RELATIONS BETWEEN THE COURTS OF DIFFERENT STATES
Every State has all the rights of an independent sovereign,
except so far as its sovereignty is limited by the Constitution
of the United States. As respects each other the States are for
most purposes in the position of foreign governments. The courts
of one are regarded by those of any other as foreign courts,
except so far as the Constitution may have prescribed a different
rule.
No legal process from a court can have any inherent force outside
of the territorial boundaries of the government in which it is
issued. The law of that government may attach certain
consequences to the fact of its service in a foreign country, but
it can do so only with reference to the effect of the proceeding
on persons or property subject to its own jurisdiction. Courts,
as a general rule, can act only when they have jurisdiction over
the person, the subject-matter, and the cause.
In rare cases, jurisdiction over the subject-matter may be
regarded as giving jurisdiction over the person, so far as may be
necessary to uphold a judgment settling the possession or title
to property. Such a proceeding is, either in form or substance,
one not _in personam_ but _in rem_. The commonest
instance is a suit in admiralty to enforce a maritime lien, such
as that given by the universal law of the sea for seamen's wages.
Wherever the vessel is found, this lien is recognized and will be
enforced by seizing and selling her, but only after some kind of
public notice has been given to all who have any pecuniary
interest in her to appear and be heard. In such a suit, personal
notice to her owners, served within the jurisdiction of the
government to the courts of which the seamen may resort, is not
indispensable. The presence of the ship within the power of the
court is enough.
While State courts have no admiralty jurisdiction, they can
adjudicate upon a claim of title or right of possession to fixed
property within the territorial limits of their State, although
the parties adversely interested are not and have not been
personally served with process there or anywhere. Here again
their power over the property necessarily implies such power of
control over those who might lay claim to it as will suffice to
settle any dispute over its ownership or possession. But in all
ordinary cases they are not only powerless to subject any one to
obedience to their judgments who is not personally within the
State in which they exist, but powerless so to subject one who is
personally within it, but who did not belong there and was not
there served with process in the original proceeding leading up
to the judgment, unless he voluntarily took part in the
proceeding.
In most civilized nations there is a recognized form of
proceeding by which a judgment of a foreign court, fairly
rendered after giving a proper opportunity to the defendant for a
hearing, can be enforced by process from a domestic tribunal.
This is styled making the foreign judgment executory. The
English common law did not recognize such a right, and gave no
remedy to one desiring to enforce a foreign judgment, except that
of bringing a fresh suit. In like manner, whoever has recovered
a judgment against an inhabitant of any State, in a court held
outside of that State, can enforce it against him in his own
State only by bringing a new action. This either is, or is in
the nature of, the common law action of "debt on judgment"; and
only two defenses are available. These are, first, that no such
judgment exists or is in force; and, second, that if it exists,
it was rendered by a court having no jurisdiction over the
subject-matter or the defendant.[Footnote: Pennoyer _v._
Neff, 95 U. S. Reports, 714; Grover & Baker Sewing Machine
Co. _v._ Radcliffe, 137 U. S. Reports, 287.] If there was
jurisdiction, it is of no consequence that it was erroneously or
unfairly exercised. The remedy for that must be sought in the
State where the judgment was pronounced. Even fraud on the part
of the plaintiff in procuring it, though a defense against a
judgment of a foreign country is not one against a judgment of
another State.[Footnote: Christmas _v._ Russell, 5 Wallace's
Reports, 290.] These rules are established by Art. IV, Sec. I of
the Constitution of the United States and by Acts of Congress
passed to enforce it.[Footnote: U. S. Revised Statutes,
Sec. 905.]
Commercial intercourse between the different States is so great
and so constant that questions in the courts of one often arise
which turn on the law of another. Those who do any act do it
with implied reference to the law of the place where it is done,
so far as respects its legal consequences. If it is a wrongful
act there, it will in most instances be deemed a wrongful act
everywhere. If it leads to a certain result as regards property
rights there, it will ordinarily give a right of action anywhere,
to secure the benefit of that result.
