Section 1.15 Enforcement of Foreign Judgments—Suit on the Judgment and Registration

• Library: Creditors' Remedies (2009 Ed. + 2014 Supp)

V. (§1.15) Enforcement of Foreign Judgments—Suit on the Judgment and Registration

Judgments rendered in sister states may be enforced under two separate procedures in Missouri. Suit may be brought on a judgment as on any other debt. To facilitate a suit on a foreign judgment, the foreign judgment may be authenticated under the procedure suggested in 28 U.S.C. § 1738, which provides that full faith and credit be given to authenticated foreign judgments.

A judgment in any United States court of appeals, district court, or bankruptcy court or the Court of International Trade may be registered in another district under 28 U.S.C. § 1963, and a "judgment so registered shall have the same effect as a judgment of the district court of the district where registered and may be enforced in like manner." Section 1963. The full faith and credit provision found in the United States Constitution must apply between all courts, federal and state. 28 U.S.C. § 1738; Davis v. Davis, 305 U.S. 32 (1938). Section 1963, on the other hand, merely expedites the procedure for registration of judgments in courts throughout the federal system. One way to distinguish the effects of the two statutes is to remember that § 1738 applies between sovereigns, while § 1963 does not.

The variance in state statutes of limitation has brought some interesting results. In Stanford v. Utley, 341 F.2d 265 (8^th Cir. 1965), the court had before it a Mississippi judgment that had been registered under § 1963 in Missouri the day after it was entered. In holding that the Missouri ten-year statute gave the judgment validity although the Mississippi seven-year statute had expired, the court conceded that it left several questions unanswered.

One such question seems to have been decided in Matanuska Valley Lines, Inc. v. Molitor, 365 F.2d 358 (9^th Cir. 1966), cert. denied, 386 U.S. 914 (1967), in which the court distinguished Stanford, 341 F.2d 265, and held that a judgment that was still valid in Alaska, the state of rendition, could not be registered in Washington after the expiration of the six-year period that the Washington statute established for the registration of foreign judgments. To the same effect is Ritterbusch v. New London Oil Co., 927 S.W.2d 873 (Mo. App. W.D. 1996), in which the court held that Missouri's ten-year statute of limitations, rather than the shorter Pennsylvania statute, applied to the registration of a Pennsylvania judgment.

Forms for the authentication of the judgment record...