Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/137/287/
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 20:57:17+00:00

Document:
Domicil generally determines the particular territorial jurisprudence to which the individual is subjected.
Although a judgment in one state against a citizen of another state may be held valid under local laws by the courts of the former, the courts of the latter are not bound to sustain it if it would be invalid but for the special laws of the state where rendered.
(1) That in a suit upon this judgment in Maryland, the courts of Maryland were not bound to hold the judgment as obligatory either on the ground of comity or of duty, contrary to the laws and policy of their own state.
(2) B. could not properly be presumptively held to knowledge and acceptance of particular laws of Pennsylvania or of all the states other than his own, allowing that to be done which was not authorized by the terms of the instrument he had executed.
This was an action brought in the Circuit Court of Cecil County, Maryland, by the Grover and Baker Sewing Machine Company against James Benge and John Benge, who were then citizens of Delaware, by summons and attachment on warrant, which was served on William P. Radcliffe as garnishee. Radcliffe filed pleas on behalf of the Benges according to the Maryland practice, putting the validity of the judgment in issue.
"This suit is instituted to recover the sum of twenty-three hundred dollars from the defendants, due and owing from the defendants to the plaintiff on and by virtue of a certain judgment which the plaintiff, on the third day of January in the year eighteen hundred and seventy-four in the Court of Common Pleas in and for the County of Chester in the State of Pennsylvania, one of the United States of America, by the judgment of the said court, recovered against the defendants, for the sum of three thousand dollars, which said judgment is still in force and unsatisfied."
executors, or administrators shall well and truly pay or cause to be paid to the said Drover & Baker Sewing Machine Company the full amount of each and every liability incurred or to be incurred by him, the said James Benge, to or with the said Drover & Baker Sewing Machine Company, for and on account of all sewing machines and all sewing machine findings, silks, and threads or other articles, including promissory notes and other property that may from time to time hereafter be sold, consigned, supplied, or otherwise entrusted to hire, the said James Benge, by the said Drover & Baker Sewing Machine Company, upon his orders or by his acceptance, with or without notice to the said John Benge at the time or times when each and every liability shall become due and payable or at such time and times for which payment of the same may hereafter, with or without notice to the said John Benge, be extended, then this obligation to be void. This obligation is intended to operate as a continuing security for the payment, when the same shall become due and be demanded, of all and every liability incurred to and with the said Drover & Baker Sewing Machine Company by the said James Benge aforesaid, to the amount not exceeding the limit of this bond."
"January 3d 1874 -- Judgment, $3,000.00."
bind ourselves, heirs, executors, and administrators, jointly and severally, firmly by these presents. Sealed with our seals. Dated the 16th day of March, one thousand eight hundred and seventy-two, and we hereby authorize any attorney of any court of record in the New York or any other state to confess judgment against us for the said sum, with release of errors, etc."
"Whereas the above-named James Benge at the special instance and request of the above-bound John Benge, has obtained a credit with the said Drover & Baker Sewing Machine Company for machines of their manufacture and for sewing machine findings, silks, and threads manufactured and dealt in by said Grover & Baker Sewing Machine Company and for other articles, including promissory notes and other property to be hereafter supplied to him, the said James Benge:"
"Now the condition of this obligation is such that if the above-bound James Benge, his heirs, executors, or administrators, shall well and truly pay or cause to be paid to the said Drover & Baker Sewing Machine Company the full amount of each and every liability incurred by him, the said James Benge, to or with the said Drover & Baker Sewing Machine Company for and on account of all sewing machines and all sewing machine findings, silks, and threads or other articles, including promissory notes and other property that may from time to time hereafter be sold, consigned, supplied, or otherwise entrusted to him, the said James Benge, by the said Grover & Baker Sewing Machine Company upon his orders or by his acceptance, with or without notice to the said John Benge at the time or times when each and every liability shall become due and payable, or at such time and times for which payment of the same may hereafter, with or without notice to the said John Benge, be extended, then this obligation to be void."
the said James Benge, as aforesaid, to the amount not exceeding the limit of this bond, three thousand dollars."