The law of each State is largely an unwritten common law. Even
in those where they have full codes defining civil rights, these
codes are expressed in terms for the definitions of many of which
the common law gives the rule. But this common law is not
precisely the same in any two States. In minor points certainly,
and perhaps in capital ones, there will be a divergence. In
England there is one uniform common law. Here, divided as we are
for most business purposes into forty-five different
sovereignties, it is multiform.
If, then, the court of one State in determining the legal effect
of a transaction having its seat in another must be governed by
the common law of that State, where is it to be found? If there
have been decisions of its highest courts in regard to what it is
with reference to the point in question, they will ordinarily be
accepted as conclusive.
This is not by virtue of the provision in the Constitution of the
United States that full faith and credit is to be given in each
State to the public records and proceedings of the others. That
refers to the effect of public records and proceedings upon the
rights of those who are or claim under parties to them. Such
decisions as those which have been described are accepted as
conclusive as to the rights of those who were not parties to
them, and simply because they are considered the best evidence
attainable of a rule of unwritten law of general application.
But they are not universally so considered. The rule that
transactions are governed by the law of the place where they have
their seat is one founded on the presumed intent of the parties
to them. But in fact the parties to a business transaction act
on their general notions of what the law is or must be, rather
than on any particular knowledge of what courts have declared
that it is. The rule that one country will accept the opinion of
the judicial authorities of another as to what its law is, is one
not to be pressed so far as to sacrifice essential justice. In
this point of view, some courts hold that it is permissible to
disregard decisions of other States which are based on a
departure from what is generally considered a settled doctrine of
the common law as to a commercial question. This is
substantially the same position taken by the Supreme Court of the
United States, and elsewhere described,[Footnote: See Chap. X.]
concerning the right of a federal court to refuse to be bound by
State decisions as to the unwritten law affecting foreign trade
or trade between the States.[Footnote: Faulkner _v._ Hart,
82 N. Y. Reports, 413, 423.]
Another rule of practice of great importance is that in the
absence of proof to the contrary the courts will presume, in a
State basing its jurisprudence on the English common law, that
the unwritten law of any other American State is the same as its
own. As the reason of this rule fails in the case of Louisiana,
Florida and Texas, which were subject to organized governments
not derived from Great Britain at the time when they were
incorporated into the United States, it is not applied to
them.[Footnote: Norris _v._ Harris, 15 California Reports,
253.]
Decisions of a court constitute a precedent of binding obligation
only within the particular territorial jurisdiction which is
subject to its process. In the tribunals of one State decisions
rendered in another on legal points are, so far as respects
transactions not governed by its local law, without any
authoritative force. They may be read, just as the opinions of
an author expressed in a legal treatise, or as the decisions of
an English or German court might be, for what they appear to be
worth. No formal proof that they were really the deliverances of
the court from which they purport to emanate is necessary to
support their use for this purpose.
The reported decisions of courts of other States, whether
published officially or unofficially, may be cited in argument in
any cause, to fortify the claims of counsel as to the proper
rules to be followed in reaching a decision. For this use they
are introduced simply for the intrinsic value of the reasoning
and conclusions.
If it is claimed that they prove the law of the State from which
they come to be of a certain nature (and that is a material point
in the case), they should be made the subject of proof before
argument.[Footnote: Hanley _v._ Donoghue, 116 U. S. Reports,
1.] In many States this is dispensed with by statutes allowing
courts to take judicial notice of all reported decisions in other
States; that is, in effect, to take any means which they think
proper to learn what they are. It is also the general practice
of the bar where no such statutes exist to allow the reports of
other States to be read for any purpose without objection.
Most States have statutes to facilitate the proof in court of the
statute laws of other States. The mode prescribed by Act of
Congress (Revised Statutes, Sec. 905) under the constitutional
provision, to which reference has been made, involves
considerable expense for the proper certification of copies.
Common provisions of State legislation are that all courts may
take judicial notice of the laws of other States (that is, take
them into account without any formal proof at all), or that a
copy of the official publications containing them shall be
competent evidence of what they are.
There is a certain spirit of comity to which courts often give
expression in rendering assistance to courts of other countries.
