DocketNumber: 37
Judges: Stewart, Black
Filed Date: 12/2/1963
Status: Precedential
Modified Date: 10/19/2024
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The United States Constitution requires that “Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the . . . judicial Proceedings of every other State.”
In 1956 the petitioners brought an action against the respondent in a Nebraska court to quiet title to certain bottom land situated on the Missouri River. The main channel of that river forms the boundary between the States of Nebraska and Missouri. The Nebraska court
Two months later the respondent filed- a suit against the petitioners in a Missouri court to quiet title to the same land. Her complaint alleged that the land was in Missouri. The suit was removed to a Federal District Court by reason of diversity of citizenship. The District Court after hearing evidence expressed the view that the land was in Missouri, but held that all the issues had been
The constitutional command of full faith and credit, as implemented by Congress, requires that “judicial proceedings . . . shall have the same full faith and credit in every court within the United States ... as they have by law or usage in the courts of such State . . . from which they are taken.”
It is not questioned that the Nebraska courts would give full res judicata effect to the Nebraska judgment quieting title in the petitioners.
In support of this position the respondent relies upon the many decisions of this Court which have held that a judgment of a court in one State is conclusive upon the merits in a court in another State only if the court in the first State had power to pass on the merits — had jurisdiction, that is, to render the judgment. As Mr. Justice Bradley stated the doctrine in the leading case of Thompson v. Whitman, 18 Wall. 457, “we think it clear 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, notwithstanding the provision of the fourth article of the Constitution and the law of 1790, and notwithstanding the averments contained in the record of the judgment itself.” 18 Wall., at 469. The principle has been restated and applied in a variety of contexts.
With respect to questions of jurisdiction over the person,
Following the Baldwin case, this Court soon made clear in a series of decisions that the general rule is no different when the claim is made that the original forum did not have jurisdiction over the subject matter. Davis v. Davis, 305 U. S. 32; Stoll v. Gottlieb, 305 U. S. 165;
In the Davis case it was held that the courts of the District of Columbia were required to give full faith and credit to a decree of absolute divorce rendered in Virginia, despite the claim that the Virginia court had lacked jurisdiction because the plaintiff in the Virginia proceedings
“As to petitioner’s domicil for divorce and his standing to invoke jurisdiction of the Virginia court, its finding that he was a bona fide resident of that State for the required time is binding upon respondent in the courts of the District. She may not say that he was not entitled to sue for divorce in the state court, for she appeared there and by plea put in issue his allegation as to domicil, introduced evidence to show it false, took exceptions to the commissioner’s report, and sought to have the court sustain them and uphold her plea. Plainly, the determination of the decree upon that point is effective for all purposes in this litigation.” 305 U. S., at 40.
This doctrine of jurisdictional finality was applied even more unequivocally in Treinies, supra, involving title to personal property, and in Sherrer, supra, involving, like Davis, recognition of a foreign divorce decree. In Trein-ies, the rule was succinctly stated: “One trial of an issue is enough. ‘The principles of res judicata apply to questions of jurisdiction as well as to other issues,’ as well to jurisdiction of the subject matter as of the parties.” 308 U. S., at 78.
The reasons for such a rule are apparent. In the words of the Court’s opinion in Stoll v. Gottlieb, supra, “We see no reason why a court, in the absence of an allegation of fraud in obtaining the judgment, should examine again the question whether the court making the earlier determination on an actual contest over jurisdiction between the parties, did have jurisdiction of the subject matter of the litigation. . . . Courts to determine the rights of parties are an integral part of our system of government. It is just as important that there should be a place to end
To be sure, the general rule of finality of jurisdictional determinations is not without exceptions. Doctrines of federal pre-emption or sovereign immunity may in some contexts be controlling. Kalb v. Feuerstein, 308 U. S. 433; United States v. United States Fidelity Co., 309 U. S. 506.
It is argued that an exception to this rule of jurisdictional finality should be made with respect to cases involving real property because of this Court’s emphatic expressions of the doctrine that courts of one State are completely without jurisdiction directly to affect title to land in other States.
It is to be emphasized that all that was ultimately determined in the Nebraska litigation was title to the land in question as between the parties to the litigation there. Nothing there decided, and nothing that could be decided in litigation between the same parties or their privies in Missouri, could bind either Missouri or Nebraska with respect to any controversy they might have, now or in the future, as to the location of the boundary between them, or as to their respective sovereignty over the land in question. Fowler v. Lindsey, 3 Dall. 411; New York v.
For the reasons stated, we hold in this case that the federal court in Missouri had the power and, upon proper averments, the duty to inquire into the jurisdiction of the Nebraska courts to render the decree quieting title to the land in the petitioners. We further hold that when that inquiry disclosed, as it' did, that the jurisdictional issues had been fully and fairly litigated by the parties and finally determined in the Nebraska courts, the federal court in Missouri was correct in ruling that further inquiry was precluded. Accordingly the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and that of the District Court is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
“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 Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.” U. S. Const., Art. IV, § 1.