"It shall be the duty of the prothonotary of any court of record within this Commonwealth, on the application of any person being the original holder (or assignee of such holder) of a note, bond, or other instrument of writing, in which judgment is confessed, or containing a warrant for an attorney at law or other person to confess judgment, to enter judgment against the person or persons who executed the same for the amount which, from the face of the instrument, may appear to be due, without the agency of an attorney, or declaration filed, with such stay of execution as may be therein mentioned, for the fee of one dollar, to be paid by the defendant, particularly entering on his docket the date and tenor of the instrument of writing on which the judgment may be founded, which shall have the same force and effect, as if a declaration had been filed, and judgment confessed by an attorney, or judgment obtained in open court and in term time, and the defendant shall not be compelled to pay any costs or fee to the plaintiff's attorney when judgment is entered on any instrument of writing as aforesaid."
"The common law of Pennsylvania, the practice of her courts, and the construction placed by her courts upon any statutes in force in that state may be proved by the decisions of the Pennsylvania courts, as reported in the printed volumes of Pennsylvania Reports."
The other evidence adduced tended to establish or disprove that the property in controversy in the attachment and garnishment belonged to John Benge.
judgment offered in evidence by the plaintiff was entered, did not authorize the prothonotary of the Court of Common Pleas in and for the County of Chester, in the State of Pennsylvania, to enter the said judgment, and their verdict should be for the defendant."
The verdict was accordingly returned for the defendant and judgment entered thereon, and an appeal prosecuted therefrom to the Court of Appeals of the State of Maryland, by which the judgment was affirmed, and a writ of error was thereupon allowed to this Court. The opinion of the Court of Appeals will be found reported in 66 Md. 511.
The Maryland circuit court arrived at its conclusion upon the ground that the statute of Pennsylvania relied on did not authorize the prothonotary of the Court of Common Pleas of that state to enter the judgment, and the Court of Appeals of Maryland reached the same result upon the ground that the judgment was void as against John Benge, because the court rendering it had acquired no jurisdiction over his person.
state, upon whom no personal service of process within the state was made, and who did not appear. D'Arcy v. Ketchum, 11 How. 165; Thompson v. Whitman, 18 Wall. 457; Hall v. Lanning, 91 U. S. 160; Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U. S. 714.
The rule is not otherwise in the State of Pennsylvania, where the judgment in question was rendered, Guthrie v. Lowry, 84 Penn.Stat. 533; Scott v. Noble, 72 Penn.Stat. 115; Noble v. Oil Co., 79 Penn.Stat. 354; Steel v. Smith, 7 W. & S. 447; nor in the State of Maryland, where the action under review was brought upon it, Bank of United States v. Merchants' Bank, 7 Gill, 415; Clark v. Bryan, 16 Md. 171; Weaver v. Boggs, 38 Md. 255. And the distinction between the validity of a judgment rendered in one state, under its local laws upon the subject, and its validity in another state, is recognized by the highest tribunals of each of these states.
against all the defendants which would have full faith and credit given to it in the courts of the state. But that a judgment is always regular when there has been an appearance by attorney, with or without warrant, and that it cannot be impeached collaterally for anything but fraud or collusion, is a municipal principle, and not an international one having place in a question of state jurisdiction or sovereignty. Now, though the courts of Louisiana would enforce this judgment against the persons of the defendants, if found within reach of their process, yet where there is an attempt to enforce it by the process of another state, it behooves the court whose assistance is invoked to look narrowly into the constitutional injunction, and give the statute to carry it out a reasonable interpretation."
"What, then, is the right of a state to exercise authority over the persons of those who belong to another jurisdiction, and who have perhaps not been out of the boundaries of it?"
"no sovereignty can extend its process beyond its own territorial limits to subject other persons or property to its judicial decisions. Every exertion of authority beyond these limits is a mere nullity, and incapable of binding such persons or property in other tribunals,"
no claim to extraterritorial authority, but merely concludes the party in its own courts, and leaves the rest to the Constitution as carried out by the act of Congress. When, however, a creditor asks us to give such a judgment what is in truth an extraterritorial effect, he asks us to do what we will not, till we are compelled by a mandate of the court in the last resort."
