This was a bill in equity, filed March 21, 1888, in the Circuit Court of Baltimore City, by Collis P. Huntington, a resident of New York, against the Equitable Gas Light Company of Baltimore, a corporation of Maryland, and against Henry Y. Attrill, his wife and three daughters, all residents of Canada, to set aside a transfer of stock in that company, made by him for their benefit and in fraud of his creditors, and to charge that stock with the payment of a judgment recovered by the plaintiff against him in the State of New York, upon his liability as a director in a New York corporation, under the statute of New York of 1875, c. 611, the material provisions of which are copied in the margin.
The bill alleged that on June 15, 1886, the plaintiff recovered, in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, in an action brought by him against Attrill on March 21, 1883, a
The bill also alleged that "at the time of its dissolution as aforesaid, the said company was indebted to the plaintiff and to other creditors to an amount far in excess of its assets; that by the law of the State of New York all the stockholders of the company were liable to pay all its debts, each to the amount of the stock held by him, and the defendant, Henry Y. Attrill, was liable at said date and on April 14, 1882, as such stockholder, to the amount of $340,000, the amount of stock held by him, and was on both said dates also severally and directly liable as a director, having signed the false report above mentioned, for all the debts of said company contracted between February 26, 1880, and January 29, 1881, which debts aggregate more than the whole value of the property owned by said Attrill."
The bill then alleged that in April, 1882, Attrill acquired a large amount of stock in the Equitable Gas Light Company of Baltimore, and forthwith transferred into his own name as trustee for his wife 1000 shares of such stock, and as trustee for each of his three daughters 250 shares of the same, without valuable consideration, and with intent to delay, hinder and defraud his creditors, and especially with the intent to delay, hinder and defraud this plaintiff of his lawful suits, damages, debts and demands against Attrill, arising out of the cause of action on which the aforesaid judgment was recovered, and out of the plaintiff's claim against him as a stockholder; that the plaintiff in June, 1880, and ever since was domiciled and resident in the State of New York, and that from February, 1880, to December 6, 1884, Attrill was domiciled and resident in that State, and that his transfers of stock in the gas company were made in the city of New York where the principal office of the company then was, and where all its transfers of stock were made; and that those transfers were, by the laws of New York, as well as by those of Maryland, fraudulent and void as against the creditors of Attrill, including the creditors of the Rockaway Company, and were fraudulent and void as against the plaintiff.
The bill further, by distinct allegations, averred that those transfers, unless set aside and annulled by a court of equity, would deprive the plaintiff of all his rights and interests of every sort therein, to which he was entitled as a creditor of Attrill at the time when those fraudulent transfers were made; and "that the said fraudulent transfers were wholly without legal consideration, were fraudulent and void, and should be set aside by a court of equity."
The bill prayed that the transfer of shares in the gas company be declared fraudulent and void, and executed for the
One of the daughters demurred to the bill, because it showed that the plaintiff's claim was for the recovery of a penalty against Attrill arising under a statute of the State of New York, and because it did not state a case which entitled the plaintiff to any relief in a court of equity in the State of Maryland.
By a stipulation of counsel, filed in the cause, it was agreed that, for the purposes of the demurrer, the bill should be treated as embodying the New York statute of June 21, 1875; and that the Rockaway Beach Improvement Company, Limited, was incorporated under the provisions of that statute.
The Circuit Court of Baltimore City overruled the demurrer. On appeal to the Court of Appeals of the State of Maryland, the order was reversed, and the bill dismissed. 70 Maryland, 191.
