Court Opinion

ID: 9644194
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 20:49:52.364725+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:09.635858
License: Public Domain

WILSON, Justice,
dissenting.
This case presents the issue of whether, despite the Texas constitutional prohibition, a Texas citizen’s current wages may be legally garnished in favor of a foreign judgment creditor pursuant to an “income deduction” (garnishment) order obtained in a sister state ancillary to a judgment admittedly entitled to full faith and credit. Because I believe the majority’s analysis indicates an affirmative answer, I respectfully dissent.
It is unclear from the majority’s opinion whether the Florida judgment and ancillary orders are receiving full faith and credit in Texas, and are being enforced accordingly, or whether the Texas courts are doing “nothing to enforce the valid Florida judgment,” and no full faith and credit issue is presented.
The majority cites GNLV Corp. v. Jackson, 736 S.W.2d 893, 894 (Tex.App.—Waco 1987, writ denied), for the proposition that a state cannot deny full faith and credit to another state’s judgment solely on the ground that it offends the public policy of the state where it is sought to be enforced. I believe Jackson stands for the proposition that a judgment based on a cause of action not recognized in Texas, but legally sued upon in a sister state, is entitled to full faith and credit in Texas. I do not read Jackson as authorizing the use of a collection procedure that is available in a sister state but is unconstitutional in Texas.
In Jackson, a Texas citizen sought to enjoin a Nevada corporation from enforcing a Nevada final judgment for a gambling debt. The Nevada corporation had filed in Texas under the Uniform Enforcements of Foreign Judgments Act. Tex.Civ. PRAC. & Rem.Code Ann. § 35.001 et seq. (Vernon 1986). The court held that the long standing public policy in Texas regarding enforcing gambling debts does not permit Texas to deny full faith and credit to the Nevada judgment.
But the Nevada corporation in Jackson did not seek to enforce its judgment by obtaining a garnishment order in Nevada, and that fact leaves Jackson unhelpful in the resolution of this case. Instead, the Nevada corporation sought to collect on its judgment using the procedures for enforcement under Texas law. Here, Roskelly is attempting to enforce her valid judgment by means of a Florida procedure legally unavailable in Texas. Unlike the Nevada corporation in Jackson, she is not availing herself of any enforcement rights under Texas law. How would the majority decide Jackson if Jackson had been employed in Texas by a business entity also doing business in Nevada, and GNLV had obtained a Nevada garnishment order on Jackson’s Texas wages ancillary to its judgment for debt? Is a person’s constitutional right in Texas to be free from garnishment of current wages (other than child support) dependent on whether the person’s Texas employer is subject to the jurisdiction of a sister state?
The majority also cites in support of its holding the case of Texaco, Inc. v. LeFevre, 610 S.W.2d 173, 176 (Tex.Civ.App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 1980, no writ). In LeFevre, our Court did not reach any full faith and credit issue, but found a Texas trial court obligated to follow a federal court decree, not one from a sister state’s court. The federal court resolved the inherent contradictions between competing state jurisdictions brought before the court by an inter-pleader action. In the case before us, we have no federal court order resolving the fundamental conflict. The majority makes the following statement in its opinion:
This is not a case wherein a party is seeking a Texas court order garnishing wages for the enforcement of a valid foreign judgment. That situation is clearly a different matter because Texas *212courts would then be asked to do an act which violates our constitution.
Op. at 210.
This to me seems to be a distinction that leads in circles. If Roskelly had brought suit to enforce her judgment in Texas, a Texas court would not issue a garnishment order to help her collection efforts. But if the garnishment order is obtained in a sister state, a Texas court is powerless to afford the rights of our constitution to a Texas citizen? If the majority is correct, an act taken by a Texas court in violation of the Texas Constitution will be remedied, but the refusal of a Texas court to protect a Texas citizen from the act of a foreign sovereign is without remedy.
I do not believe the collection enforcement remedies gained in this case only by the happenstance of having a Texas employer subject to Florida jurisdiction are entitled to full faith and credit in Texas in the face of a direct and clear Texas constitutional prohibition. The majority’s analysis erects a bypass around the Uniform Enforcement of Judgments Act, thus permitting a foreign judgment creditor to enforce a sister state judgment in Texas against a Texas citizen by appearing only in a foreign jurisdiction. Any remedies available to the Texas citizen under Texas law are lost, not by what the Texas citizen has done, but because of the choice of forum for enforcement taken by the adversary. I would order the case reversed, and render summary judgment granted in favor of the appellant.