Yorkshire West Capital, Inc. v. Rodman

• Decision Date: 08 September 2006
• Docket Number: No. 102,638.,Released for Publication by Order of the Court of Civil Appeals of Oklahoma, Division No. 3.,102,638.
• Citation: 2006 OK CIV APP 152,149 P.3d 1088
• Parties: YORKSHIRE WEST CAPITAL, INC., Plaintiff/Appellee, v. George RODMAN, Defendant/Appellant.
• Court: United States State Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma. Court of Civil Appeals of Oklahoma

149 P.3d 1088

2006 OK CIV APP 152

YORKSHIRE WEST CAPITAL, INC., Plaintiff/Appellee, v. George RODMAN, Defendant/Appellant.

No. 102,638.

Released for Publication by Order of the Court of Civil Appeals of Oklahoma, Division No. 3.

Court of Civil Appeals of Oklahoma, Division No. 3.

September 8, 2006.

Certiorari Denied December 4, 2006.

Appeal from the District Court of Oklahoma County, Oklahoma; Honorable Daniel L. Owens, Judge.

AFFIRMED.

Drew Neville, Lincoln C. McElroy, Hartzog, Conger, Cason & Neville, Oklahoma City, OK, for Plaintiff/Appellee,

B.J. Brockett, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and Barry K. Roberts, Norman, OK, for Defendant/Appellant.

KENNETH L. BUETTNER, Chief Judge.

¶ 1 Defendant/Appellant George Rodman appeals from the trial court's denial of his Motion to Vacate a foreign judgment filed by Plaintiff/Appellee Yorkshire West Capital, Inc. (Yorkshire). Yorkshire obtained a judgment against Rodman in Texas in 1994. Yorkshire filed its Texas judgment in Oklahoma in 1996, but did not seek to execute or renew the Oklahoma judgment. Yorkshire later took action in Texas to renew the Texas judgment for an additional ten years. Yorkshire filed the renewed Texas judgment in Oklahoma in 2005. Rodman sought to vacate the filing of the judgment based on his claim it had been dormant since 2001 and could not be revived in Oklahoma. The trial court denied Rodman's motion. We find nothing to prevent Yorkshire from filing its Texas judgment in Oklahoma a second time while it remained valid and enforceable in Texas. We therefore affirm.

¶ 2 In this case, the facts are undisputed and the issue is therefore one of law: whether a foreign judgment, which was filed in Oklahoma in 1996, may be refiled in Oklahoma while it is still valid and enforceable in the state in which it was granted, notwithstanding 12 O.S.2001 § 735, which provides that judgments become unenforceable after five years when specified collection activities have not occurred. We review issues of law de novo. 3M Dozer Service, Inc. v. Baker, 2006 OK 28, ¶ 8, 136 P.3d 1047.

¶ 3 On November 28, 1994, Yorkshire obtained judgment against Rodman and other defendants for $2,959,868.02 in the District Court of Dallas County, Texas ("Texas Judgment").¹ Yorkshire filed the Texas Judgment in the Oklahoma County District Court March 1, 1996.² The parties agree that Yorkshire did not take any action to execute on or renew the judgment in Oklahoma within five years of March 1, 1996 and it therefore became unenforceable pursuant to 12 O.S.2001 § 735(A).³

¶ 4 On September 14, 2004, Yorkshire filed a writ of execution on the judgment in Case No. 94-03613-F in the Dallas County District Court. The writ of execution renewed the Texas Judgment for an additional ten years from that date.⁴ Yorkshire then filed July 8 2005 its Notice of Filing of Foreign Judgment,⁵ in which it again filed the Texas Judgment, this time under Case No. CJ-2005-5276, in Oklahoma County.

¶ 5 Rodman responded to the 2005 filing of the Texas Judgment in Oklahoma County with his Motion to Vacate. Rodman argued that pursuant to § 735, once the judgment became unenforceable in Oklahoma following the 1996 filing, it could not be revived in Oklahoma by refiling.

¶ 6 Drllevich Construction, Inc. v. Stock, 1998 OK 39, 958 P.2d 1277, is the Oklahoma Supreme Court's most recent decision on the application of § 735 to foreign judgments. In Drllevich, the court determined that a foreign judgment which is valid and enforceable in the state in which it was issued is not barred by the Oklahoma dormant judgment statute, § 735. Prior to Drllevich, Oklahoma followed the minority rule, which was that the five years allowed by § 735 began to run on the date the foreign judgment was entered in the foreign state, so that a judgment holder who failed to register and execute on his judgment in Oklahoma within five years of first obtaining the foreign judgment was unable to enforce his judgment in Oklahoma, even if the judgment remained enforceable in the state of origin. Id. at 1280, citing First Denver Mortgage Investors v. Riggs, 1984 OK 36, 692 P.2d 1358 as the seminal case on the issue of application of the dormancy statute to foreign judgments in Oklahoma.