The ground most prominently brought forward and most fully discussed in the opinion of the majority of the court, delivered by Judge Bryan, was that the liability imposed by section 21 of the statute of New York upon officers of a corporation, making a false certificate of its condition, was for all its debts, without inquiring whether a creditor had been deceived and induced by deception to lend his money or to give credit, or whether he had incurred loss to any extent by the inability of the corporation to pay, and without limiting the recovery to the amount of loss sustained, and was intended as a punishment for doing any of the forbidden acts, and was, therefore, in view of the decisions in that State and in Maryland, a penalty which could not be enforced in the State of Maryland; and that the judgment obtained in New York for this penalty, while it "merged the original cause of action so that a suit cannot be again maintained upon it," and "is also
The court then took up the clause of the bill, above quoted, in which it was sought to charge Attrill as originally liable under the statute of New York, both as a stockholder and as a director; and observing that "this liability is asserted to exist independently of the judgment," summarily disposed of it, upon the grounds that it could not attach to him as a stockholder, because he had not been sued, as required by the New York statute, within two years after the plaintiff's debt became due; nor as a director, because "the judgment against Attrill for having made the false report certainly merges all right of action against him on this account;" but that, if he was liable at the times and on the grounds "mentioned in this clause of the bill," this liability was barred by the statute of limitations of Maryland. pp. 198, 199.
Having thus decided against the plaintiff's claim under his judgment, upon the single ground that it was for a penalty under the statute of New York, and therefore could not be enforced in Maryland; and against any original liability under the statute, for various reasons; the opinion concluded: "Upon the whole, it appears to us that the complainant has no cause of action, which he can maintain in this State." p. 199.
Judge Stone, with whom Judge McSherry concurred, dissented from the opinion of the majority of the court, upon the ground that it did not give due effect to the act of Congress, passed in pursuance of the Constitution of the United States, and providing that the records of judgments rendered by a court of any State shall have such faith and credit given to them in every court within the United States as they have by law or usage in the courts of the State whence they are taken. Act of May 26, 1790, c. 11, 1 Stat. 122; Rev. Stat.
A writ of error was sued out by the plaintiff, and allowed by the Chief Justice of the Court of Appeals of Maryland, upon the ground "that the said Court of Appeals is the highest court of law or equity in the State of Maryland, in which a decision in the said suit could be had; that in said suit a right and privilege are claimed under the Constitution and statutes of the United States, and the decision is against the right and privilege set up and claimed by your petitioner
It thus appears that the judgment recovered in New York was made the foremost ground of the bill, was fully discussed and distinctly passed upon by the majority of the Court of Appeals of Maryland, and was the only subject of the dissenting opinion; and that the court, without considering whether the validity of the transfers impeached as fraudulent was to be governed by the law of New York, or by the law of Maryland; and without a suggestion that those transfers, alleged to have been made by Attrill with intent to delay, hinder and defraud all his creditors, were not voidable by subsequent, as well as by existing creditors, or that they could not be avoided by the plaintiff, claiming under the judgment recovered by him against Attrill after those transfers were made; declined to maintain his right to do so by virtue of that judgment, simply because the judgment had, as the court held, been recovered in another State in an action for a penalty.
The question whether due faith and credit were thereby denied to the judgment rendered in another State is a Federal question, of which this court has jurisdiction on this writ of error. Green v. Van Buskirk, 5 Wall. 307, 311; Crapo v. Kelly, 16 Wall. 610, 619; Dupasseur v. Rochereau, 21 Wall. 130, 134; Crescent City Co. v. Butchers' Union, 120 U.S. 141, 146, 147; Cole v. Cunningham, 133 U.S. 107; Carpenter v. Strange, 141 U.S. 87, 103.
In order to determine this question, it will be necessary, in the first place, to consider the true scope and meaning of the fundamental maxim of international law, stated by Chief Justice Marshall in the fewest possible words: "The courts of no country execute the penal laws of another." The Antelope, 10 Wheat. 66, 123. In interpreting this maxim, there is danger of being misled by the different shades of meaning allowed to the word "penal" in our language.
In the municipal law of England and America, the words
Penal laws, strictly and properly, are those imposing punishment for an offence committed against the State, and which, by the English and American constitutions, the executive of the State has the power to pardon. Statutes giving a private action against the wrongdoer are sometimes spoken of as penal in their nature, but in such cases it has been pointed out that neither the liability imposed nor the remedy given is strictly penal.
