USA Law and Practice Contributed by: Jason W. Myatt, Ankita Ritwik and Charline Yim, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP
the highest court of the state and/or federal system, typically referred to as the supreme court. Except in rare instances, these courts have discretion as to which appeals they will hear. The order of this high - est appellate court is final, and limited to the same procedural, constitutional and statutory interpretation questions as the intermediary appellate court. Parties may appeal state supreme court decisions to the US Supreme Court, where the decision turns on federal law or on US constitutional grounds. 2.6 Unenforceable Domestic Judgments Any judgment issued by any domestic court, state or federal, may be enforced against a US debtor regard - less of their location or the type of judgment. This universality of enforcement is guaranteed by the Con - stitution, federal rules, and a uniform law adopted by 48 states, the District of Columbia, and the US Virgin Islands. The Full Faith and Credit Clause The first section of Article Four of the US Constitu - tion states that “Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State” (US Constitution, Article IV, § 1). Registration of Federal Court Judgments Under federal law, any money judgment issued by one federal court, which includes the district courts, courts of appeals, bankruptcy courts and the Court of Inter - national Trade, may be registered for enforcement in any federal district court. Where the judgment is final and no longer subject to review, such registration may be made as of right. Judgments on appeal may be registered in sister districts with court approval “for good cause shown” (28 USC § 1963). The Uniform Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Act (UEFJA) The UEFJA, finalised in 1964, offers a simple compact between states, agreed to by every state, the District of Columbia, and the US Virgin Islands, excepting only California and Vermont. States who have adopted the Act agree that any sister state judgment (ie, “any judg - ment, decree, or order of a court of the United States or of any other court which is entitled to full faith and
credit” in the enforcing US state) will be treated “in the same manner” as a judgment of the court of any city or county of the enforcing state (Revised Uniform Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Act, § 1–2 (1964)). There are limited circumstances in which a sister state judgment will not be enforced or may be limited in its enforceability. Interlocutory, or non-final, judgments generally cannot be enforced, except for certain inter - im orders, such as preliminary injunctions. Judgments entered in violation of the debtor’s due process rights are also unenforceable. Certain states also limit the immediate enforceability of judgments entered by default or by confession in another state, and subject actions to enforce such judgments to additional pro - cedural safeguards. Additionally, most states impose some statute of limitation on the enforcement of judgments, which may prevent enforcement after a specific amount of time unless the judgment is timely renewed. Last, as discussed above, judgments that are stayed, voided or set aside are not enforceable. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 69 (a) When seeking enforcement in a federal court, parties should expect the law of the state in which the court resides to govern enforcement proceedings unless the debt is owed by virtue of a specific federal statute (Fed. R. Civ. P. 69 (a)). 2.7 Register of Domestic Judgments There is no single, uniform national registry of domes - tic judgments in the United States. Interested persons may search for federal judgments by party name or case number on the government-maintained court records system, PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records). However, identifying the judg - ment requires reviewing the docket for each case. While accounts are free to create, docket searches and document downloads are on a cost-basis. States maintain their own records, often at the city or county level, and many have online portals that allow public access to the “judgment roll” or judgment database. Others, while technically open to the public, may require the use of specialised retrieval services. In addition, some court judgments from both state and federal courts are published and compiled online by
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