Texas Law Review, Volume 95, Number 6, May 2017 Page: 1,280
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Texas Law Review
famous case of Harris v. Balk),215 but the original creditor had bungled the
state procedures.216 More importantly, though the initial action had listed the
Louisianan as a defendant, Story found that the judgment didn't actually bind
him-based on the 'universal' principle, 'consonant with the general
principles of justice, that the legislature of a state can bind no more than the
persons and property within its territorial jurisdiction. '217 Indeed, Story
wrote, '[n]o legislature can compel any persons, beyond its own territory, to
become parties to any suits instituted in its domestic tribunals.'218 In other
words, the federal circuit court reviewed a judgment from Massachusetts
under the same general principles as one from anywhere else.
2. Full Faith and Credit.-Nothing in the Constitution or the 1790 Act
required the courts to do otherwise. While some federal decisions on the
'effect' controversy simply skipped over the jurisdictional issues,219 one
early case did not. In 1799, Justice Washington on circuit refused to treat 'a
Maryland bankruptcy discharge as discharging the defendant's debt to a
Virginia creditor.220 As the plaintiff hadn't been summoned to attend the
proceeding, the discharge couldn't really 'be considered as a judgment of a
Maryland court, which can bind persons residing out of that state. '221
Washington specifically compared the issue to that of recognition of a foreign
judgment, noting that while admiralty decisions received a certain preference
under the law of nations, 'the justice of other decisions may be questioned,
and if a law of a foreign country were to declare that a decision of causes,
without notice, should bind everybody, no foreign country would observe
it. 222 The Full Faith and Credit Clause might have been read to require
obedience to such a judgment, but it gave the duty of prescribing effect to
Congress, and according to Justice Washington, nothing that Congress had
written gave any effect to the discharge at issue.223
215. 198 U.S. 215 (1905).
216. See Flower, 9 F. Cas. at 325-26.
217. Id. at 324-25.
218. Id. at 324.
219. See, e.g.. Bastable v. Wilson, 2 F. Cas. 1012, 1012 (C.C.D.C. 1803) (No. 1097) (per
curiam) (refusing a plea of nil debet to an action of debt on a state judgment); Armstrong v. Carson,
1 F. Cas. 1140, 1140 (Wilson, Circuit Justice, C.C.D. Pa. 1794) (No. 543) (same).
220. Banks v. Greenleaf, 2 F. Cas. 756, 756, 758-59 (Washington, Circuit Justice, C.C.D. Va.
1799) (No. 959).
221. Id. at 758.
222. Id.
223. Id. at 759. But see Green v. Sarmiento, 10 F. Cas. 1117, 1119-20 (Washington, Circuit
Justice, C.C.D. Pa. 1810) (No. 5760) (suggesting in dicta ten years later that the validity of a New
York state judgment under the 1790 Act would turn only on New York law, without recognizing
any tension with Banks, and noting only that cases where a judgment rendered 'exparte,' with "the
defendant having had no opportunity to make his defense might form an exception"); Field v.
Gibbs, 9 F. Cas. 15, 16 (Washington, Circuit Justice, C.C.D.N.J. 1815) (No. 4766) ("[W]hat is
to be done, if the judgment has been obtained against a person, residing out of the state, who was
never served with process, or even notified of the existence of the suit, in which it was rendered? I[Vol. 95:1249
1280
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Texas Law Review Association. Texas Law Review, Volume 95, Number 6, May 2017, periodical, June 2017; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth903368/m1/104/?q=green+energy: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.