The action of an owner of property against the hundred to recover damages caused by a mob was said by Justices Willes and Buller to be "penal against the hundred, but certainly remedial as to the sufferer." Hyde v. Cogan, 2 Doug. 699, 705, 706. A statute giving the right to recover back money lost at gaming, and, if the loser does not sue within a certain time, authorizing a qui tam action to be brought by any other person for threefold the amount, has been held to be remedial as to the loser, though penal as regards the suit by a common informer Bones v. Booth, 2 W. Bl. 1226; Brandon v. Pate, 2 H. Bl. 308; Grace v. M'Elroy, 1 Allen, 563; Read v. Stewart, 129 Mass. 407, 410; Cole v. Groves, 134 Mass. 471. As said
The test whether a law is penal, in the strict and primary sense, is whether the wrong sought to be redressed is a wrong to the public, or a wrong to the individual, according to the familiar classification of Blackstone: "Wrongs are divisible into two sorts or species: private wrongs and public wrongs. The former are an infringement or privation of the private or civil rights belonging to individuals, considered as individuals; and are thereupon frequently termed civil injuries: the latter are a breach and violation of public rights and duties, which affect the whole community, considered as a community; and
Laws have no force of themselves beyond the jurisdiction of the State which enacts them, and can have extra-territorial effect only by the comity of other States. The general rules of international comity upon this subject were well summed up, before the American Revolution, by Chief Justice De Grey, as reported by Sir William Blackstone: "Crimes are in their nature local, and the jurisdiction of crimes is local. And so as to the rights of real property, the subject being fixed and immovable. But personal injuries are of a transitory nature, and sequuntur forum rei." Rafael v. Verelst, 2 W. Bl. 1055, 1058.
Crimes and offences against the laws of any State can only be defined, prosecuted and pardoned by the sovereign authority of that State; and the authorities, legislative, executive or judicial, of other States take no action with regard to them, except by way of extradition to surrender offenders to the State whose laws they have violated, and whose peace they have broken.
Proceedings in rem to determine the title to land must necessarily be brought in the State within whose borders the land is situated, and whose courts and officers alone can put the party in possession. Whether actions to recover pecuniary damages for trespasses to real estate, "of which the causes," as observed by Mr. Westlake (Private International Law, 3d ed. p. 213), "could not have occurred elsewhere than where they did occur," are purely local, or may be brought abroad, depends upon the question whether they are viewed as relating to the real estate, or only as affording a personal remedy. By the common law of England, adopted in most of the States of the Union, such actions are regarded as local, and can be brought only where the land is situated. Doulson v. Matthews, 4 T.R. 503; McKenna v. Fisk, 1 How. 241, 248. But in some States and countries they are regarded as transitory, like other personal actions; and whether an action for trespass to land in one State can be brought in another State depends on the view which the latter State takes of the
In order to maintain an action for an injury to the person or to movable property, some courts have held that the wrong must be one which would be actionable by the law of the place where the redress is sought, as well as by the law of the place where the wrong was done. See, for example, The Halley, L.R. 2 P.C. 193, 204; Phillips v. Eyre, L.R. 6 Q.B. 1, 28, 29; The M. Moxham, 1 P.D. 107, 111; Wooden v. Western New York & Pennsylvania Railroad, 126 N.Y. 10; Ash v. Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, 72 Maryland, 144. But such is not the law of this court. By our law, a private action may be maintained in one State, if not contrary to its own policy, for such a wrong done in another and actionable there, although a like wrong would not be actionable in the State where the suit is brought. Smith v. Condry, 1 How. 28; The China, 7 Wall. 53, 64; The Scotland, 105 U.S. 24, 29; Dennick v. Railroad Co., 103 U.S. 11; Texas & Pacific Railway v. Cox, 145 U.S. 593.
Upon the question what are to be considered penal laws of one country, within the international rule which forbids such laws to be enforced in any other country, so much reliance
"The rule that the courts of no country execute the penal laws of another applies not only to prosecutions and sentences for crimes and misdemeanors, but to all suits in favor of the State for the recovery of pecuniary penalties for any violation of statutes for the protection of its revenue, or other municipal laws, and to all judgments for such penalties." p. 290.
