a civil action to recover damages for a civil injury. It is, indeed, a right dependent solely on the statute of the State, but when the act is done for which the law says the person shall be liable and the action, by which the remedy is to be enforced, is a personal and not a real action, and is of that character which the law recognizes as transitory and not local, we cannot see why the defendant may not be held liable in any court to whose jurisdiction he can be subjected by personal process or by voluntary appearance, as was the case here. It is difficult to understand how the nature of the remedy or the jurisdiction of the courts to enforce it is in any manner dependent on the question whether it is a statutory right or a common law right. Wherever, by either the common law or the statute law of a State, a right of action has become fixed, and a legal liability incurred, that liability may be enforced and the right of action pursued in any court which has jurisdiction of such matters and can obtain jurisdiction of the parties." 10

In Slater v. Mexican National R. R. Co.," applying the same doctrine, the court say: "When such a liability is enforced in a jurisdiction foreign to the place of the wrongful act, obviously that does not mean that the act in any degree is subject to the lex fori with regard to either its quality or its consequences. On the other hand, it equally little means that the law of the place of the act is operative outside of its own territory. The theory of the foreign suit is that, although the act complained of was subject to no law having force in the forum, it gave rise to an obligation, an obligatio which, like other obligations, follows the person and may be enforced wherever the person may be found." In this case the court go on to declare, however, that if the only source of obligation be the termines not merely th extent. "It seems to plaintiff to

for the foundation of his case, and yet to deny the defendant the benefit of whatever limitations on his liability that law would impose."

This doctrine is again affirmed and applied in Atchison, etc., R. Co. v. Sowers.12

§ 96. Judgments in Rem and in Personam.

The validity of judgments or decrees in States other than those in which they are obtained depends upon the court which rendered them having obtained jurisdiction. In order to obtain jurisdiction in actions in rem, the res must be located in the State. In all actions service of notice of the commencement of the suit must be had upon the defendants. In actions in rem this service need not be actual, but may be constructive, that is, by publication In actions in personam, however, actual service is required. Mere constructive service will not warrant a personal judgment or decree which may be sued upon in another jurisdiction. doctrine is carefully laid down in Pennoyer v. Neff. 13 In its opinion in this case the court say: "It is in virtue of the State's jurisdiction over the property of the non-residents situated within its limits that its tribunals can inquire into that non-resident's obligations to its own citizens, and the inquiry can then be carried only to the extent necessary to control the disposition of the property. If the non-residents have no property in the State, there is nothing upon which the tribunals can addicate.

This

Where a party is within a territory, he may justly be subjected to its process, and bound personally by the judgment pronounced on such process against him. Where he is not within such territory, and is not personally subject to its laws, if on account of his supposed or actual property being within the territory, process by the local laws may, by attachment, go to comel his appearance, and for his default to appear, judgment may ronounced against him; such a judgment must, upon gen

be deemed to bind him only to the extent of such

; 29 Sup. Ct. Rep. 397; 53 L. ed. 695.

24 L. ed. 565.

property, and cannot have the effect of a conclusive judgment in personam, for the plain reason that, except so far as the property is concerned, it is a judgment coram non judice."

The inability of the courts of one State to effect by their judg ments or decisions property having its legal situs in another State is illustrated in the recent case of Fall v. Eastin,14 in which it was held that a deed to a piece of land located in Nebraska made by a commissioner in the State of Washington under the order of a court of that State need not, under the full faith and credit clause, be recognized in the former State. The court point out that had the plaintiff in error obeyed the order of the Washington court and made, as directed, a deed of conveyance, that conveyance would have received recognition in the Nebraska courts. But he having refused to do this, and the deed having been made by a commissioner, the conveyance was to be considered as a part of the proceedings in the court which ordered it, which court was without power to affect the title of real property not within the State. As to this the court quote from Watkins v. Holman,15 where it is said: "A court of chancery, acting in personam may well declare the conveyance of land in any other State, and may enforce its decree by process against the defendant. But neither the decree itself nor any conveyance under it, except by the person in whom title is vested, can operate beyond the jurisdiction of the

court."

