Van Natta v. Van Natta

200 S.W. 907, 1918 Tex. App. LEXIS 74
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJanuary 16, 1918
DocketNo. 1276.
StatusPublished
Cited by19 cases

This text of 200 S.W. 907 (Van Natta v. Van Natta) 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
Van Natta v. Van Natta, 200 S.W. 907, 1918 Tex. App. LEXIS 74 (Tex. Ct. App. 1918).

Opinion

BOYCE, J.

This suit was brought by appellant, Helen S. Van Natta, against appel-lee, Samuel G. Van Natta, on a judgment for a large sum of money rendered by tbe circuit court of Clinton county, in tbe state of Indiana, in favor of appellant and against ap-pellee. Appellee pleaded that an appeal bad been taken from said judgment and was pending and undisposed of in the Appellate Court of said state. It is conceded that appellant would be entitled to recover on tbe judgment if tbe pending appeal does not preclude sucb recovery, and this is tbe only question presented for our decision on tbe present appeal; tbe court below having denied recovery on tbe judgment. On tbe trial ,of tbe case tbe parties made tbe following agreement as to the facts of tbe appeal:

“The judgment referred to in plaintiff’s petition as having been rendered in the Clinton circuit court, in the state of Indiana, has been by defendant duly appealed from upon a cost bond for appeal, in accordance with the laws of said state, and that said cause is now pending on the docket of the Supreme Court within and for the state of Indiana, subject to call in due order of procedure in said court and is yet undisposed of. Such appeal was had and is pending and undisposed of on the cost bond for appeal and not upon supersedeas bond.”

[1] Tbe provisions of article 4, § 1, of tbe federal Constitution, and of section 905, Revised Statutes of tbe United States (U. S. Comp. St. 1916, § 1519), in relation to the same subject, which require that “full faith and credit shall be given in each state, to the * * * judicial proceedings of every other state,” and that sucb “judicial proceedings * * * shall have sucb faith and credit given to them in every court within the United States as they have by law or usage in tbe courts of tbe state from which they are taken,” are familiar to all. It was announced by tbe Supreme Court of tbe United States at an early date, and subsequently followed with certain restrictions on the broad announcement which do not concern us at this time:

“That the judgment of a state court should have the same credit, validity, and effect, in every other court of the United States, which it had in the court where it was .pronounced; and that whatever pleas would be good to a suit thereon in such state, and none others, could be pleaded in any other court in the United States.” Hampton v. McConnel, 3 Wheat. 234, 4 L. Ed. 378; McElmoyle v. Cohen, 13 Pet. 312, 10 L. Ed. 184; Mills v. Duryee, 7 Cranch, 484, 3 L. Ed. 413; Embry v. Palmer, 107 U. S. 3, 2 Sup. Ct. 25, 27 L. Ed. 346; Renaud v. Abbott, 116 U. S. 277, 6 Sup. Ct. 1194, 29 L. Ed. 629; Cook v. Thornhill, 13 Tex. 293, 65 Am. Doc. 63; Express Co. v. North Ft. Worth Undertaking Co., 179 S. W. 908; R. C. L. vol. 15, p. 927, § 407.

We think therefore that we should give to this Indiana judgment tbe effect it would be given by the courts of that state, and that tbe effect of tbe appeal on tbe finality of tbe judgment and its admissibility in evidence in support of the rights adjudicated thereby is to be determined by the laws of tbe state of Indiana. But, as no pleading or proof was offered as to tbe law of Indiana on this subject, we must first dispose of the preliminary question as to bow we are to determine sucb matters; that is, whether we are to take judicial knowledge of sucb law, or whether, in the absence of sucb proof, we are to follow tbe general rule that it is to be presumed that tbe law of Indiana on the subject is the *908 same as our own, and, then proceed to determine the effect of the appeal as determined by our own decisions.

[2, 3] There are a number of authorities, approved to a certain extent by citation thereto by our own courts, that hold that, in suits on judgments in a state other than the state in which the judgment was rendered, the court of the forum will, in order to ascertain the effect of the judgment, take judicial knowledge of the law of the state in which the judgment was rendered. Henry v. Allen, 82 Tex. 35, 17 S. W. 516; Babcock v. Marshall, 21 Tex. Civ. App. 145, 50 S. W. 730; State v. Hinchman, 27 Pa. 483; Paine v. Schenectady Ins. Co., 11 R. I. 415; Trowbridge v. Spinning, 23 Wash. 48, 62 Pac. 125, 54 L. R. A. 204, 83 Am. St. Rep. 806; Rae v. Hulbert, 17 Ill. 576; Hull v. Webb, 78 Ill. App. 617; Black on Judgments, § 882. The ^Pennsylvania case cited, being the leading case supporting this view of the law and which is cited by the Supreme Court in the ease of Henry v. Allen, supra, states the reason for this rule thus:

“A judgment of this court, adverse to the right arising out of the federal Constitution and legislation, would be reviewable in the Supreme Court of the United States, and there the states of the Confederacy are not regarded as foreign states, whose laws and usages must bo proved, but as domestic institutions, whose laws are to be noticed without pleading or proof. It would be a very imperfect and discordant administration for a court of original jurisdiction to adopt one rule of decision, while the court of final resort was governed by another; and hence it follows that, in questions of this sort, we should take notice of the local laws of a sister state in the same manner the Supreme Court of the United States would do on a writ of error to our judgment.”

However, the United States Supreme Court, in the subsequent cases of Hanley v. Donoghue, 116 U. S. 1, 6 Sup. Ct. 242, 29 L. Ed. 535, and C. & A. Ry. Co. v. Wiggins Ferry Co., 119 U. S. 615, 7 Sup. Ct. 398, 30 L. Ed. 519, destroyed entirely the foundation on which these cases are based by this statement of the law in the opinion in the case of Hanley v. Donoghue:

‘‘In the exercise of its general appellate _ jurisdiction from the lower court of the United States, this court takes judicial notice of the laws of every state of the Union, because those laws are known to the court below as laws alone, needing no averment or proof. * * * But on a writ of error to the highest court of a state, in which the revisory power of this court is limited to determining whether a question of law depending upon the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United .States has been erroneously decided by the state court upon the facts before it — while the law of that state, being known to its courts as law, is, of course, within the judicial knowledge of this court at the hearing on error — yet, as in the state court the laws of another state are but facts required to be proved in order to be considered, this court does not take judicial notice of them, unless made part of the record sent up.”

It was further pointed out in that case that thé decisions in Ohio v. Hinchman, supra, and Paine v. Schenectady Ins. Co., supra, are based upon a misapprehension of the decisions of the United States Supreme Court. These decisions of the United States Supreme Court, which we think settle this question definitely, seem to have been overlooked by the courts in some of the cases we have cited, which still adhere to the rule announced in the Pennsylvania case. Neither of the judges, in the opinion in the two Texas cases referred to, attempt to discuss the question at any length; the propositions being stated in an incidental way.

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200 S.W. 907, 1918 Tex. App. LEXIS 74, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/van-natta-v-van-natta-texapp-1918.