"The application of the rule to the courts of the several States and of the United States is not affected by the provisions of the Constitution and of the act of Congress, by which the judgments of the courts of any State are to have such faith and credit given to them in every court within the United States as they have by law or usage in the State in which they were rendered." p. 291.
"The essential nature and real foundation of a cause of action are not changed by recovering judgment upon it; and the technical rules, which regard the original claim as merged in the judgment, and the judgment as implying a promise by the defendant to pay it, do not preclude a court, to which a judgment is presented for affirmative action, (while it cannot go behind the judgment for the purpose of examining into the validity of the claim,) from ascertaining whether the claim is really one of such a nature that the court is authorized to enforce it." pp. 292, 293.
"The statute of Wisconsin, under which the State recovered in one of her own courts the judgment now and here sued on, was in the strictest sense a penal statute, imposing a penalty upon any insurance company of another State, doing business in the State of Wisconsin without having deposited with the proper officer of the State a full statement of its property and business during the previous year. The cause of action was not any private injury, but solely the offence committed against the State by violating her law. The prosecution was in the name of the State, and the whole penalty, when recovered, would accrue to the State." p. 299.
Upon similar grounds, the courts of a State cannot be compelled to take jurisdiction of a suit to recover a like penalty for a violation of a law of the United States. Martin v. Hunter, 1 Wheat. 304, 330, 337; United States v. Lathrop, 17 Johns. 4, 265; Delafield v. Illinois, 2 Hill (N.Y.) 159, 169; Jackson v. Rose, 2 Virg. Cas. 34; Ely v. Peck, 7 Conn. 239; Davison v. Champlin, 7 Conn. 244; Haney v. Sharp, 1 Dana, 442; State v. Pike, 15 N.H. 83, 85; Ward v. Jenkins, 10 Met. 583, 587; 1 Kent Com. 402-404. The only ground ever suggested for maintaining such suits in a state court is that the laws of the United States are in effect laws of each State. Claflin v. Houseman, 93 U.S. 130, 137; Platt, J., in United States v. Lathrop, 17 Johns. 22; Ordway v. Central Bank, 47 Maryland, 217. But in Claflin v. Houseman the point adjudged was that an assignee under the bankrupt law of the United States could assert in a state court the title vested in him by the assignment in bankruptcy; and Mr. Justice Bradley, who delivered the opinion in that case, said the year before, when sitting in the Circuit Court, and speaking of a prosecution in a court of the State of Georgia for perjury committed in that State in testifying before a commissioner of the Circuit Court of the United States, "It would be a manifest incongruity for one sovereignty to punish a person for an offence committed against the laws of another sovereignty." Ex parte Bridges, 2 Woods, 428, 430. See also Loney's case, 134 U.S. 372.
Beyond doubt, (except in cases removed from a state court in obedience to an express act of Congress in order to protect rights under the Constitution and laws of the United States,) a Circuit Court of the United States cannot entertain jurisdiction of a suit in behalf of the State, or of the people thereof,
For the purposes of extra-territorial jurisdiction, it may well be that actions by a common informer, called, as Blackstone says, "popular actions, because they are given to the people in general," to recover a penalty imposed by statute for an offence against the law, and which may be barred by a pardon granted before action brought, may stand on the same ground as suits brought for such a penalty in the name of the State or of its officers, because they are equally brought to enforce the criminal law of the State. 3 Bl. Com. 161, 162; 2 Bl. Com. 437, 438; Adams v. Woods, 2 Cranch, 336; Gwin v. Breedlove, above cited; United States v. Connor, 138 U.S. 61, 66; Bryant v. Ela, Smith (N.H.) 396. And personal disabilities imposed by the law of a State, as an incident or consequence of a judicial sentence or decree, by way of punishment of an offender, and not for the benefit of any other person — such as attainder, or infamy, or incompetency of a convict to testify, or disqualification of the guilty party to a cause of divorce for adultery to marry again — are doubtless strictly penal, and therefore have no extra-territorial operation. Story on Conflict of Laws, §§ 91, 92; Dicey on Domicil, 162; Folliott v. Ogden, 1 H. Bl. 123, and 3 T.R. 726; Logan v. United States, 144 U.S. 263, 303; Dickson v. Dickson, 1 Yerger, 110; Ponsford v. Johnson, 2 Blatchford, 15; Commonwealth v. Lane, 113 Mass. 458, 471; Van Voorhis v. Brintnall, 86 N.Y. 18, 28, 29.
