Opinion ID: 2382094
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Heading: Full Faith and Credit and the UEFJA

Text: The Full Faith and Credit clause of the United States Constitution provides that 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. Congress prescribed the manner of according full faith and credit by the Act of May 26, 1790, 1 Stat. 122 (1790), codified at 28 U.S.C. § 1738 (1994). Historically, the party seeking to enforce a judgment in a sister state had to bring a separate court action in that state. See Weiner v. Blue Cross of Maryland, Inc., 730 F.Supp. 674, 676 (D.Md.1990) (noting that [u]nder the common law, the procedure to enforce the judgment of one jurisdiction in another required the filing of a new suit in the second jurisdiction to enforce the judgment of the first, and that [t]he suit on the judgment was an independent action), aff'd, 925 F.2d 81 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, 502 U.S. 816, 112 S.Ct. 69, 116 L.Ed.2d 43 (1991). As the United States Supreme Court stated long ago, [b]y the law of the 26th of May, 1790, the judgment is made a debt of record, not examinable upon its merits; but it does not carry with it, into another state, the efficacy of a judgment upon property or persons, to be enforced by execution. To give it the force of a judgment in another state, it must be made a judgment there; and can only be executed in the latter as its laws may permit. M'Elmoyle v. Cohen, 38 U.S. (13 Pet.) 312, 325, 10 L.Ed. 177, 183 (1839). Similarly, in Bauernschmidt v. Safe Deposit & Trust Co., 176 Md. 351, 4 A.2d 712 (1939), this Court refused to attach a husband's spendthrift trust, located in Maryland, to satisfy a California court's decree for separate maintenance on the ground that, under Maryland law, the income of such a trust was not attachable, and [w]hen the enforcement of a foreign judgment or decree is sought in this state, it can only be done in accordance with the provisions of the law applicable to local judgments and decrees. `To give it the force of judgment in another State, it must be made a judgment there, and can only be executed in the latter as its laws may permit.' Id. at 355, 4 A.2d at 713 (citations omitted) (quoting M'Elmoyle, 38 U.S. (13 Pet.) at 325, 10 L.Ed. at 183). In order to facilitate the enforcement of judgments, in 1948 the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, and the American Bar Association, proposed the Uniform Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Act (UEFJA), which would permit the registration of foreign judgments. See 13 U.L.A. 181 (1986) (including the 1948 version of the Act). In their Prefatory Note, the Commissioners stated: The mobility, today, of both persons and property is such that existing procedure for the enforcement of judgments in those cases where the judgment debtor has removed himself and his property from the state in which the judgment was rendered, is inadequate. By this act procedure is made available under which the judgment creditor can effectively obtain relief.... Id. Section 15 of the 1948 UEFJA provided that [s]atisfaction, either partial or complete, of the original judgment or of a judgment entered thereupon in any other state shall operate to the same extent as satisfaction of the judgment in this state, except as to costs authorized by section 14. Id. at 204. The latter section provided that [w]hen a registered foreign judgment becomes a final judgment of this state, the court shall include as part of the judgment interest payable on the foreign judgment under the law of the state in which it was rendered.... Id. at 203. In 1964, the National Commissioners amended the UEFJA, eliminating the sections noted above, as well as the right of the judgment debtor to raise substantive defenses, such as counter-claim or set-off, to the foreign judgment, and otherwise streamlining the Act's procedures. The Prefatory Note stated: This 1964 revision ... adopts the practice which, in substance, is used in Federal courts [under 28 U.S.C. § 1963]. It provides the enacting state with a speedy and economical method of doing that which it is required to do by the Constitution of the United States. It also relieves creditors and debtors of the additional cost and harassment of further litigation which would otherwise be incident to the enforcement of the foreign judgment. Id. at 150. Maryland adopted the 1964 version of the UEFJA in 1987. See Chapter 497 of the Acts of 1987. In Weiner, then district judge Paul Niemeyer discussed Maryland's UEFJA in deciding whether a judgment originally entered in the state courts of Florida, and subsequently filed in Maryland under the UEFJA, was removable from the Circuit Court for Baltimore County to the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, where the judgment debtor intended collaterally to attack the judgment on federal preemption grounds. Weiner, 730 F.Supp. at 675-76. Noting that under common law a suit filed to enforce the judgment of a sister state was an independent action, and thus was removable, and that the UEFJA was not intended to alter the substantive rights of parties, Judge Niemeyer concluded that the UEFJA did not alter the removability of a cause of action, and denied the judgment creditor's motion to remand. He stated: When the Uniform Enforcement Act was revised in 1964, the procedure was modified to parallel that established by 28 U.S.C. § 1963, which allows a prevailing party to enforce a federal district court judgment by registering it in another federal district. Registration pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1963 is considered `the equivalent of a new judgment of the registration court.' See Stanford v. Utley, 341 F.2d 265, 268 (8th Cir.1965). .... While the Uniform Enforcement Act eliminates the need for filing of a complaint and following other procedures, it does not purport to alter any substantive rights or defenses that otherwise would be available either to the judgment creditor or the judgment debtor if suit were filed to enforce that foreign judgment. Since the judgment debtor would be entitled to remove to federal court an independent action to enforce a judgment that satisfied the provisions of 28 U.S.C. § 1441, the adoption by a state of an act merely to streamline the procedure should not alter the right of removal which was created by Congress. Id. at 677 (citation omitted). The principle to be drawn from this decision is that because the UEFJA is intended merely to streamline the procedure of filing a new suit, and not to alter substantive rights, whatever rights or defenses a party may have had with respect to an independent action in the enforcement state, that party also has with respect to the judgment filed under the UEFJA. See also Guinness PLC v. Ward, 955 F.2d 875, 891, 892 (4th Cir.1992) (adopting the construction of the UEFJA in Weiner and noting further that the Act was designed merely as a facilitating device and was not intended to alter any substantive rights or defenses which would otherwise be available to a judgment creditor or judgment debtor in an action for an enforcement of a foreign judgment). In view of this, the assertion by the Court of Special Appeals that [Smith's] position that a foreign judgment filed in Maryland becomes a Maryland judgment... is wrong is an overstatement. [7] See Mike Smith Pontiac, 123 Md.App. at 505, 719 A.2d at 997. Precisely because the UEFJA is merely a facilitating device, the filing of a foreign judgment under the UEFJA indeed does result in a Maryland judgment, just as if the filing party had chosen to enforce the foreign judgment by initiating a separate action in this state. It does not follow, however, that the domesticated judgment can have no reference to the original judgment, as we shall explain in Parts III, IV, and V, infra.