Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-13-15954/USCOURTS-ca9-13-15954-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Fidelity Express Network, Inc.
Appellant
Fidelity National Financial, Inc.
Appellant
Colin H. Friedman
Appellee
Hedy Kramer Friedman
Appellee
Anita Kramer Meshkatai
Appellee
Farid Meshkatai
Appellee

Document Text:

FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

FIDELITY NATIONAL FINANCIAL,

INC., a Delaware corporation;

FIDELITY EXPRESS NETWORK, INC., a

California corporation,

Plaintiffs-Appellants,

v.

COLIN H. FRIEDMAN, individually

and as trustee of Friedman Family

trust UDT Dated 7/23/87; HEDY

KRAMER FRIEDMAN, individually

and as trustee of Friedman Family

trust UDT Dated 7/23/87; FARID

MESHKATAI, an individual; ANITA

KRAMER MESHKATAI, individually

and as trustee of Anita Kramer

Living Trust Dated 7/23/87,

Defendants-Appellees.

No. 13-15954

D.C. No.

2:11-mc-00072-

RCB

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Arizona

Robert C. Broomfield, Senior District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted

July 8, 2015—San Francisco, California

Filed August 17, 2015

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2 FIDELITY NAT’L FIN. V. FRIEDMAN

Before: Susan P. Graber and Paul J. Watford, Circuit

Judges, and Paul L. Friedman,* District Judge.

Opinion by Judge Friedman

SUMMARY**

Registration of Judgment

Reversing the judgment of the district court, and agreeing

with the Fifth Circuit, the panel held that a registered

judgment, entered in one federal district court and registered

in another pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1963, could itself be

registered in a third district.

COUNSEL

Andrew S. Jacob (argued), Polsinelli PC, Phoenix, Arizona,

for Defendants-Appellees.

Thomas H. Case (argued ) and Michael G. King, Hennelly &

Grossfield LLP, Marina del Rey, California, for PlaintiffsAppellants.

* The Honorable Paul L. Friedman, United States District Judge for the

District of Columbia, sitting by designation.

** This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has

been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

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FIDELITY NAT’L FIN. V. FRIEDMAN 3

OPINION

FRIEDMAN, District Judge:

The federal registration statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1963, permits

plaintiffs to take a judgment entered in one federal district

court and register it in another. A judgment so registered has

“the same effect as a judgment of the district court of the

district where registered and may be enforced in like

manner.” Id. This case presents a question of first

impression in this Circuit: may a registered judgment itself be

registered in yet another district? We answer yes — a

registered judgment is “[a] judgment in an action for the

recovery of money or property entered in any . . . district

court,” id., and itself may be registered. We therefore reverse

the judgment of the district court.

BACKGROUND

Plaintiffs Fidelity National Financial, Inc., and Fidelity

Express Network, Inc. (together “Fidelity”), obtained a

multimillion dollar civil fraud judgment against defendants in

2002 in the Central District of California. We dismissed

defendants’ appeal on April 16, 2003, and the judgment thus

became final on May 15, 2003. Defendants, however, have

satisfied only approximately 0.3% of the amount due and still

owe more than $10 million, including interest.

While defendants’ appeal in the original case was pending

in 2002, Fidelity registered the California judgment in the

District of Arizona pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1963. In 2007,

however, the Arizona registered judgment expired under that

state’s five-year statute of limitations for the enforcement of

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4 FIDELITY NAT’L FIN. V. FRIEDMAN

judgments.1 Fidelity’s subsequent attempt to renew the

Arizona registered judgment or re-register the California

judgment was rejected by the district court.2

Unable to enforce the Arizona registered judgment or reregister the original California judgment, Fidelity got

creative. In 2011, Fidelity registered the California judgment

in the Western District of Washington. Fidelity then

registered the Washington judgment in the District of

Arizona. Defendants cried foul and filed a motion under Rule

60(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to vacate the

second Arizona registration as void. The district court

granted the motion, vacated the second registration, and held

that only an original judgment, such as the California

judgment in this case, may be registered under 28 U.S.C.

§ 1963.

STANDARD OF REVIEW

We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We review

de novo the district court’s decision granting defendants’

Rule 60(b)(4) motion for relief from judgment. Export Grp.

v. Reef Indus., Inc., 54 F.3d 1466, 1469 (9th Cir. 1995).

1 Arizona Revised Statutes section 12-1551(B) provides that a judgment

may not be executed upon “after the expiration of five years from the date

of its entry unless the judgment is renewed.”

2

In 2012, the district court vacated the 2007 attempted renewal as

untimelybecause the 2002 Arizona registered judgment had expired under

the statute of limitations. Fid. Nat’l Fin., Inc. v. Friedman, 855 F. Supp.

2d 948 (D. Ariz. 2012).

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FIDELITY NAT’L FIN. V. FRIEDMAN 5

DISCUSSION

Title 28 U.S.C. § 1963 provides:

A judgment in an action for the recovery

of money or property entered in any . . .

district court . . . may be registered by filing a

certified copy of the judgment in any other

district . . . when the judgment has become

final by appeal or expiration of the time for

appeal or when ordered by the court that

entered the judgment for good cause

shown. . . . A judgment so registered shall

have the same effect as a judgment of the

district court of the district where registered

and may be enforced in like manner.

Fidelity contends that the district court improperly granted

relief from judgment because § 1963 permits the registration

of a registered judgment. We agree.

Three other courts have considered this issue and reached

differing conclusions. In Del Prado v. B.N. Development Co.,

No. 4:05-CV-234-Y, 2009 WL10308581, at *3–4 (N.D. Tex.