The question whether a statute of one State, which in some aspects may be called penal, is a penal law in the international sense, so that it cannot be enforced in the courts of another State, depends upon the question whether its purpose is to
In that case, it was held that, by virtue of a statute of New Jersey making a person or corporation, whose wrongful act, neglect or default should cause the death of any person, liable to an action by his administrator, for the benefit of his widow and next of kin, to recover damages for the pecuniary injury resulting to them from his death, such an action, where the neglect and the death took place in New Jersey, might, upon general principles of law, be maintained in a Circuit Court of the United States held in the State of New York by an administrator of the deceased, appointed in that State.
Mr. Justice Miller, in delivering judgment, said: "It can scarcely be contended that the act belongs to the class of criminal laws which can only be enforced by the courts of the State where the offence was committed, for it is, though a statutory remedy, 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." 103 U.S. 17, 18.
That decision is important as establishing two points: 1st. The court considered "criminal laws," that is to say, laws
That decision has been also followed in the courts of several States. Herrick v. Minneapolis & St. Louis Railway, 31 Minnesota, 11; Chicago &c. Railroad v. Doyle, 60 Mississippi, 977; Knight v. West Jersey Railroad, 108 Penn. St. 250; Morris v. Chicago &c. Railway, 65 Iowa, 727; Missouri Pacific Railway v. Lewis, 24 Nebraska, 848; Higgins v. Central New England Railroad, 155 Mass. 176.
In the case last cited, a statute of Connecticut having provided that all actions for injuries to the person, including those resulting instantaneously or otherwise in death, should survive; and that for an injury resulting in death from negligence the executor or administrator of the deceased might maintain an action to recover damages not exceeding $5000, to be distributed among his widow and heirs in certain proportions; it was held that such an action was not a penal action, and might be maintained under that statute in Massachusetts by an administrator, appointed there, of a citizen thereof, who had been instantly killed in Connecticut by the negligence of a railroad corporation; and the general principles applicable to the case were carefully stated as follows: "These principles require that, in cases of other than penal actions, the foreign law, if not contrary to our public policy, or to abstract justice or pure morals, or calculated to injure the State or its citizens, shall
The provision of the statute of New York, now in question, making the officers of a corporation, who sign and record a false certificate of the amount of its capital stock, liable for all its debts, is in no sense a criminal or quasi criminal law. The statute, while it enables persons complying with its provisions to do business as a corporation, without being subject to the liability of general partners, takes pains to secure and maintain a proper corporate fund for the payment of the corporate debts. With this aim, it makes the stockholders individually liable for the debts of the corporation until the capital stock is paid in and a certificate of the payment made by the officers; and makes the officers liable for any false and material representation in that certificate. The individual liability of the stockholders takes the place of a corporate fund, until that fund has been duly created; and the individual liability of the officers takes the place of the fund, in case their statement that it has been duly created is false. If the officers do not truly state and record the facts which exempt them from liability, they are made liable directly to every creditor of the company, who by reason of their wrongful acts has not the security, for the payment of his debt out of the corporate property, on which he had a right to rely. As the statute imposes a burdensome liability on the officers for their wrongful act, it may well be considered penal, in the sense that it should be strictly construed. But as it gives a civil remedy, at the private suit of the creditor only, and measured by the amount of his debt, it is as to him clearly remedial. To maintain such a suit is not to administer a punishment imposed upon an offender against
The decisions of the Court of Appeals of New York, so far as they have been brought to our notice, fall short of holding that the liability imposed upon the officers of the corporation by such statutes is a punishment or penalty which cannot be enforced in another State.
