Union National Bank of Wichita Kansas v. Lamb/Dissent Frankfurter

by Felix Frankfurter

United States Supreme Court

337 U.S. 38

Union National Bank of Wichita Kansas  v.  Lamb

 Argued: and Submitted March 31, 1949. --- Decided: May 16, 1949

Mr. Justice FRANKFURTER, dissenting.

The Court finds that Roche v. McDonald, 275 U.S. 449, 48 S.Ct. 142, 72 L.Ed. 365, 53 A.L.R. 1141, is 'dispositive of the merits' of this case. I agree that that case demands the remand of this one; more than that can be found only by misconceiving what this case is about or what Roche v. McDonald decided

1. Article IV, § 1 of the Constitution commands the courts of each State to give 'Full Faith and Credit * * * to the * * * Judicial Proceedings of every other State,' and we have interpreted this command so straitly as to mean that the State of the forum cannot go behind the judgment of a sister State to establish such an allegation as that the judgment was procured by fraud, Christmas v. Russell, 5 Wall. 290, 18 L.Ed. 475, or that the judgment creditor was not the real party in interest, Titus v. Wallick, 306 U.S. 282, 59 S.Ct. 557, 83 L.Ed. 653. We have even required a State which prohibited the enforcement of gambling contracts to give full faith and credit to another State's judgment upon such a contract when the contract itself was entered in the State which regarded it as illegal. Fauntleroy v. Lum, 210 U.S. 230, 28 S.Ct. 641, 52 L.Ed. 1039. See also Kenney v. Supreme Lodge of the World, Loyal Order of Moose, 252 U.S. 411, 40 S.Ct. 371, 64 L.Ed. 638, 10 A.L.R. 716; Morris v. Jones, 329 U.S. 545, 67 S.Ct. 451, 91 L.Ed. 488, 168 A.L.R. 656.

2. Considerations of policy lying behind the Full Faith and Credit Clause, how ever, are by no means so forcibly presented where the issue is simply whether the forum must respect the limitation period attached to a foreign judgment or whether it may apply its own. This Court has accordingly held that a State may refuse to enforce the judgment of another State brought later than its own statute of limitations permits even though the judgment would still have been enforceable in the State which rendered it. McElmoyle for Use of Bailey v. Cohen, 13 Pet. 312, 10 L.Ed. 177; Bacon v. Howard, 20 How. 22, 15 L.Ed. 811.

3. Conversely, where the enforcement of a judgment by State A is sought in State B, which has a longer limitation period than State A, State B is plainly free to enter its own judgment upon the basis of State A's original judgment, even though that judgment would no longer be enforceable in State A. If enforcement of State B's new judgment is then sought in State A, State A cannot refuse to enforce it without violating the principle that the State where enforcement of a judgment is sought cannot look behind the judgment. That was the situation in Roche v. McDonald, 275 U.S. 449, 48 S.Ct. 142, 72 L.Ed. 365, 53 A.L.R. 1141, and so we there held.

4. The present situation is this: Colorado entered a judgment in 1927 which in 1945 was there revived in accordance with Colorado's procedure. In 1945 the 1927 judgment could not have been enforced in Missouri because barred by that State's statute of limitations. The question whether the 1945 proceedings gave rise to a judgment enforceable in Missouri thus depends, obviously, on whether those proceedings created a new Colorado judgment, or whether they merely had the effect of extending the Colorado statute of limitations on the old judgment. Only in the former the colorado statute of limitations of the merits'; in the latter, it is equally clear that McElmoyle for Use of Bailey v. Cohen, supra, 13 Pet. 312, 10 L.Ed. 177, and Bacon v. Howard, supra, 20 How. 22, 15 L.Ed. 811, would be controlling. Fundamental, therefore, to the issue of full faith and credit is an initial determination as to the effect in Colorado of its reviver proceedings.

5. The opinion of the Supreme Court of Missouri is not unequivocal. It could hardly, however, have assumed the law of Colorado to be that reviver proceedings create a new judgment, for it chiefly relied upon a decision of its own according full recognition to Roche v. McDonald and other cases invoking the principle that the forum cannot look behind a judgment brought there for enforcement. See Northwestern Brewers Supply Co. v. Vorhees, 356 Mo. 699, 703, 203 S.W.2d 422, 424. Surely we ought not to attribute to a State court a flagrant disregard of the decisions of this Court, particularly when it shows awareness of these decisions. ^[1] The more obvious interpretation of the Missouri court's opinion is that it as umed the effect of the Colorado proceedings to be what the face of the Colorado statute implies, namely, to extend the statute of limitations on the original judgment. ^[2] We should affirm, therefore, but for language which suggests a third view: that because the original judgment would have been unenforceable in Missouri at the time of the reviver proceedings, those proceedings were not entitled to full faith and credit no matter what their effect under Colorado law. If in fact the Colorado proceedings had resulted in a new judgment, this view would have disregarded Roche v. McDonald. But a State court may reach the right result despite an awkward formulation of the issue before it. Petitioner, to be entitled to redress, must establish that Colorado gave it a judgment which Missouri flouted, and it fails to do so unless it shows that under Colorado law a judgment of reviver is a new judgment.

6. The Court does not find that petitioner has sustained this burden, and we should neither initiate an independent examination of Colorado law nor rest upon phrases in a single decision that does not explicitly adjudicate the question. Yet the Court concludes, 'In this case it is the 1945 Colorado judgment that claims full faith and credit in Missouri. No Missouri statute of limitations is tendered to cut off a cause of action based on judgments of that vintage.' But the very question of Colorado law in issue is whether the 1945 proceedings did in fact create a new judgment entitled to claim full faith and credit. Since in the view most favorable to petitioner it is not clear whether the courts of Missouri have resolved this issue against petitioner or left it undecided, we should not by affirming foreclose all opportunity for petitioner to establish that the true effect of the reviver proceedings was to grant it a new judgment. But neither should we foreclose the issue in petitioner's favor.

In view of the unresolved elements of the situation, the procedure outlined in State of Minnesota v. National Tea Co., 309 U.S. 551, 557, 60 S.Ct. 676, 679, 680, 84 L.Ed. 920, should be followed in disposing of this case. Accordingly, I would vacate the judgment of the Supreme Court of Missouri and remand the case for further proceedings.

Notes

1. The improbability that this was the view of the Missouri courts is emphasized by the fact that such a view would inevitably inject into the case an issue which in fact they put aside as irrelevant: the effectiveness of personal service upon defendant in Missouri to obtain jurisdiction in Colorado to supplant the old judgment by a new one. See Owens v. Henry, 161 U.S. 642, 16 S.Ct. 693, 40 L.Ed. 837.
2. '* * * from and after twenty years from the entry of final judgment in any court of this state, the same shall be considered as satisfied in full, unless revived as provided by law.' 3 Colo.Stat.Ann.1935, c. 93, § 2.