Jan. 9, 2009) (“Del Prado I”), the Northern District of Texas

confronted this question as a matter of first impression and

held that only “the initial judgment on the merits from the

rendering court — i.e., the ‘judgment in an action for the

recovery of money or property’ — . . . may be registered.” 

The Fifth Circuit reversed and concluded that, “[i]f a

registered judgment is to be given ‘the same effect as a

judgment of the district court of the district where registered,’

we see no reason why the . . . registered judgment should not

also be capable of being registered in another federal court

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6 FIDELITY NAT’L FIN. V. FRIEDMAN

and enforced in that court.” Del Prado v. B.N. Dev. Co.,

602 F.3d 660, 667 (5th Cir. 2010) (“Del Prado II”). The

District of Colorado, however, rejected the reasoning of the

Fifth Circuit and sided with the district court in Del Prado I,

holding that while a “judgment” is “a document reflecting the

determination of a claim on its merits,” a registered judgment

“is simply the perfection of an existing judgment in another

jurisdiction so as to permit foreign enforcement.” De Leon v.

Marcos, 742 F. Supp. 2d 1168, 1173 (D. Colo. 2010), vacated

for lack of jurisdiction, 659 F.3d 1276 (10th Cir. 2011). 

Therefore, the Colorado district court reasoned, “only an

original judgment resolving an adversarial proceeding for

tangible relief can be registered in another jurisdiction.” Id.

The district court in the instant case essentially adopted

the reasoning of the district court in De Leon, principally

relying on concerns that successive registration, as this

process has been termed, “would . . . allow[] Fidelity to

circumvent Arizona’s statute of limitations.” Fid. Nat’l Fin.,

Inc. v. Friedman, 939 F. Supp. 2d 974, 985 (D. Ariz. 2013). 

The plain language of § 1963, however, persuades us that the

Fifth Circuit’s analysis and holding are correct: a registered

judgment is a district court judgment like any other, so it also

may be registered.

We previously addressed § 1963 in Hilao v. Estate of

Marcos, 536 F.3d 980, 988 (9th Cir. 2008). In that case, we

held that the registering state’s statute of limitations, as

opposed to the statute of limitations of the original

judgment’s state, applied to registered judgments, because

“registering a judgment under § 1963 is the functional

equivalent of obtaining a new judgment of the registration

court.” Id. at 989. The same logic applies here. By the plain

language of § 1963, a registered judgment has the “same

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FIDELITY NAT’L FIN. V. FRIEDMAN 7

effect” as an original judgment and thus may itself be

registered, provided that it is a “judgment in an action for the

recovery of money or property.” 28 U.S.C. § 1963. Section

1963 does not limit registration to original judgments.

We disagree with defendants’ argument that a registered

judgment is not a “judgment in an action” because it is not

part of a suit contested on the merits. As we have noted, an

“action” is simply a “‘a civil or criminal judicial proceeding,’

and more specifically . . . ‘an ordinary proceeding in a court

of justice, by which one party prosecutes another party for the

enforcement or protection of a right.’” SEC v. McCarthy,

322 F.3d 650, 656 (9th Cir. 2003) (quoting BLACK’S LAW

DICTIONARY 28 (7th ed. 1999)). Although it is unclear

whether the “action” here would refer to the Washington

registration proceeding or the California suit that resulted in

the original judgment, both are “civil . . . judicial

proceeding[s]” and both concern Fidelity’s attempt to enforce

its rights against defendants. The full statutory phrase

“judgment in an action for the recovery of money or

property” therefore functionally serves only to limit

registration to monetary judgments, as opposed to injunctive

relief. See 11 CHARLES ALAN WRIGHT ET AL., Federal

Practice and Procedure § 2787 (3d ed. 2012) (“The

registration provision applies only to a judgment for the

recovery of money or property. It does not permit

enforcement elsewhere of a decree for injunctive relief.”).

Defendants contend that this is an absurd result because

it enables a plaintiff to jump from jurisdiction to jurisdiction

in seeking to recover on its money judgment. Successive

registration, however, is hardly unreasonable, let alone so

“patently absurd” as to require us to “refuse to give effect to

Congress’ chosen words.” Amalgamated Transit Union

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8 FIDELITY NAT’L FIN. V. FRIEDMAN

Local 1309 v. Laidlaw Transit Servs., Inc., 448 F.3d 1092,

1098 (9th Cir. 2006); see also Tamm v. UST-U.S. Trustee,

Honolulu (In re Hokulani Square, Inc.), 776 F.3d 1083, 1088

(9th Cir. 2015) (“The absurdity canon isn’t a license for us to

disregard statutory text where it conflicts with our policy

preferences; instead, it is confined to situations ‘where it is

quite impossible that Congress could have intended the result

. . . and where the alleged absurdity is so clear as to be

obvious to most anyone.’” (ellipsis in original) (quoting Pub.

Citizen v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 491 U.S. 440, 471 (1989)

(Kennedy, J., concurring))). Our reading of the statute

accords with § 1963’s purpose “to simplify and facilitate

collection on valid judgments.” Findley v. Blinken (In re

Joint E. & S. Dists. Asbestos Litig.), 22 F.3d 755, 763 (7th

Cir. 1994) (quotingColeman v. Patterson, 57 F.R.D. 146, 149

(S.D.N.Y. 1972)). The fact that successive registration

potentially allows plaintiffs to register a judgment that has

previously expired under a state’s statute of limitations is

irrelevant in view of the plain language of § 1963.

CONCLUSION

For the above reasons, we conclude that the registration

of the Washington registered judgment was valid; the

resulting Arizona registered judgment therefore was

enforceable under 28 U.S.C. § 1963. Section 1963 is clear:

a registered judgment has the “same effect” as a judgment

issued by the registering district and thus itself may be

registered, provided that it is “for the recovery of money or

property.”

REVERSED.

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