In Garrison v. Howe, the court held that the statute was so far penal that it must be construed strictly, and therefore the officers could not be charged with a debt of the corporation, which was neither contracted nor existing during a default in making the report required by the statute; and Chief Justice Denio, in delivering judgment, said: "If the statute were simply a remedial one, it might be said that the plaintiff's case was within its equity; for the general object of the law doubtless was, beside enforcing the duty of making reports for the benefit of all concerned, to enable parties proposing to deal with the corporation to see whether they could safely do so." "But the provision is highly penal, and the rules of law do not permit us to extend it by construction to cases not fairly within the language." 17 N.Y. 458, 465, 466.
In Jones v. Barlow, it was accordingly held that officers were only liable for debts actually due, and for which a present right of action exists against the corporation; and the court said: "Although the obligation is wholly statutory, and adjudged to be a penalty, it is in substance, as it is in form, a remedy for the collection of the corporate debts. The act is penal as against the defaulting trustees, but is remedial in favor of creditors. The liability of defaulting trustees is measured by the obligation of the company, and a discharge of the obligations of the company, or a release of the debt, bars the action against the trustees." 62 N.Y. 202, 205, 206.
The other cases in that court, cited in the opinion of the Court of Appeals of Maryland in the present case, adjudged only the following points: Within the meaning of a statute of limitations applicable to private actions only, the action against an
In a later case than any of these, the court, in affirming the very judgment now sued on, and adjudging the statute of 1875 to be constitutional and valid, said that "while liability within the provision in question is in some sense penal in its character, it may have been intended for the protection of creditors of corporations created pursuant to that statute." Huntington v. Attrill, 118 N.Y. 365, 378. And where such an action against an officer went to judgment before the death of either party, it was decided that "the original wrong was merged in the judgment, and that thus became property with all the attributes of a judgment in an action ex contractu;" and that if, after a reversal of judgment for the plaintiff, both parties died, the plaintiff's representatives might maintain an appeal from the judgment of reversal, and have the defendant's representatives summoned in. Carr v. Rischer, 119 N.Y. 117, 124.
We do not refer to these decisions as evidence in this case of the law of New York, because in the courts of Maryland that law could only be proved as a fact, and was hardly open to proof on the demurrer, and, if not proved in those courts, could not be taken judicial notice of by this court on this writ of error. Hanley v. Donoghue, 116 U.S. 1; Chicago & Alton Railroad v. Wiggins Ferry, 119 U.S. 615; Wernwag v. Pawling, 5 Gill & Johns. 500, 508; Coates v. Mackey, 56
That court and some others, indeed, have held that the liability of officers under such a statute is so far in the nature of a penalty, that the creditors of the corporation have no vested right therein, which cannot be taken away by a repeal of the statute before judgment in an action brought thereon. Victory Co. v. Beecher, 97 N.Y. 651, and 26 Hun, 48; Union Iron Co. v. Pierce, 4 Bissell, 327; Breitung v. Lindauer, 37 Michigan, 217, 230; Gregory v. German Bank, 3 Colorado, 332. But whether that is so, or whether, within the decision of this court in Hawthorne v. Calef, 2 Wall. 10, 23, such a repeal so affects the security which the creditor had when his debt was contracted, as to impair the obligation of his contract with the corporation, is aside from the question now before us.
It is true that the courts of some States, including Maryland, have declined to enforce a similar liability imposed by the statute of another State. But, in each of those cases, it appears to have been assumed to be a sufficient ground for that conclusion, that the liability was not founded in contract, but was in the nature of a penalty imposed by statute; and no reasons were given for considering the statute a penal law in the strict, primary and international sense. Derrickson v. Smith, 3 Dutcher (27 N.J. Law), 166; Halsey v. McLean, 12 Allen, 438; First National Bank v. Price, 33 Maryland, 487.