This judicial comity has been defined as "the deference commonly
paid by the courts of one jurisdiction to the laws or proceedings
of another, in causes affecting rights claimed under such laws or
proceedings."[Footnote: "Dict. of Philosophy and Psychology,"
_Comity_.] As between courts of the different States in the
United States this sentiment naturally is particularly strong.
In pursuance of it, it is usual, if there has been a judicial
appointment in one State of a representative of the law to
administer an estate of any kind, part of which is in another
State, for the courts of the latter to give him such further
powers or appointment as may be necessary to put in his
possession or control whatever is within their jurisdiction. An
administrator of the estate of a deceased person would thus be
appointed, almost as a matter of course, administrator of such
estate in whatever State property or rights of action belonging
to it might be found. A receiver appointed by a court of equity
to take possession of property would ordinarily, in like manner,
be appointed to the same office wherever any part of such
property might be situated; and in some States such an officer
has been permitted to sue for it under his original appointment.
The general doctrine, however, is that a receiver in chancery
(that is, a receiver appointed by a court of equity) is simply an
arm of the court which appoints him, and has no authority to act
outside of the territorial jurisdiction of that court.[Footnote:
Hale _v._ Allinson, 188 U. S. Reports, 56.]
A receiver of an insolvent corporation often finds that it has
shareholders living in several different States, who have not
fully paid in their subscriptions to its capital stock. In such
case, if the statute of the State under the laws of which it was
incorporated provided for the appointment of a receiver for
insolvent corporations of that character, he may be regarded in
other States as one to whom each shareholder, in legal effect,
promised to pay such part of his subscription as had not been
previously paid to the corporation itself. On this theory of
liability, a foreign receiver has a right of action by virtue of
his official position, indeed, but not because of authority from
a foreign court to use that position for such a purpose. He sues
as one to whom the shareholder promised to make a payment, and on
a direct contract between the two, which is implied by
law.[Footnote: Fish _v._ Smith, 73 Conn. Reports, 377; 47
Atlantic Reporter, 711; 84 American State Reports, 161.]
The sentiment or rule (for from being a sentiment it has risen to
be a rule) of comity between States both aids in the enforcement
in one of rights acquired under the other,[Footnote: Finney
_v._ Guy, 189 U. S. Reports, 335, 346.] and in the
prevention by one of acts which would infringe on prohibitions
created by the other. Thus, if a corporation of one State has
been organized to do business in another, it may be enjoined in
its home State from amalgamating with a corporation of the other,
contrary to the public policy of the other as declared by its
courts.[Footnote: Coler _v._ Tacoma Railway and Power Co.,
70 New Jersey Law Reports; 54 Atlantic Reporter, 413.]
As no legal process can be effective outside the limits of the
sovereignty by authority of which it is issued, no court of a
State can summon before it witnesses not found within its
jurisdiction, who live in another State. This, in view of the
free intercourse and trade between all parts of the United
States, would work intolerable hardship had not statutes been
passed by every State permitting testimony to be taken outside of
its limits by written deposition for use in civil cases.
So far as criminal causes are concerned, this mode of relief
generally cannot be pursued, owing to the common provision in our
State Constitutions that the accused must be confronted by the
witnesses against him. Most of the Northeastern States, to meet
this difficulty, have passed statutes requiring their citizens
when summoned by a local magistrate at the request of a court of
another State to appear and testify before it in such a
prosecution, to do so upon receiving payment for their time and
expenses, on pain of a considerable pecuniary
forfeiture.[Footnote: New Hampshire inaugurated this legislation
more than sixty years ago. Public Stat., ed. 1842, 382. Most of
the statutes apply only to adjoining or neighboring States, and
some require reciprocity on their part.]
* * * * *
Lawyers of one State have no right to practice in any other. By
courtesy and on motion of a member of the bar, it is customary
for the courts of other States to allow them to participate in
the conduct of any particular cause. In some States, lawyers who
have removed their residence into them from another may in the
same manner be admitted to their bar; in most there is a standing
rule on the subject which requires proof of their having
practiced in the courts of their original State for a certain
number of years, and otherwise provides for an examination into
their legal attainments.
* * * * *