Weaver v. Boggs

Miller, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The cause of action stated in the declaration in this case is a judgment rendered against the appellant in favor of the appellee in the Court of Common Pleas, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, on the 26th of April, 1869. The defendant pleaded, among other pleas, that he was never served with, nor had any notice of any process in the action in which the alleged judgment was recovered. The plaintiff replied and relied upon returns of nihil to two successive writs of scire facias upon a judgment recovered by him against the defendant in the said Court of Common Pleas in 1836, and judgment after such returns of nihil in 1869.

The defendant rejoined, first that the judgment alleged in the replication as recovered in 1836, was rendered more than twenty years before the issuing of said writs of scire facias, and second, that the defendant was a citizen of Maryland, and had resided therein continuously for more than twenty years next before the alleged writs were issued, and hath since resided in Maryland, and had no actual notice of said writs, or either of them. The plaintiff demurred to these rejoinders, and the Court below sustained the demurrer, and gave judgment thereon in favor of the plaintiff. The question thus presented by the pleadings is, can a suit be maintained in the Courts of this State upon a judgment of a Court of another State, rendered upon returns of nihil to two successive writs of scire facias issued to revive a judgment in the foreign Court of move ²⁶⁰ than twenty years standing, where the defendant in the original judgment had, for more than twenty years next before the issuing of the writs, resided in this State out of the jurisdiction of the Court that rendered the judgment, and had no notice of such writs? The same question is presented by the rejection of the defendant’s prayer in the third exception, and substantially also by the ruling in the second exception.

In this last mentioned exception there is an agreement that the decisions of the State Courts of Pennsylvania shall be read as evidence of the law of that State applicable to the case, and from that agreement we infer that this Court is at liberty to consider the Pennsylvania decisions not simply as authorities, but as evidence, and apply them as such in this case so far as may be necessary in the determination of the question before us. Upon looking to those decisions we find there is in that State no period of limitations prescribed by statute for the bringing of actions upon judgments, yet it has been distinctly'announced as the law there, that if a judgment be suffered to stand for twenty years with no steps in the meantime taken to revive it or keep it alive, in part payment, and no explanation or accounting for the delay, it is presumed to be satisfied, and in such case that presumption is a presumption of law, and the fact of actual payment aud satisfaction is not to be submitted as an open question -for the belief of a jury. Cope vs. Humphreys, 14 Seargt. & Rawle, 15. We have neither seen nor been referred to any decisions of the’ Courts of that State establishing the law differently.

It is well settled that a judgment obtained in a Court of one State cannot be enforced in the Courts and against a citizen of another, unless the Court rendering the judgment has acquired jurisdiction over the defendant by actual service of process upon him, or by his voluntary appearance to the suit and submission to that jurisdiction. ²⁶¹ Such a judgment may he perfectly valid in the jurisdiction where rendered, and enforced there even against the property, effects, and credits oí a non resident defendant there situated, but it cannot be enforced or made the foundation of an action in another State. A law which substitutes constructive for actual notice is binding upon persons domiciled within the State where such law prevails, and as respects the property of others there situated, but can bind neither person nor property beyond its limits. This rule is based upon international law, and upon that natural protection which every country owes to its own citizens. It concedes the jurisdiction of the Court to the extent of the State where the judgment is rendered, but upon the principle that it would be unjust to its own citizens to give effect to the judgments of a foreign tribunal against them when they had no opportunity of being .heard, its validity is denied.

This doctrine is in no wise affected by the provision of the Constitution of the United States and the Acts of Congress passed in pursuance thereof, 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 judicial proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof.” The State Courts have uniformly so determined, and the Supreme Court of the United States has fully confirmed the correctness of such decisions. D’Arcey vs. Ketchum, et al., 11 Howard, 165 . This rule has been enforced in numerous instances and against judgments obtained without notice under various laws and in various modes. Its application is to be determined by the circumstances of each case as it arises.

No decision has been cited applying the rule to a