It is also true that in Steam Engine Co. v. Hubbard, 101 U.S. 188, 192, Mr. Justice Clifford referred to those cases by way of argument. But in that case, as well as in Chase v. Curtis, 113 U.S. 452, the only point adjudged was that such statutes were so far penal that they must be construed
But in Hornor v. Henning, 93 U.S. 228, this court declined to consider a similar liability of officers of a corporation in the District of Columbia as a penalty. See also Neal v. Moultrie, 12 Georgia, 104; Cady v. Sanford, 53 Vermont, 632, 639, 640; Nickerson v. Wheeler, 118 Mass. 295, 298; Post v. Toledo &c. Railroad, 144 Mass. 341, 345; Woolverton v. Taylor, 132 Illinois, 197; Morawetz on Corporations (2d ed.) § 908.
The case of Missouri Pacific Railway v. Humes, 115 U.S. 512, on which the defendant much relied, related only to the authority of the legislature of a State to compel railroad corporations, neglecting to provide fences and cattle-guards on the lines of their roads, to pay double damages to the owners of cattle injured by reason of the neglect; and no question of the jurisdiction of the courts of another State to maintain an action for such damages was involved in the case, suggested by counsel, or in the mind of the court.
The true limits of the international rule are well stated in the decision of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council of England, upon an appeal from Canada, in an action brought by the present plaintiff against Attrill in the Province of Ontario upon the judgment to enforce which the present suit was brought. The Canadian judges, having in evidence before them some of the cases in the Court of Appeals of New York, above referred to, as well as the testimony of a well known lawyer of New York that such statutes were, and had been held by that court to be, strictly penal and punitive, differed in opinion upon the question whether the statute of New York was a penal law which could not be enforced in another country, as well as upon the question whether the view taken by
In the Privy Council, Lord Watson, speaking for Lord Chancellor Halsbury and other judges, as well as for himself, delivered an opinion in favor of reversing the judgment below, and entering a decree for the appellant, upon the ground that the action "was not, in the sense of international law, penal, or, in other words, an action on behalf of the government or community of the State of New York for punishment of an offence against their municipal law." The fact that that opinion has not been found in any series of reports readily accessible in this country, but only in 8 Times Law Reports, 341, affords special reasons for quoting some passages.
"The rule" of international law, said Lord Watson, "had its foundation in the well recognized principle that crimes, including in that term all breaches of public law punishable by pecuniary mulct or otherwise, at the instance of the state government, or of some one representing the public, were local in this sense, that they were only cognizable and punishable in the country where they were committed. Accordingly no proceeding, even in the shape of a civil suit, which had for its object the enforcement by the State, whether directly or indirectly, of punishment imposed for such breaches by the lex loci, ought to be admitted in the courts of any other country. In its ordinary acceptation, the word `penal' might embrace penalties for infractions of general law, which did not constitute offences against the State; it might, for many legal purposes, be applied with perfect propriety to penalties created by contract; and it, therefore, when taken by itself, failed to mark that distinction between civil rights and criminal wrongs, which was the very essence of the international rule."
After observing that, in the opinion of the Judicial Committee, the first passage above quoted from Wisconsin v. Pelican Ins. Co., 127 U.S. 265, 290, "disclosed the proper test for ascertaining whether an action was penal within the meaning of the rule," he added: "A proceeding, in order to come within the scope of the rule, must be in the nature of a suit in
He had already, in an earlier part of the opinion, observed: "Their lordships could not assent to the proposition that, in considering whether the present action was penal in such sense as to oust their jurisdiction, the courts of Ontario were bound to pay absolute deference to any interpretation which might have been put upon the statute of 1875 in the State of New York. They had to construe and apply an international rule, which was a matter of law entirely within the cognizance of the foreign court whose jurisdiction was invoked. Judicial decisions in the State where the cause of action arose were not precedents which must be followed, although the reasoning upon which they were founded must always receive careful consideration and might be conclusive. The court appealed to must determine for itself, in the first place, the substance of the right sought to be enforced, and, in the second place, whether its enforcement would, either directly or indirectly, involve the execution of the penal law of another State. Were any other principle to guide its decision, a court might find itself in the position of giving effect in one case, and denying effect in another, to suits of the same character, in consequence
In this view that the question is not one of local, but of international law, we fully concur. The test is not by what name the statute is called by the legislature or the courts of the State in which it was passed, but whether it appears to the tribunal which is called upon to enforce it to be, in its essential character and effect, a punishment of an offence against the public, or a grant of a civil right to a private person.