"It is well settled that a judgment obtained in a court of one state cannot be enforced in the courts and against a citizen of another unless the court rendering the judgment has acquired jurisdiction over the defendant by actual service of process upon him or by his voluntary appearance to the suit and submission to that jurisdiction. Such a judgment may be perfectly valid in the jurisdiction where rendered, and enforced there even against the property, effects, and credits of a nonresident defendant there situated, but it cannot be enforced or made the foundation of an action in another state. A law which substitutes constructive for actual notice is binding upon persons domiciled within the state where such law prevails and as respects the property of others there situated, but can bind neither person nor property beyond its limits. This rule is based upon international law, and upon that natural protection which every country owes to its own citizens. It concedes the jurisdiction of the court to the extent of the state where the judgment is rendered, but upon the principle that it would be unjust to its own citizens to give effect to the judgments of a foreign tribunal against them when they had no opportunity of being heard, its validity is denied."
territorial jurisprudence to which every individual is subjected. As correctly said by Mr. Wharton, the nationality of our citizens is that of the United States, and by the laws of the United States they are bound in all matters in which the United States are sovereign; but in other matters, their domicile is in the particular state, and that determines the applicatory territorial jurisprudence. A foreign judgment is impeachable for want of personal service within the jurisdiction of the defendant, this being internationally essential to jurisdiction in all cases in which the defendant is not a subject of the state entering judgment, and it is competent for a defendant in an action on a judgment of a sister state, as in an action on a foreign judgment, to set up as a defense want of jurisdiction in that he was not an inhabitant of the state rendering the judgment and had not been served with process and did not enter his appearance. Whart.Conflict Laws, §§ 32, 654, 660; Story Conflict Laws, §§ 539, 540, 586.
"any attorney of any court of record in the State of New York, or any other state, to confess judgment against him (us) for the said sum, with release of errors,"
etc. But the record did not show, nor is it contended, that he was served with process, or voluntarily appeared, or that judgment was confessed by an attorney of any court of record of Pennsylvania. Upon its face, then, the judgment was invalid, and to be treated as such when offered in evidence in the Maryland court.
was proved as a fact upon the trial in Maryland, and may be assumed to have authorized the action taken, though under Connay v. Halstead, 73 Penn.Stat. 354, that may perhaps be doubtful. And it is argued that the statute, being in force at the time this instrument was executed, should be read into it and considered as forming a part of it, and therefore that John Benge had consented that judgment might be thus entered up against him without service of process or appearance in person or by attorney.
But we do not think that a citizen of another state than Pennsylvania can be thus presumptively held to knowledge and acceptance of particular statutes of the latter state. What Benge authorized was a confession of judgment by any attorney of any court of record in the State of New York or any other state, and he had a right to insist upon the letter of the authority conferred. By its terms, he did not consent to be bound by the local laws of every state in the union relating to the rendition of judgment against their own citizens without service or appearance, but, on the contrary, made such appearance a condition of judgment. And even if judgment could have been entered against him, not being served and not appearing in each of the states of the union, in accordance with the laws therein existing upon the subject, he could not be held liable upon such judgment in any other state than that in which it was so rendered, contrary to the laws and policy of such state.
The courts of Maryland were not bound to hold this judgment as obligatory either on the ground of comity or of duty, thereby permitting the law of another state to override their own.
No color to any other view is given by our decisions in Johnson v. Chicago & Pacific Elevator Co., 119 U. S. 388, 119 U. S. 400, and Hopkins v. Orr, 124 U. S. 510, cited for plaintiff in error. Those cases involved the rendition of judgments against sureties on restitution and appeal bonds if judgment went against their principals, and the sureties signed with reference to the particular statute under which each bond was given, nor did, nor could, any such question arise therein as that presented in the case at bar.

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