Court Opinion

ID: 9646823
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 13:12:29.44612+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:42.411599
License: Public Domain

ON MOTION FOR REHEARING
The Appellant urges two grounds of error in his Motion for Rehearing. Initially, it is asserted that the California court did not have in personam jurisdiction over this out-of-state Appellant. He suggests our original opinion focused on the conduct of the Appellee and not on his conduct. We disagree. We noted originally that the main question was focused on “the three telephone calls to Julie Coplon in California.” The original opinion relies in part upon the holding in J. E. M. Corporation v. McClellan, 462 F.Supp. 1246 (USDC Kan.1978), which involved only one telephone call into the state exercising jurisdiction over an out-of-state resident. Point of Error No. One is overruled.
The second contention is that we erred in concluding that the hearsay testimony of Julie Coplon was only admitted to prove that a conversation took place. Under this point of error Appellant again contends that the foreign judgment could not be enforced in Texas because there was no competent evidence in the Texas case as to why Mrs. Coplon was fired and that her testimony in this regard was hearsay. This argument misses the point because of the failure of Appellant to recognize that under the full faith and credit clause the burden of showing the invalidity of the foreign judgment is upon the one attacking that judgment.
When a foreign judgment of a sister state regular on its face and properly authenticated is introduced in evidence, a prima facie case is established and the Texas law presumes that the foreign forum had jurisdiction over the cause and the parties unless disproved by extrinsic evidence or by the record itself. Colson v. Thunderbird Building Materials, 589 S.W.2d 836 (Tex. Civ.App.—Amarillo 1979, writ ref’d n. r. e.). The burden is then on the party resisting enforcement of the judgment to establish that it was not final and subsisting or that the court did not have jurisdiction to render it. Mitchim v. Mitchim, 518 S.W.2d 362 (Tex.1975). In seeking to enforce the California judgment in Texas, Mrs. Coplon was not required to relitigate the issue as to why she was fired by her employer in California. That issue was decided by the California court when it entered its judgment, and that decision is entitled to full faith and credit when the judgment is brought to this state to be enforced unless the extrinsic evidence shows the foreign court did not have jurisdiction. Since the burden to offer that extrinsic evidence rested upon the Appellant and not the Appellee, it was not incumbent upon Mrs. Coplon to offer valid proof concerning the basis for the termination of her employment in California. Shelby International, Inc. v. Wiener, 563 S.W.2d 324 (Tex.Civ.App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 1978, no writ); A & S Distributing Company, Inc. v. Providence Pile Fabric Corporation, 563 S.W.2d 281 (Tex.Civ.App.—Dallas 1977, writ ref’d n. r. e.). Point of Error No. Two is overruled.
The Motion for Rehearing is overruled.