§ 97. Nul Tiel Record.

From the foregoing it clearly appears that in all cases in which suit is brought in one State upon a judgment rendered in another State, the court in which the suit is brought may examine whether the tribunal in which the judgment sued upon was rendered had jurisdiction to render a personal judgment. In Fauntleroy v. Lum1 the interesting question was raised whether a court in which suit is brought upon a judgment obtained in another State may examine into the original facts upon which that judgment

14 30 Sup. Ct. Rep. 3.

15 16 Pet. 25; 10 L. ed. 873.

16 210 U. S. 230; 28 Sup. Ct. Rep. 641; 52 L. ed. 1039.

was based, and refuse to give full faith and credit to the judgment if it be found that these facts were such as would not have created a legal claim under the law of the State in which enforcement of the judgment thereupon is being sought. In this case the plaintiff, a citizen of Mississippi, obtained in Missouri a judg ment against another citizen of Mississippi upon whom personal service had been obtained while he was temporarily in Missouri, in a suit brought upon a contract in cotton futures entered into in Mississippi in which State such futures were prohibited by law. The case finally reaching the federal Supreme Court, that tribunal held that, the Missouri court having had jurisdiction to render a personal judgment against the defendant, the full faith and credit clause obligated the courts of Mississippi to give to the judgment full force and credit. The court admitted that in the opinion in Wisconsin v. Pelican Insurance Co.1 language was used which might imply a right in a court to examine as to the original basis of the foreign judgment sued upon, but these words were declared obiter, and the doctrine of that case limited to the precise point decided.

In a dissenting opinion in Fauntleroy v. Lum, concurred in by four justices, it was argued that in Wisconsin v. Pelican Insurance Co. the court had held that the full faith and credit clause did not preclude an examination into the basis of the foreign judgment, and rightfully so, inasmuch as at the time of the adoption of the Constitution the rules of comity universally prevailing did not require a sovereignty to give effect to a judgment of another sovereignty when to do so would be to enforce a contract illegal and prohibited by the local law, when both the contract and all the acts done in pursuance thereof had taken place in the State where enforcement of the judgment was sought.

In this dissent reliance is also placed on Anglo-American Provision Co. v. Davis Provision Co.18 in which it was held that a judgment rendered in Illinois against one corporation in favor of another, both corporations being foreign to New York, was not

17 127 U. S. 265; 8 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1370; 32 L. ed. 239. 18 191 U. S. 373; 24 Sup. Ct. Rep. 92; 48 L. ed. 225.

enforceable in the courts of New York, because the statutes of that State did not give the court jurisdiction over such an action as that in which the enforcement was sought. The Supreme Court say: "The Constitution does not require the State of New York to give jurisdiction to the [state] Supreme Court against its will. If the plaintiff can find a court into which it has a right to come, then the effect of the judgment is fixed by the Constitution and the act in pursuance of it which Congress has passed. But the Constitution does not require the State to provide such a court. If the State does provide a court to which its citizens may resort in a certain class of cases, it may be that citizens of other States of the Union also would have a right to resort to it in cases of the same class. But that right even when the suit was upon a judg ment of another State would not rest on the first section of article IV, . . . but would depend on the second section entitling the citizens of each State to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States."

It has been held that the "full .faith and credit clause does not operate to give effect in another State to a state statute exempting from taxation the evidence of the state debt so as to defeat the collection of a tax levied by that other State upon portions of the debt held by persons there residing. This was decided by Bonaparte v. Tax Court,19 the court saying: "It is insisted that the immunity asked for arises from Article IV, Section 1, of the Constitution.

We are unable to give such State can legislate except with One State cannot exempt propEach State is independent of all The debt was registered,

an effect to this provision. No reference to its own jurisdiction. erty from taxation in another. the others in this particular. but that did not prevent it from following the person of its owner. The debt still remained a chose in action, with all the incidents which pertain to that species of property. It was 'movable' like other debts, and had none of the attributes of immovability." The owner may be compelled to go to the debtor State to get what is owing to him, but that does not affect his citizenship or his

19 104 U. S. 592; 26 L. ed. 845.