Giovanni Bonaudo Mariles v. Arce Moreno Hector

CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedAugust 6, 2018
Docket05-16-00814-CV
StatusPublished

This text of Giovanni Bonaudo Mariles v. Arce Moreno Hector (Giovanni Bonaudo Mariles v. Arce Moreno Hector) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Giovanni Bonaudo Mariles v. Arce Moreno Hector, (Tex. Ct. App. 2018).

Opinion

AFFIRM; and Opinion Filed August 6, 2018.

In The Court of Appeals Fifth District of Texas at Dallas No. 05-16-00814-CV

GIOVANNI BONAUDO MARILES, Appellant V. ARCE MORENO HECTOR, Appellee

On Appeal from the 95th Judicial District Court Dallas County, Texas Trial Court Cause No. DC-14-01489

MEMORANDUM OPINION Before Justices Lang-Miers, Brown, and Boatright Opinion by Justice Brown Giovanni Bonaudo Mariles (Bonaudo) appeals the trial court’s order denying his motion

for nonrecognition of a March 2015 Mexican default judgment. He contends the trial court should

have refused to recognize the judgment for three reasons. Bonaudo also contends the trial court

erred in refusing to permit discovery. We affirm the trial court’s order.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Under the Uniform Foreign Country Money-Judgment Recognition Act (the Act), a copy

of a foreign country judgment authenticated in accordance with an act of congress, a statute of this

state, or a treaty or other international convention to which the United States is a party may be

filed in the office of the clerk of a court in the county of residence of the party against whom

recognition is sought. Act of May 26, 1989, 71st Leg., R.S., ch. 402, § 1, 1989 Tex. Gen. Laws 1544, and Act of May 17, 1985, 69th Leg., R.S., ch. 959, § 1, 1985 Tex. Gen. Laws 3275, repealed

by Act of May 22, 2017, 85th Leg., R.S., ch. 390, § 2, 2017 Tex. Gen. Laws. 1054, 1057 (current

version at TEX. CIV. PRAC. & REM. CODE ANN. § 36A.001-.011 (West Supp. 2017)).1 At the time

the foreign country judgment is filed, the party seeking recognition of the judgment shall file with

the clerk of the court an affidavit showing the name and last known post office address of the

judgment debtor and the judgment creditor. Id. § 36.0042(a). A party against whom recognition

of a foreign judgment is sought may contest recognition by filing a motion for nonrecognition of

the judgment based on one or more grounds found in section 36.005. Id. § 36.0044. Section

36.005 sets out ten grounds for nonrecognition, three of which are mandatory and seven of which

are discretionary. Id. § 36.005.

Appellee Arce Moreno Hector (Moreno) originally sought to recognize a September 2013

judgment from Mexico City’s Superior Court of Justice, Fourth Court in Civil Matters. In

February 2014, Moreno filed in the Dallas County district court an affidavit of filing of foreign

judgment pursuant to the Act. The affidavit, from Moreno’s attorney, stated that Moreno was the

judgment creditor and Bonaudo was the judgment debtor. The underlying lawsuit was an action

by Moreno against Bonaudo as guarantor of a $100,000 promissory note executed by a Mexican

corporation, Secner, HR, S.A. de C.V., and payable to Industrial de Valvulas, S.A. de C.V.

Bonaudo owns one third of Secner’s shares. Moreno is an attorney for Secner.

Bonaudo timely filed a “Motion for Non-recognition of Purported Foreign Country Money

Judgment.” He asserted the Mexican judgment was not subject to recognition under the Act

because in November 2013, a Mexican court prohibited any attempt to execute on it. Bonaudo

also argued he did not receive notice of the Mexican proceedings in sufficient time to defend,

1 The current version of the Act went into effect on June 1, 2017, after the trial court’s April 2016 order denying the motion for nonrecognition. It applies to “a pending suit in which the issue of recognition of a foreign-country money judgment is or has been raised without regard to whether the suit was commenced before, on, or after the effective date . . . of this Act.” Act of May 22, 2017, 85th Leg., R.S., ch. 390, § 3, 2017 Tex. Gen. Laws 1054, 1057. The version in effect when the trial court reached its decision in this case was located in chapter 36 of the civil practice and remedies code. For convenience, we will cite chapter 36, rather than the full session law. –2– which is a discretionary ground for nonrecognition. In addition, Bonaudo informed the court of a

lawsuit he had filed in another Dallas County district court against Secner, Secner’s majority

shareholder Juan Acra, and other business entities. Bonaudo asserted that lawsuit involved the

same subject matter as the underlying dispute and had been compelled to arbitration by Secner.

Attached to Bonaudo’s motion for nonrecognition was the declaration of Luis Cervantes,

an attorney licensed in Mexico. According to Cervantes, Bonaudo filed an amparo lawsuit in the

Fifth District Court in Civil Matters in Mexico City seeking to quash the September 2013

judgment. Cervantes explained that an amparo lawsuit is not an appeal. He described it as a

“federal and constitutional remedy against the acts of authorities (local or federal) that violate or

may be deemed as a violation of human rights and other constitutional fundamental rights.”

Cervantes stated that on November 12, 2013, the Fifth District Court in Civil Matters suspended

“any and all acts tending to the execution and/or enforcement of the Judgment.” Cervantes

attached to his declaration “a copy of the electronic version of the Amparo proceedings.”

In June 2014, Bonaudo filed a motion to compel written discovery responses from Moreno

as well as Moreno’s deposition. Moreno responded that discovery was not allowed in the context

of a motion for nonrecognition. He asserted that the proper action, if any, under the Act was to

stay enforcement of the judgment until the matter was resolved in Mexico. On August 1, 2014,

the trial court denied Bonaudo’s motion to compel and stayed all action in the cause until “such

time as final orders from the originating Court or the appropriate higher Court regarding the

original matter are filed herein.”

In September 2015, Moreno filed an “Affidavit of Final Rulings Supporting Foreign

Judgment” which stated that all questions regarding the finality of the judgment had been resolved.

Moreno later supplemented his affidavit of filing of foreign judgment and attached a certified copy

–3– of a March 2015 Mexican judgment. Upon Moreno’s motion, and over Bonaudo’s objection, the

trial court lifted the stay.

The trial court held an evidentiary hearing on Bonaudo’s motion for nonrecognition in

March 2016. At the outset of the hearing, Bonaudo urged two discretionary grounds for

nonrecognition — he did not have notice of the Mexican proceedings in sufficient time to defend

and the judgment was obtained by fraud.2

Bonaudo testified at the hearing that he lives in Irving, Texas, in Dallas County, and has

lived in Texas for almost ten years. He is a United States citizen. Bonaudo offered into evidence

several exhibits, including a copy of the Mexican court’s September 4, 2013 judgment. He hired

a law firm in Mexico to fight that judgment and “won the amparo.” The judgment was set aside

because he had not been properly served. Further proceedings resulted in a second judgment from

the Mexican Fourth Court in Civil Matters, dated March 23, 2015. Bonaudo indicated that after

he won the amparo lawsuit, he was not served with notice of the proceeding that resulted in the

2015 judgment.

Exhibit 2 is a document which indicates Bonaudo was served in October 2014 at an address

in Mexico through a man named Pablo Adan Marquez Moreno. The court reporter and translator

who translated documents in this case from Spanish into English testified that based on his

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