Wood v. Augustins
| Decision Date | 06 August 1898 |
| Citation | 41 A. 583,70 Vt. 637 |
| Parties | WOOD v. AUGUSTINS. |
| Court | Vermont Supreme Court |
Exceptions from Washington county court; Taft, Judge.
Action by Jessie L. Wood against H. P. Augustins. There was a judgment for plaintiff, and defendant excepts. Reversed.
Richard A. Hoar, for plaintiff.
John W. Gordon, for defendant.
The action is debt, on a judgment rendered by the superior court for the county of Kennebec, in the state of Maine. The record of this judgment discloses sufficient facts to give that court jurisdiction. It recites that the defendant was a resident of the state of Maine at the time Judgment was rendered, that the process was served upon him personally, and that he appeared by attorney. This record was received in evidence by the court below, and thereupon the defendant sought to contradict the facts recited therein which related to the jurisdiction of the court, and offered to show by parol that he was not a resident of the state of Maine at the time the judgment was obtained, that process was not served upon him, and that he made no appearance in the cause, either by himself or by attorney. The court pro forma, excluded the evidence, and the defendant excepted.
Article 4, § 1, of the constitution of the United States, provides that full faith and credit shall be given in each state to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state, and the congress may by general law prescribe the manner in which such acts, records, and proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof. Congress, by act of May 26, 1790, now embodied in section 905 of the Revised Statutes of the United States, after providing the mode of authenticating the acts, records, and judicial proceedings of the state, declares: "And the said records and judicial proceedings authenticated as aforesaid, shall have such faith and credit to them in every court within the United States, as they have by law or usage in the courts of the state from whence the said records are or shall be taken." It has been held in this state that this act, in connection with the constitutional provisions which it was intended to carry out, had the effect to render the judgments of each state equivalent to domestic judgments in every other state, or, at least, they have been given the same effect that they had in the states where they were rendered. No distinction appears to have been made between questions affecting the merits of the judgment and those affecting the jurisdiction of the court rendering them. Such is, in effect, the holding in Hoxie v. Wright, 2 Vt. 263; Factory v. Holt, 14 Vt. 92; Newcomb v. Peck, 17 Vt. 302; Lapham v. Briggs, 27 Vt. 27; McGilvray v. Avery, 30 Vt. 541. In all of these cases the case of Mills v. Duryea, 7 Cranch, 481, is cited; and it is evident that the court intended to follow the construction there given to the constitution and act of congress by the supreme court of the United States. Since the cases above cited were decided, the case of Mills v. Duryea, supra, has been reviewed by the United States supreme court in Thompson v. Whitman, 18 Wall. 457, and the constitution and act of congress as to the faith and credit due to a judgment rendered in another state received a full exposition; and it was held that the jurisdiction of the court by which a judgment is rendered in any state may be questioned in a collateral proceeding in another state; that neither the constitutional provision that full faith and credit shall be given in each state to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state, or the act of congress passed in pursuance thereof, prevented an inquiry into the jurisdiction of the court by which a judgment offered in evidence was rendered; and that the record of a judgment rendered in another state may be contradicted as to the facts necessary to give the court jurisdiction, either as to the subject-matter or the person, and, if it be shown that such facts did not exist, the record...
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In re Hanrahan's Will
...from Mills v. Duryee, 7 Cranch 481, 3 L.Ed. 411, by way of warning, apparently. It was reasserted as the law in Wood v. Augustins, 70 Vt. 637, 641, 642, 41 A. 583; again in Ferry v. Miltimore Elastic Steel Car Wheel Co., 71 Vt. 457, 458, 45 A. 1035, 76 Am.St.Rep. 787; still again in Domench......
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In re Thomas Hanrahan's Will
...Est., 210 U.S. 82, 52 L.Ed. 966, 970, 28 S.Ct. 702, 703, "is not open to doubt." We have so understood it. It was so considered in Wood v. Augustins, supra, and Domenchini's Admr. v. H. T. & W. R. R. Co., supra. It follows, of course, that the holdings of the federal Supreme Court are bindi......
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Bennett B. Bristol, Trustees v. William H. Noyes
... ... exception. This exception is not briefed, and is therefore ... waived. Gray v. Brattleboro Trust Co., 97 ... Vt. 270, 274, 122 A. 670; Wood v. James, 93 ... Vt. 36, 43, 106 A. 566. The remaining three exceptions ... present essentially the same question and may be considered ... inhabitant of that state, had not been served with process, ... and did not enter an appearance. See Wood v ... Augustins, 70 Vt. 637, 41 A. 583, wherein the ... authorities bearing upon this question are cited and ... discussed; Domenchini's Admr. v. H. T. & W ... ...
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Bristol v. Noyes
...in that he was not an inhabitant of that state, had not been served with process, and did not enter an appearance. See Wood v. Augustins, 70 Vt. 637, 41 A. 583, wherein the authorities bearing upon this question are cited and discussed; Domenchini's Adm'r v. Hoosac T. & W. R. R., 90 Vt. 451......