D'Arcy v. Ketchum - 52 U.S. (11 How.) 165 (1851)

Rule:

The international law as it existed among the States in 1790 was that a judgment rendered in one State, assuming to bind the person of a citizen of another, was void within the foreign State, when the defendant had not been served with process or voluntarily made defence, because neither the legislative jurisdiction, nor that of courts of justice, had binding force. Congress did not overthrow this old rule by the enactment that such faith and credit should be given to records of judgments as they had in the State where made.

Facts:

In February, 1849, there were two commercial houses, one trading under the name of A.H. Gossip & Co. in New York, and the other under the name of Gossip & Co. in New Orleans. The firm of A.H. Gossip & Co. consisted of Aurungzebe H. Gossip and Joseph Calder, and the firm in New Orleans consisted of George H. Gossip and James D'Arcy. On the 4th of February, 1849, the New York house drew a bill of exchange upon the New Orleans house for the amount of USD461.87, payable four months after February 4, 1839. This bill appeared to have passed into the hands of Ketchum, Rogers, and Bement, and not to have been paid at maturity. In February, 1840, Ketchum, Rogers, and Bement brought an action in the Superior Court of the City of New York against the drawers and acceptors of the bill, viz. Aurungzebe H. Gossip, Joseph Calder, George H. Gossip, and James D'Arcy. A jury was impaneled to assess the damages, who ruled that George H. Gossip and James D’Arcy were liable to pay Ketchum, Rogers and Bement. Under this judgment against D'Arcy, Ketchum, Rogers, and Bement brought a suit in the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Louisiana for the collection of D’Arcy’s share in the final judgment that was jointly and severally entered against him and Gossip in the New York action. D’Arcy appealed, filing the following exception (among others): “The defendant excepts to said judgment, that it does not follow the verdict; that the same is not signed, and is not final; and that the same, with the record of proceedings in the suit in which the same was rendered, is not properly certified, as required by law; and the said record is upon its face incomplete.” The Circuit Court overruled D’Arcy’s exceptions ruled in favor of Ketchum, Rogers, and Bement.

Issue:

Did the Circuit Court err in overruling D’Arcy’s exception?

Answer:

Yes.

Conclusion:

By the act of May 26, 1790, Congress prescribes, first, the mode in which the judicial records of one State shall be proved in the tribunals of another; to wit, that they shall be authenticated by a certificate of the clerk under the seal of the court, with a certificate of the presiding judge that the clerk's attestation is in due form. Secondly, "And the said records and judicial proceedings, authenticated as aforesaid, 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 whence the said records are or shall be taken." These provisions were considered by this court in the case of Mills v. Duryee, where it was held that the recited sentence of the act of 1790 did declare the effect of a State judgment, by enacting that it should have such faith and credit in every other State as it had in the courts of the State from whence it was taken; and that a judgment, where the defendant had been served with process, concluded such defendant from pleading nil debet when sued in another State on the record, and consequently from going behind the judgment and reexamining the original cause of action; that he was concluded by the record, in like manner as he stood concluded in the State where the judgment was rendered. This decision was made in 1813, and has since been followed as the binding and proper construction of the act of 1790, in cases where process has been served. The language employed is not only fairly open to construction, but the result arrived at by the court below depends on construction; and when one would look to the previous law, and the evil intended to be remedied by the framers of the Constitution and by Congress, there was no doubt that the act of 1790 does not operate on, or give additional force to, the judgment under consideration.