Christmas v. Russell

Citations

• 5 U.S. 290

Syllabus

<p>1. A State statute which enacts that “no action shall be maintained on any judgment or decree rendered by any court without this State against any person who, at the time of the commencement of the action in which such judgment or decree was or shall be rendered, was or shall be a resident of this State, in any case where the cause of action would have been barred by any act of limitation of this State, if such suit had been brought therein” — is unconstitutional and void, as destroying .the right of a party to enforce a judgment regularly obtained in another State, and as conflicting therefore with the provision of the Constitution (Art. IV, § 1), which ordains that “full faith and credit shall he given in each State to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other State.”</p> <p>2. A plea of fraud in obtaining a judgment sued upon, cannot be demurred to generally because not showing the particulars of the fraud set up. Going to a matter of form, the demurrer should he special.</p> <p>3. Subject to the qualification that they are open to inquiry as to the jurisdiction of the court which gave them, and as to notice to the defendant, the judgment of a State court, not reversed by a superior court having jurisdiction, nor set aside by a direct proceeding in chancery, is conclusive in the courts of all the other States where the subject-matter of controversy is the same.</p>