, Nader v. Serody, 549 U.S. 1117, 127 S.Ct. 995, 166 L.Ed.2d 712 (2007), and on April 23, 2007, the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court entered judgment. It is this judgment that the voters sought to enforce in the District of Columbia, and that Nader resists.

The Pennsylvania judgment was entered on May 16, 2007, in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia as a foreign judgment, pursuant to D.C.Code § 15–352 (2001).³ On October 25, 2007, Nader's assets in D.C. banks were attached to satisfy the judgment.⁴ On October 30, 2007, Nader filed suit in D.C. Superior Court against the Democratic National Committee, various party officials and voters' counsel, Reed Smith, LLP, accusing them of having engaged in “civil conspiracy, malicious prosecution and abuse of process” in connection with their challenges to the Nader–Camejo nomination papers in several states, including Pennsylvania.⁵ On November 7, 2007, Nader moved for relief from enforcement of the Pennsylvania judgment, under Rule 60(b), based on what he claimed to be newly discovered evidence of Reed Smith's alleged undisclosed ties and campaign contributions to members of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania who voted to affirm the judgments against him, see note 15, infra; in the alternative, he requested a stay of execution of the judgment in light of the independent action he had just filed. See note 5, supra.⁶ The following year, on August 1, 2008, Nader petitioned the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court to open the record or set aside its judgment directing him to pay litigation costs arising from the challenge to his nomination papers in light of criminal charges filed in Pennsylvania related to the challenge,⁷ and simultaneously filed a motion for judicial notice of this petition in D.C. Superior Court. On December 4, 2008, the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court denied Nader's petition,⁸In re Nomination Paper Nader, No. 568 M.D.2004 (Pa.Cmwlth. Dec. 4, 2008), aff'd, In re Nader, 603 Pa. 139, 982 A.2d 1220 (2009). On April 16, 2009, Nader filed a motion in Superior Court for restitution of the funds disbursed from his PNC bank account ⁹ and a Rule 41(b) motion to dismiss the voters' enforcement action for failure to comply with Rule 62(a). On July 21, 2009, after taking judicial notice of the filing (and subsequent denial) of Nader's petition in the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court to set aside the judgment awarding costs to the voters, the Superior Court denied Nader's 60(b) and 41(b) motions. Nader timely appealed.

II. Enforcement of Foreign Judgments

Article IV § 1 of the Constitution commands that “Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State.” Thus, “ ‘the judgment of a state court should have the same credit, validity, and effect, in every other court of the United States, which it had in the state where it was pronounced.’ ” Underwriters Nat'l Assurance Co. v. North Carolina Life and Acc. and Health Ins. Guaranty Ass'n, 455 U.S. 691, 704, 102 S.Ct. 1357, 71 L.Ed.2d 558 (1982) (quoting Hampton v. McConnel, 16 U.S. (3 Wheat.) 234, 235, 4 L.Ed. 378 (1818)). “Pursuant to this [constitutional] provision and in furtherance of federalism and national unity,” Fehr v. McHugh, 413 A.2d 1285, 1287 (D.C.1980), Congress has mandated that “judgments ‘shall have such faith and credit ... in every court within the United States as they have by law or usage in the courts of the State from which they are taken.’ ” Id. (alteration in original) (quoting 28 U.S.C. § 687 (1940)).¹⁰

We have recognized that, “[u]nder the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the Constitution, a judgment properly authenticated and issued by a court having jurisdiction is entitled to the same degree of recognition in a sister state as would be afforded by the state of original rendition.” Id. at 1286 (citing, e.g., Johnson v. Muelberger, 340 U.S. 581, 71 S.Ct. 474, 95 L.Ed. 552 (1951)). These principles are embodied in the codified law of the District of Columbia. In 1990, the District of Columbia adopted the Uniform Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Act (“UEFJ”), D.C. Law 8–173, D.C.Code § 15–351 et seq. (2001), which sets out the procedures and standards for enforcement of foreign judgments in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.¹¹ Section 2 of the UEFJ, D.C.Code § 15–352, provides:

A foreign judgment filed with the Clerk [of the Superior Court] shall have the same effect and be subject to the same procedures, defenses, or proceedings for reopening, vacating, or staying as a judgment of the Superior Court and may be enforced or satisfied in the same manner.

D.C.Code § 15–352.

The UEFJ's general purpose is “to obtain uniformity with the rulings of sister state courts.” Carr v. Bett, 291 Mont. 326, 970 P.2d 1017, 1024 (1998). The Council of the District of Columbia explained that its purpose in adopting the Uniform Act was to “provide an expeditious and simple procedure to enforce foreign judgments in courts of the District of Columbia.” Council of the District of Columbia, Committee on the Judiciary, Committee Report on Bill No. 8–56, The Uniform Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Act of 1990 (June 20, 1990), at 2. In adopting the UEFJ, the Council intended to create an efficient mechanism to enforce foreign judgments “upon the mere act of filing,” without “the need for another trial,” “as if the judgment were a domestic one.” Id.¹² Section 15–352, however, must be read in harmony with the constitutional mandate to accord full faith and credit to the judgments of sister states. It cannot be interpreted in a manner that subjects foreign judgments to the same range of collateral attack as a judgment of the receiving court; to do so would defeat the purpose of the Full Faith and Credit Clause. Thus, “[t]he rights and defenses preserved by the Act are only those which the debtor may constitutionally raise.” Data Mgmt. Sys., Inc. v. EDP Corp., 709 P.2d 377, 381 (Utah 1985) (emphasis added); see Marworth, Inc. v. McGuire, 810 P.2d 653, 657 (Colo.1991) (“Most states have interpreted these restrictions to mean that the UEFJA may not create defenses to a foreign judgment that violate the full faith and credit clause.”); Wooster v. Wooster, 399 N.W.2d 330, 333 (S.D.1987) (noting that “the nature, amount, or other merits of the judgment cannot be relitigated in the state in which enforcement is sought”); see also Angel v. Bullington, 330 U.S. 183, 188, 67 S.Ct. 657, 91 L.Ed. 832 (1947); McKnett v. St. Louis & S.F. Ry. Co., 292 U.S. 230, 233, 54 S.Ct. 690, 78 L.Ed. 1227 (1934) (“The power of a state to determine the limits of the jurisdiction of its courts and the character of the controversies which shall be heard in them is, of course, subject to the restrictions imposed by the Federal Constitution.”).

Because the Constitution's Full Faith and Credit Clause “overrides the local regulation of access to the procedures of state courts for the purpose of enforcing foreign adjudications,” Data Mgmt. Sys., Inc., 709 P.2d at 381, the language in the UEFJ that calls for applying to foreign judgments the “same procedures, defenses, or proceedings for reopening, vacating or staying” that apply to local judgments, D.C.Code § 15–352 (Section 2 of the UEFJ), must be read narrowly and may not be used to defeat the purposes of the Full Faith and Credit Clause. Data Mgmt. Sys., Inc., 709 P.2d at 381 (noting that allowance of motion under Rule 60(b) pursuant to Section 2 of...