Van Natta v. Van Natta

• Decision Date: 16 January 1918
• Docket Number: (No. 1276.)
• Citation: 200 S.W. 907
• Parties: VAN NATTA v. VAN NATTA.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

200 S.W. 907

VAN NATTA v. VAN NATTA.

(No. 1276.)

Court of Civil Appeals of Texas. Amarillo.

January 16, 1918.

Rehearing Denied February 20, 1918.

Appeal from District Court, Potter County; Hugh L. Umphres, Judge.

Action by Helen S. Van Natta against Samuel G. Van Natta. From judgment for defendant, plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

Veale & Lumpkin, of Amarillo, for appellant. Madden, Trulove, Ryburn & Pipkin and T. H. Cody, all of Amarillo, for appellee.

BOYCE, J.

This suit was brought by appellant, Helen S. Van Natta, against appellee, Samuel G. Van Natta, on a judgment for a large sum of money rendered by the circuit court of Clinton county, in the state of Indiana, in favor of appellant and against appellee. Appellee pleaded that an appeal had been taken from said judgment and was pending and undisposed of in the Appellate Court of said state. It is conceded that appellant would be entitled to recover on the judgment if the pending appeal does not preclude such recovery, and this is the only question presented for our decision on the present appeal; the court below having denied recovery on the judgment. On the trial of the case the parties made the following agreement as to the facts of the appeal:

"The judgment referred to in plaintiff's petition as having been rendered in the Clinton circuit court, in the state of Indiana, has been by defendant duly appealed from upon a cost bond for appeal, in accordance with the laws of said state, and that said cause is now pending on the docket of the Supreme Court within and for the state of Indiana, subject to call in due order of procedure in said court and is yet undisposed of. Such appeal was had and is pending and undisposed of on the cost bond for appeal and not upon supersedeas bond."

The provisions of article 4, § 1, of the federal Constitution, and of section 905, Revised Statutes of the United States (U. S. Comp. St. 1916, § 1519), in relation to the same subject, which require that "full faith and credit shall be given in each state, to the * * * judicial proceedings of every other state," and that such "judicial proceedings * * * 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 which they are taken," are familiar to all. It was announced by the Supreme Court of the United States at an early date, and subsequently followed with certain restrictions on the broad announcement which do not concern us at this time:

"That 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 court where it was pronounced; and that whatever pleas would be good to a suit thereon in such state, and none others, could be pleaded in any other court in the United States." Hampton v. McConnel, 3 Wheat. 234, 4 L. Ed. 378; McElmoyle v. Cohen, 13 Pet. 312, 10 L. Ed. 184; Mills v. Duryee, 7 Cranch, 484, 3 L. Ed. 413; Embry v. Palmer, 107 U. S. 3, 2 Sup. Ct. 25, 27 L. Ed. 346; Renaud v. Abbott, 116 U. S. 277, 6 Sup. Ct. 1194, 29 L. Ed. 629; Cook v. Thornhill, 13 Tex. 293, 65 Am. Dec. 63; Express Co. v. North Ft. Worth Undertaking Co., 179 S. W. 908; R. C. L. vol. 15, p. 927, § 407.

We think therefore that we should give to this Indiana judgment the effect it would be given by the courts of that state, and that the effect of the appeal on the finality of the judgment and its admissibility in evidence in support of the rights adjudicated thereby is to be determined by the laws of the state of Indiana. But, as no pleading or proof was offered as to the law of Indiana on this subject, we must first dispose of the preliminary question as to how we are to determine such matters; that is, whether we are to take judicial knowledge of such law, or whether, in the absence of such proof, we are to follow the general rule that it is to be presumed that the law of Indiana on the subject is the same as our own, and then proceed to determine the effect of the appeal as determined by our own decisions.

There are a number of authorities, approved to a certain extent by citation thereto by our own courts, that hold that, in suits on judgments in a state other than the state in which the judgment was rendered, the court of the forum will, in order to ascertain the effect of the judgment, take judicial knowledge of the law of the state in which the judgment was rendered. Henry v. Allen, 82 Tex. 35, 17 S. W. 516; Babcock v. Marshall, 21 Tex. Civ. App. 145, 50 S. W. 730; State v. Hinchman, 27 Pa. 483; Paine v. Schenectady Ins. Co., 11 R. I. 415; Trowbridge v. Spinning, 23 Wash. 48, 62 Pac. 125, 54 L. R. A. 204, 83 Am. St. Rep. 806; Rae v. Hulbert, 17 Ill. 576; Hull v. Webb, 78 Ill. App. 617; Black on Judgments, § 882. The Pennsylvania case cited, being the leading case supporting this view of the law and which is cited by the Supreme Court in the case of Henry v. Allen, supra, states the reason for this rule thus:

"A judgment of this court, adverse to the right arising out of the federal Constitution and legislation, would be reviewable in the Supreme Court of the United States, and there the states of the Confederacy are not regarded as foreign states, whose laws and usages must be proved, but as domestic institutions, whose laws are to be noticed without pleading or proof. It would be a very imperfect and discordant administration for a court of original jurisdiction to adopt one rule of decision, while the court of final resort was governed by another; and hence it follows that, in questions of this sort, we should take notice of the local laws of a sister state in the same manner the Supreme Court of the United States would do on a writ of error to our judgment."

However, the United States Supreme Court, in the subsequent ...