“The Acts of the legislature of any State, Territory, or Possession of the United States, or copies thereof, shall be authenticated by affixing the seal of such State, Territory or Possession thereto.
“The records and judicial proceedings of any court of any such State, Territory or Possession, or copies thereof, shall be proved or admitted in other courts within the United States and its Territories and Possessions by the attestation of the clerk and seal of the court annexed, if a seal exists, together with a certificate of a judge of the court that the said attestation is in proper form.
“Such Acts, records and judicial proceedings or copies thereof, so authenticated, shall have the same full faith and credit in every court within the United States and its Territories and Possessions as they have by law or usage in the courts of such State, Territory or Possession from which they are taken.” Act of June 25, 1948, c. 646, 62 Stat. 947, 28 U. S. C. § 1738.
The progenitor of the present statute was enacted by the First Congress in 1790. 1 Stat. 122.
“The Act extended the rule of the Constitution to all courts, federal as well as state. Mills v. Duryee, 7 Cr. 481, 485.” Davis v. Davis, 305 U. S. 32, 40.
Throughout this litigation there has been no dispute as to the controlling effect of this factual issue. See Nebraska v. Iowa, 143 U. S. 359, 370.
This is, therefore, not a case in which a party, although afforded an opportunity to contest subject-matter jurisdiction, did not litigate the issue. Cf. Chicot County Drainage Dist. v. Baxter State Bank, 308 U. S. 371.
See note 2, supra.
The Nebraska Supreme Court has clearly postulated the relevant law of the State: “This court adheres to the rule that if a court is one competent to decide whether or not the facts in any given pro-
See, e. g., D’Arcy v. Ketchum, 11 How. 165; Knowles v. Gaslight & Coke Co., 19 Wall. 58; Hall v. Lanning, 91 U. S. 160; Cole v. Cunningham, 133 U. S. 107; Grover & Baker Machine Co. v. Radcliffe, 137 U. S. 287; Thormann v. Frame, 176 U. S. 350; Bell v. Bell, 181 U. S. 175; Andrews v. Andrews, 188 U. S. 14; National
It is not disputed in the present case that the Nebraska courts had jurisdiction over the respondent’s person. She entered a general appearance in the trial court, and initiated the appeal to the Nebraska Supreme Court.
This decision was adhered to the following year in American Surety Co. v. Baldwin, 287 U. S. 156. In his opinion for a unanimous Court in that case, Mr. Justice Brandéis said: “The principles of res judicata apply to questions of jurisdiction as well as to other issues.” 287 U. S., at 166.
The question in Stoll was what effect the courts of Illinois must give to the judgment of a federal court sitting in that State. • The case, therefore, did not directly involve the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the Constitution, but, like the present case, it involved the federal statute enacted to implement the constitutional provision. 305 U. S., at 170, n. 5. See note 2, supra.
See also Sunshine Coal Co. v. Adkins, 310 U. S. 381, 403; Jackson v. Irving Trust Co., 311 U. S. 494.
It is to be noted, however, that in neither of these eases had the jurisdictional issues actually been litigated in the first forum.
The Restatement of Conflict of Laws recognizes the possibility of such exceptions:
“Where a court has jurisdiction over the parties and determines that it has jurisdiction over the subject matter, the parties cannot collaterally attack the judgment on the ground that the court did not have jurisdiction over the subject matter, unless the policy underlying the doctrine of res judicata is outweighed bji- the policy against permitting the court to act beyond its jurisdiction. Among the factors appropriate to be considered in determining that collateral attack should be permitted are that
“(a) the lack of jurisdiction over the subject matter was clear;
“(b) the determination as to jurisdiction depended upon a question of law rather than of fact;
“(c) the court was one of limited and not of general jurisdiction;
“(d) the question of jurisdiction was not actually litigated;
“ (e) the policy against the court’s acting beyond its jurisdiction is strong.” Restatement, Conflict of Laws, §451(2) (Supp. 1948). See Restatement, Judgments, § 10 (1942).
In two previous cases the Court has expressly left open the question of the applicability of the rule of jurisdictional finality to cases involving real property. See Stoll v. Gottlieb, 305 U. S., at 176; United States v. United States Fidelity Co., 309 U. S., at 514.
See Fall v. Eastin, 215 U. S. 1; Carpenter v. Strange, 141 U. S. 87, 105-106; Olmsted v. Olmsted, 216 U. S. 386.
The alternative of a negotiated settlement of any dispute between the States over the location of the boundary would also always be available. See U. S. Const., Art. I, § 10.