Court Opinion

ID: 9428056
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:22:39.435461+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:11.459481
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice White,
with whom The Chiee Justice and Mr. Justice Powell join, concurring in the judgment.
I agree that the judgment of the Court of Appeals should be reversed, but I am unable to join in the reasoning by which the plurality reaches that result. Although the plurality argues strenuously that the rule of today’s decision is limited to awards by state workmen’s compensation boards, it seems to me that the underlying rationale goes much further. If the employer had exercised its statutory right of appeal to the Supreme Court of Virginia and that Court upheld the award, I presume that the plurality’s rationale would nevertheless permit a subsequent award in the District of Columbia. Otherwise, employers interested in cutting off the possibility of a subsequent award in another jurisdiction need only seek judicial review of the award in the first forum. But if such a judicial decision is not preclusive in the second forum, then it appears that the plurality’s rationale is not limited in its effect to judgments of administrative tribunals.
The plurality contends that unlike courts of general jurisdiction, workmen’s compensation tribunals generally have no power to apply the law of another State and thus cannot determine the rights of the parties thereunder. Ante, at 282. Yet I see no reason why a judgment should not be entitled to full res judicata effect under the Full Faith and Credit Clause merely because the rendering tribunal was obligated to apply *287the law of the forum — provided, of course, as was certainly the case here, that the forum could constitutionally apply its law. The plurality’s analysis seems to grant state legislatures the power to delimit the scope of a cause of action for federal full faith and credit purposes merely by enacting choice-of-law rules binding on the State’s workmen’s compensation tribunals. The plurality criticizes the McCartin case for vesting in the State the power to determine the extraterritorial effect of its own laws and judgments, ante, at 271; yet it seems that its opinion is subject to the same objection. In any event, I am not convinced that Virginia, by instructing its Industrial Commission to apply Virginia law, could be said to have intended that the cause of action which merges in the Virginia judgment would not include claims under the laws of other States which arise out of precisely the same operative facts.
As a matter of logic, the plurality’s analysis would seemingly apply to many everyday tort actions. I see no difference for full faith and credit purposes between a statute which lays down a forum-favoring choice-of-law rule and a common-law doctrine stating the same principle. Hence when a court, having power in the abstract to apply the law of another State, determines by application of the forum’s choice-of-law rules to apply the substantive law of the forum, I would think that under the plurality’s analysis the judgment would not determine rights arising under the law of some other State. Suppose, for example, that in a wrongful-death action the court enters judgment on liability against the defendant, and determines to apply the law of the forum which sets a limit on the recovery allowed. The plurality’s analysis would seem to permit the plaintiff to obtain a subsequent judgment in a second forum for damages exceeding the first forum’s liability limit.
The plurality does say that factual determinations by a workmen’s compensation board will be entitled to collateral-estoppel effect in a second forum. Ante, at 280-281. While this rule does, to an extent, circumscribe the broadest possible *288implications of the plurality’s reasoning, there would remain many cases, such as the wrongful-death example discussed above, in which the second forum could provide additional recovery as a matter of substantive law while remaining true to the first forum’s factual determinations. Moreover, the dispositive issues in tort actions are frequently mixed questions of law and fact as to which the second forum might apply its own rule of decision without obvious violation of the principles articulated by four Members of the Court. Actions by the defendant which satisfy the relevant standard of care in the first forum might nevertheless be considered “negligent” under the law of the second forum.
Hence the plurality’s rationale would portend a wide-ranging reassessment of the principles of full faith and credit in many areas. Such a reassessment is not necessarily undesirable if the results are likely to be healthy for the judicial system and consistent with the underlying purposes of the Full Faith and Credit Clause. But at least without the benefit of briefs and arguments directed to the issue, I cannot conclude that the rule advocated by the plurality would have such a beneficial impact.
One purpose of the Full Faith and Credit Clause is to bring an end to litigation. As the Court noted in Riley v. New York Trust Co., 315 U. S. 343, 348-349 (1942):
“Were it not for this full faith and credit provision, so far as the Constitution controls the matter, adversaries could wage again their legal battles whenever they met in other jurisdictions. Each state could control its own courts but itself could not project the effect of its decisions beyond its own boundaries.”
The plurality’s opinion is at odds with this principle of finality. Plaintiffs dissatisfied with a judgment would have every incentive to seek additional recovery elsewhere, so long as the first forum applied its own law and there was a colorable argument that as a matter of law the second forum would per*289mit a greater recovery. It seems to me grossly unfair that the plaintiff, having the initial choice of the forum, should be given the additional advantage of a second adjudication should his choice prove disappointing. Defendants, on the other hand, would no longer be assured that the judgment of the first forum is conclusive as to their obligations, and would face the prospect of burdensome and multiple litigation based on the same operative facts. Such litigation would also impose added strain on an already overworked judicial system.
Perhaps the major purpose of the Full Faith and Credit Clause is to act as a nationally unifying force. Sherrer v. Sherrer, 334 U. S. 343, 355 (1948). The plurality’s rationale would substantially undercut that function. When a former judgment is set up as a defense under the Full Faith and Credit Clause, the court would be obliged to balance the various state interests involved. But the State of the second forum is not a neutral party to this.balance. There seems to be a substantial danger — not presented by the firmer rule of res judicata — that the court in evaluating a full faith and credit defense would give controlling weight to its own parochial interests in concluding that the judgment of the first forum is not res judicata in the subsequent suit.
I would not overrule either Magnolia or McCartin. To my mind, Mr. Chief Justice Stone’s opinion in Magnolia states the sounder doctrine; as noted, I do not see any overriding differences between workmen’s compensation awards and court judgments that justify different treatment for the two. However, McCartin has been on the books for over 30 years and has been widely interpreted by state and federal courts as substantially limiting Magnolia. Unlike the plurality’s opinion, McCartin is not subject to the objection that its principles are applicable outside the workmen’s compensation area. Although I find McCartin to rest on questionable foundations, I am not now prepared to overrule it. And I agree with the plurality that McCartin, rather than Magnolia, is controlling as between the two precedents since the Virginia Workmen’s *290Compensation Act lacks the “unmistakable language” which McCartin requires if a workmen’s compensation award is to preclude a subsequent award in another State. I therefore, concur in the judgment.