¶ 7 In Riggs, the Oklahoma Supreme Court looked to 12 O.S.1981 § 721, part of the Uniform Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Act (the Act),⁶ which provides that a foreign judgment filed in Oklahoma "has the same effect and is subject to the same procedures, defenses, and proceedings for reopening, vacating, or staying as a judgment of a district court of this state and may be enforced or satisfied in like manner." The court took from that language that a foreign judgment was treated as an Oklahoma judgment from the date it was rendered in the foreign state, and, like an Oklahoma judgment, it would become unenforceable within five years of the date it was issued, regardless of when it was registered in Oklahoma. 692 P.2d at 1360.

¶ 8 In Drllevich, the court noted that the rule announced in Riggs focused entirely on the date the judgment was first entered in the issuing state, and failed to consider whether the judgment remained enforceable in the issuing state. 958 P.2d at 1280. The court noted that the Riggs analysis was a minority view and therefore failed to accomplish the purpose of the Act to "make uniform the law of those states which enact it." Id., citing 12 O.S.2001 § 726. The court in Drllevich also noted that the Riggs rule allowed judgment debtors to shield themselves from legitimate foreign judgments by residing in Oklahoma.⁷ Id.

¶ 9 The Drllevich Court noted that Utah had a statute similar to § 721, providing that foreign judgments have the same effect and are enforceable in the same way as Oklahoma judgments. The court recognized the Utah Supreme Court had interpreted this statute to mean that "`for the purposes of enforcement, the filing of a foreign judgment ... creates a new Utah judgment which is governed by the Utah statute of limitations.'" Id., citing Pan Energy v. Martin, 813 P.2d 1142, 1144. The Utah court held that a new Utah judgment was created when a judgment, enforceable in the issuing state, was filed in Utah. This new judgment remained valid and enforceable for eight years from the date it was filed in Utah, pursuant to Utah's dormancy statute. Id. ¶ 10 In Pan Energy, the creditor filed an Oklahoma judgment in Utah one month before the end of the Oklahoma five year dormancy period. The Utah court found that because the Oklahoma judgment was enforceable in Oklahoma at the time it was filed in Utah, it became a new Utah judgment on that date and was subject to Utah's 8 year period for enforcement. Id. The court in Drllevich recognized other states which had reached the same result and held that:

a foreign judgment which is enforceable at the time the judgment creditor registers the foreign judgment in Oklahoma will be considered, for the purposes of enforcement, as a new judgment of this state to which Oklahoma's five year dormancy statute will apply. Once filed, the foreign judgment becomes a judgment of this state and "shall [be] treat[ed] ... in the same manner as a judgment of the district court of any county of this state."

Id. at 1281, citing 12 O.S.1991 § 721. The court expressly overruled Riggs, to the extent it conflicted with the opinion in Drllevich.⁸ Id. The court noted the issuing state had a ten year period in which to enforce judgments and concluded that:

(b)ecause Drllevich registered its Washington judgment in Oklahoma on July 6, 1995, within ten years of the November 14, 1985 original judgment, the foreign judgment was enforceable at the time of its registration. As a result, Drllevich has an Oklahoma judgment as of July 6, 1995 and the dormancy provisions of 12 O.S.1991 § 735 apply from that date of registration.

Id. at 1282. So, under the Riggs analysis, a foreign judgment was treated as an Oklahoma judgment from the date it was issued in the foreign state, but after Drllevich, a foreign judgment is treated as new Oklahoma judgment from the date it is filed in Oklahoma, so long as it was enforceable in the issuing state at the time it was filed in Oklahoma.

¶ 11 Under the Drllevich rule, Yorkshire's Texas Judgment could have been filed in Oklahoma for the first time when Yorkshire filed it here in 2005 because it remained valid and enforceable in Texas at that time. The novel issue presented here is whether the Texas Judgment could be filed in Oklahoma a second time, after the § 735 five years had run, but while it remained valid and enforceable in the issuing state.

¶ 12 Rodman contends that Oklahoma allows only one five year period in which to enforce a judgment, after which it is dormant and unenforceable. He asserts the five year period began to run March 1, 1996, when the Texas Judgment was first filed here, following which the judgment was unenforceable by the terms of § 735 and could not be revived by refiling. Rodman argues that after the expiration of five years from the first registration, the fact of dormancy is effectively res judicata and cannot be disregarded by filing the same foreign judgment a second time.

¶ 13 In Riggs, after five years from the date the judgment issued, but while the judgment remained enforceable in the issuing state, the creditor refiled the foreign judgment in Oklahoma, seeking an additional five years in which to enforce the judgment. The court stated that the judgment could not be revived by refiling. However, the court did not offer analysis or reasoning for this statement. And, in Riggs, as noted above, the rule was that any foreign judgment became dormant in Oklahoma five years from the date it was first issued, regardless of whether it remained enforceable in the issuing state. Therefore, Riggs differs from this case in that in Riggs, when the creditor refiled the judgment, the judgment would not have been acceptable, even as a first filing, at...