Court Opinion

ID: 9418158
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:10:51.785633+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:21:56.416255
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Holmes,
concurring specially.
I am not prepared to dissent from the judgment of the court, but my reasons are different from those that have been stated.
The real question concerns the effect of the Washington decree. As between'the parties to it that decree established iir Washington a personal obligation of the husband to convey to - his former wife. A persorial obligation goes with the person. •If the husband had made a contract, valid by the law of Washington, to do the same- thing, I think there is no doubt that the contract would have been binding in Nebraska. Ex parte *15Pollard, 4 Deacon, 27, 40; Polson v. Stewart, 167 Massachusetts, 211. So I conceive that a Washington decree for the specific performance of such a contract would be entitled to full faith and credit,as between the parties in Nebraska. But it does not matter to its constitutional effect what the ground of the decree may be, whether a contract or something else. Fauntleroy v. Lum, 210 U. S. 230. (In this case it may have been that the wife contributed equally to the accumulation of the property, and so had an equitable claim.) A personal dé-cree is equally within the, jurisdiction of a court having the person within its power, whatever its ground and whatever it orders the defendant to do. Therefore I think that this decree was entitled to full faith and credit in Nebraska.
But the Nebraska Court carefully avoids saying that the decree, would not be binding between the original parties had the husband been before the court. The ground on which it goes is that to allow the judgment to affect the conscience of purchasers would be giving it an effect in rem. It treats the case as. standing on the same footing as that of an innocent purchaser. Now if the court saw fit to deny the effect of a judgment upon privies in title, or if it considered the defendant an innocent purchaser, I do not see what we have to do with its decision, however wrong. I do not see why it is not within the .power of the State to do away with equity or with the equitable doctrine as to purchasers with notice if it sees fit. Still less do I see how a mistake as to notice could give us jurisdiction. If the judgment binds the defendant it is not by its own operation, even with the Constitution behind it, but by the obligation imposed by equity upon a. purchaser with notice. The ground of decision below was that there was no such obligation. The decision, even if wrong, did not deny to the Washington decree its full effect. Bagley v. General Fire Extinguisher Co., 212 U. S. 477, 480.