KENNEY, ADMINISTRATOR OF KENNEY,
v.
SUPREME LODGE OF THE WORLD, LOYAL ORDER OF MOOSE

U.S. | 1920-04-19
Nos. 269, 303
252 U.S. 411 Supreme Court of the United States (1920) Positive Treatment
Also reported at: 64 L. Ed. 638 · 40 S. Ct. 371 · SCDB 1919-092 · 1920 U.S. LEXIS 1519
Cited by 71 cases

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Synopsis

The Supreme Court held that Illinois violated the Full Faith and Credit Clause by refusing to enforce an Alabama judgment for wrongful death merely because Illinois law prohibited bringing such actions within the state, and that a state cannot use jurisdictional rules to escape its constitutional obligation to give effect to valid judgments of sister states.

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Opinion of the Court
Mu. Justice Holmes

Mu. Justice Holmes delivered the opinion of the court.

This is an action of debt brought in Illinois-upon a' judgment recovered in Alabama. The defendant pleaded to the jurisdiction that the judgment was for negligently-causing the. death of the plaintiff’s intestate in Alabama. The plaintiff demurred to the plea, setting up Article IY, §§ 1 and 2 of the Constitution of the United States. A statute of Illinois provided that no action should be brought or prosecuted in that State for damages occasioned by death occurring in another State in consequence of wrongful conduct. The Supreme Court of Illinois held that as by the terms of the statute the original action could not have been brought there, the Illinois Courts had no jurisdiction of a suit upon the judgment. The Circuit Court of Kane County having ordered that the demurrer be quashed its judgment was affirmed. 285 Illinois, 188.

In the court below and in the argument before us reliance was placed upon Anglo-American Provision Co. v. Davis Provision Co., No. 1, 191 U. S. 373, and language in Wisconsin v. Pelican Insurance Co., 127 U. S. 265, the former as showing that the clause requiring full faith and credit to be given to judgments of other States does not require a State to furnish a court, and the latter as sanctioning an inquiry into the nature of the original cause of action in order to determine the jurisdiction of a court to enforce a foreign judgment founded upon it. But we are of opinion that the conclusion sought to be built upon these premises in the present case cannot be sustained.

Anglo-American Provision Co. v. Davis Provision Co. was a suit by a foreign corporation on a foreign judgment against a foreign corporation. The decision is sufficiently explained without more by the views about foreign corporations that had prevailed unquestioned since Bank of Augusta v. Earle, 13 Pet. 519, 589-591, cited 191 U. S. 375. Moreover no doubt there is truth in the proposition that the Constitution does not require the State to furnish a court. But it also is true that there are limits to the power of exclusion and to the power to consider the nature of the cause of action before the foreign judgment based upon it is given effect.

In Fauntleroy v. Lum, 210 U. S. 230, it was held that the courts of Mississippi were bound to enforce a judgment rendered in Missouri upon a cause of action arising in Mississippi and illegal and void there. . The policy of Mississippi was more actively contravened in that.case than the policy of Illinois is in this. Therefore the fact that here the original cause of action could not have been maintained in Illinois is not an answer to a suit upon the judgment. See Christmas v. Russell, 5 Wall. 290; Converse v. Hamilton, 224 U. S. 243. But this being true, it is plain that a State cannot escape its constitutional obligations by the simple device of denying jurisdiction in such cases to courts otherwise competent. The assumption that it could not do so was the basis of the decision in International Textbook Co. v. Pigg, 217 U. S. 91, 111, 112, and the same principle was foreshadowed in General Oil Co. v. Crain, 209 U. S. 211, 216, 220, 228, and in Fauntleroy v. Lum, 210 U. S. 230, 235, 236. See Keyser v. Lowell, 117 Fed. Rep. 400; Chambers v. Baltimore & Ohio R. R. Co., 207 U. S. 142, 148, and cases cited. Whether the Illinois statute should be construed as the Mississippi act was construed in Fauntleroy v. Lum was for the Supreme Court of the State to decide, but read as that court read it, it attempted to achieve a result that the Constitution of the United States forbad.

Some argument was based upon the fact that the statute of Alabama allowed an action to be maintained in a court of competent jurisdiction within the State “and not elsewhere.” But when the cause of action is created the invalidity of attempts to limit the jurisdiction of other, States to enforce it has been established by the decisions of this court; Tennessee Coal, Iron & R. R. Co. v. George, 233 U. S. 354; Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Ry. Co. v. Sowers, 213 U. S. 55; and had these decisions been other wise they would not have imported that a judgment rendered exactly as required by the Alabama statute was not to have the respect due to other judgments of a sister State.

As the judgment below upheld a statute that was invalid as construed the writ of error was the proper proceeding and the writ of certiorari must be dismissed.

Judgment reversed.

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Citator

Cited By (28 total)

  • Workingmen's Co-Operative Bank v. Wallace, 151 Fla. 329 (Fla. 1942)
    …ade. We find that the law applicable here is as stated and applied by the U. S. Supreme Court in the cases of Thomas C. Fauntleroy, v. J. J. Lum, 210 U.S. 230, 52 L. Ed. 1039, 28 S. Ct. Rep. 641 and Kennedy, Adm., v. Supreme Lodge of World, L.O.M., 252 U.S. 411, 64 L. Ed. 638, 10 A.L.R. 716, — and by the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia in Heiston v. [*332] National City Bank etc., 51 App. D.C. 394, 280 Fed. 525. See notes 10 A.L.R. 719 and 24 A.L.R. 1437. By these authorities it appears to be…
  • Donner v. Donner, 302 So. 2d 452 (Fla. 3d DCA 1974)
    …by the judicial proceedings of the others, and to make them integral parts of a single nation.’ ” (317 U.S. at p. 295, 63 S.Ct. at p. 211) See also Fauntleroy v. Lum, 210 U.S. 230, 28 S.Ct. 641, 52 L.Ed. 1039 (1908); Kenney v. Loyal Order of Moose, 252 U.S. 411, 40 S.Ct. 371, 64 L.Ed. 638 (1920); 28 U.S.C.A. § 1738. In Fauntleroy v. Lum, just cited, the United States Supreme Court enforced a judgment based on a gambling transaction deemed illegal in the state of Mississippi. A judgment arising out of the…
  • M & R Invs. v. Hacker, 511 So. 2d 1099 (Fla. 5th DCA 1987)
    …gment of a sister, state for its taxes, Milwaukee County v. N.E. White Co., supra [296 U.S. 268, 56 S.Ct. 229, 80 L.Ed. 220 (1935)], or for a gambling debt, Fauntleroy v. Lum, supra, or for damages for wrongful death, Kenney v. Supreme Lodge, supra [252 U.S. 411, 40 S.Ct. 371, 64 L.Ed. 638 (1920)], although the suit in which the judgment was obtained could not have been maintained under the laws and policy of the forum to which the judgment is brought. * * # * * * It demands recognition of it even though…

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