Westend Development Co. v. Westend Amusement Corp.

594 So. 2d 553, 1992 La. App. LEXIS 166, 1992 WL 20972
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedFebruary 4, 1992
DocketNo. 91-C-542
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 594 So. 2d 553 (Westend Development Co. v. Westend Amusement Corp.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Louisiana Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Westend Development Co. v. Westend Amusement Corp., 594 So. 2d 553, 1992 La. App. LEXIS 166, 1992 WL 20972 (La. Ct. App. 1992).

Opinion

DUFRESNE, Judge.

In this writ application, Western Development Co., relator, asks that we reverse an order of the trial judge overruling its exception of res judicata. On initial hearing we denied the writ, briefly commenting that on the showing made, it did not appear that the issue in the present nullity action had been previously litigated in the California courts. On remand from the Louisiana Supreme Court, 588 So.2d 1103, we have been ordered to reconsider the application and issue an opinion regarding our disposition of the matter. After further review, and for the following reasons, we adhere to our original ruling and deny the writ.

The underlying facts are straightforward. Relator obtained a Louisiana deficiency judgment against several defendants, one of whom is Glenn Abel, a California resident and attorney admitted to practice in both that state and Louisiana. It then sought to make that judgment exec-utory in a California court. Abel urged there that the judgment was unenforceable against him because the Louisiana court had never acquired personal jurisdiction over him either by proper service or by his making a general appearance in the case. Relator’s papers here indicate that Abel’s averments and supporting affidavits were rejected summarily and on their face, with no testimony or other evidence being re[555]*555ceived. The trial judge simply stated that a review of various pleadings from the original suit showed Abel to have been represented by Richard Boutall, and that Boutall’s subsequent affidavit to the contrary was not persuasive. Having determined that Abel had thus made a general appearance in the Louisiana proceeding through counsel, he ruled that the probable defect in service of process was moot. The court thereupon made the Louisiana judgment a judgment of the California court.

Abel thereupon filed the present action seeking to have the original Louisiana judgment nullified for lack of personal jurisdiction. He alleges in his petition, first, that proper service of the suit was never made upon him under our long-arm statute. He next alleges that when he first learned of the suit he spoke by telephone with Boutall (also a defendant) and specifically told him that he had not been served and that he did not want Boutall to represent him. He also noted that in his opinion it would be a conflict of interest for Boutall, a potential solidary obligor, to undertake such representation. He further alleges that he then wrote to Boutall to reiterate the substance of the telephone call, and added that in the event he was properly served, he would engage his own counsel. He finally contends that he was never a party to the original purchase of the property, the seizure and sale of which gave rise to the deficiency sued upon, and that the only powers of attorney he had ever given to Boutall related to a partnership not involved in the property purchase, and not a defendant in the subsequent deficiency action. We also note that there is information in relator’s papers which indicates that Abel had informed relator’s counsel in the deficiency action that notwithstanding any actions by Boutall in the suit to the contrary, Boutall did not in fact represent him.

Relator urged an exception of res judica-ta to this petition, asserting that the issue of personal jurisdiction has already been resolved in California, and therefore under our state’s laws we are precluded from relitigating that question. It also asserts that the “full faith and credit clause” of the United States Constitution mandates that we give preclusive effect to the judgment of the California court. The trial judge denied the exception, and this writ application followed.

Initially, we reject relator’s proposition that when a sister state court has given effect to a judgment rendered by a Louisiana court, that same Louisiana court is thereby precluded from further considering the validity of its own judgment by operation of the “full faith and credit” clause of Article IV of the United States Constitution. As far as we can determine, this issue is res nova. However, to subscribe to such a principle would in this court’s opinion, be tantamount to surrendering this state’s sovereign power to determine the validity of its own courts’ pronouncements to the courts of a sister state. Such a result was not contemplated when the clause was enacted, nor is it supported by any jurisprudence known to us.

It is well settled that the purpose of the “full faith and credit” clause was to replace the prior rule of comity between the sovereign American states, whereby each state was given discretion as to whether to recognize judgments of the sister states, with a constitutional mandate that such judgments be recognized in the receiving states, Williams v. State of North Carolina, 325 U.S. 226, 65 S.Ct. 1092, 89 L.Ed. 1577 (1945). The clause does not give inherent extra-territorial effects to the judgments of the various states’ courts, nor does it give to a receiving state the jurisdiction to declare invalid judgments of an issuing state within the confines of that issuing state, Williams v. State of North Carolina, 317 U.S. 287, 63 S.Ct. 207, 87 L.Ed. 279 (1942). Instead, it simply establishes a constitutional eviden-tiary rule that the judgments of the issuing state must be accepted in the receiving state as conclusive of the issues adjudged, except where it appears that the issuing state lacked jurisdiction or that some due process problem existed, State of Wisconsin v. Pelican Ins. Co., 127 U.S. 265, 8 S.Ct. 1370, 32 L.Ed. 239 (1888). Absent [556]*556such defects, the receiving state is compelled to recognize the judgment of the issuing state and make it executory within its own borders. Similarly, if it finds such a defect it may then refuse to give local force to the issuing state’s judgment. But there the power of the receiving state ends. It cannot nullify or otherwise negate the efficacy of the original judgment within the issuing state for the same reasons that the issuing state can not, through the exercise of its own sovereignty, extend the effects and enforcement of its judgment into the receiving state. Either action would constitute an encroachment by one state on the sovereignty of the other, see In re C.A. Taylor Logging & Lumber Co., 28 F.2d 526, 529 (Wash.W.D.1928).

These same principles were implicated in the companion cases of Williams v. State of North Carolina, supra. The issue in both was whether North Carolina was required by the “full faith and credit” clause to subordinate its interests in the marital status of its citizenry to the similar interests of Nevada, by recognizing two Nevada divorce decrees which offended North Carolina’s domestic policies. While eventually holding that on the facts of those cases, the clause did not compel recognition of the Nevada divorces by North Carolina, the Court implicitly, if not explicitly, concluded that the divorces remained completely valid in Nevada, notwithstanding the refusal of North Carolina to recognize them, see Williams v. North Carolina, 325 U.S. 226, 65 S.Ct. 1092, 89 L.Ed. 1577 (1945) (Rutledge, J. dissenting, at 65 S.Ct. 1101.)

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Related

Reed v. Reed, No. Fa90 27 22 06 (Jul. 6, 2001)
2001 Conn. Super. Ct. 9438 (Connecticut Superior Court, 2001)
Westend Development Co. v. Westend Amusement Corp.
596 So. 2d 210 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1992)

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Bluebook (online)
594 So. 2d 553, 1992 La. App. LEXIS 166, 1992 WL 20972, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/westend-development-co-v-westend-amusement-corp-lactapp-1992.