In this country, the question of international law must be determined in the first instance by the court, state or national, in which the suit is brought. If the suit is brought in a Circuit Court of the United States, it is one of those questions of general jurisprudence which that court must decide for itself, uncontrolled by local decisions. Burgess v. Seligman, 107 U.S. 20, 33; Texas & Pacific Railway v. Cox, 145 U.S. 593, 605, above cited. If a suit on the original liability under the statute of one State is brought in a court of another State, the Constitution and laws of the United States have not authorized its decision upon such a question to be reviewed by this court. New York Ins. Co. v. Hendren, 92 U.S. 286; Roth v. Ehman, 107 U.S. 319. But if the original liability has passed into judgment in one State, the courts of another State, when asked to enforce it, are bound by the Constitution and laws of the United States to give full faith and credit to that judgment, and if they do not, their decision, as said at the outset of this opinion, may be reviewed and reversed by this court on writ of error. The essential nature and real foundation of a cause of action, indeed, are not changed by recovering judgment upon it. This was directly adjudged in Wisconsin v. Pelican Ins. Co., above cited. The difference is only in the appellate jurisdiction of this court in the one case or in the other.
If a suit to enforce a judgment rendered in one State, and which has not changed the essential nature of the liability, is brought in the courts of another State, this court, in order to determine, on writ of error, whether the highest court of the latter State has given full faith and credit to the judgment,
Whether the Court of Appeals of Maryland gave full faith and credit to the judgment recovered by this plaintiff in New York depends upon the true construction of the provisions of the Constitution and of the act of Congress upon that subject.
The provision of the Constitution is as follows: "Full faith and credit shall be given in each State to the public acts, records and judicial proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general laws prescribe the manner in which such acts, records and proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof." Art. 4, sect. 1.
This clause of the Constitution, like the less perfect provision on the subject in the Articles of Confederation, as observed by Mr. Justice Story, "was intended to give the same conclusive effect to judgments of all the States, so as to promote uniformity, as well as certainty, in the rule among them;" and had three distinct objects: first, to declare, and
Congress, in the exercise of the power so conferred, besides prescribing the manner in which the records and judicial proceedings of any State may be authenticated, has defined the effect thereof, by enacting that "the said records and judicial proceedings, so authenticated, shall have such faith and credit given to them in every court within the United States, as they have by law or usage in the courts of the State from which they are taken." Rev. Stat. § 905, reënacting Act of May 26, 1790, c. 11, 1 Stat. 122.
These provisions of the Constitution and laws of the United States are necessarily to be read in the light of some established principles, which they were not intended to overthrow. They give no effect to judgments of a court which had no jurisdiction of the subject-matter or of the parties. D'Arcy v. Ketchum, 11 How. 165; Thompson v. Whitman, 18 Wall. 457. And they confer no new jurisdiction on the courts of any State; and therefore do not authorize them to take jurisdiction of a suit or prosecution of such a penal nature, that it cannot, on settled rules of public and international law, be entertained by the judiciary of any other State than that in which the penalty was incurred. Wisconsin v. Pelican Ins. Co., above cited.
Nor do these provisions put the judgments of other States upon the footing of domestic judgments, to be enforced by execution; but they leave the manner in which they may be enforced to the law of the State in which they are sued on, pleaded, or offered in evidence. McElmoyle v. Cohen, 13 Pet. 312, 325. But when duly pleaded and proved in a court of that State, they have the effect of being not merely prima facie evidence, but conclusive proof, of the rights thereby adjudicated; and a refusal to give them the force and effect, in this respect, which they had in the State in which they
The judgment rendered by a court of the State of New York, now in question, is not impugned for any want of jurisdiction in that court. The statute under which that judgment was recovered was not, for the reasons already stated at length, a penal law in the international sense. The faith and credit, force and effect, which that judgment had by law and usage in New York was to be conclusive evidence of a direct civil liability from the individual defendant to the individual plaintiff for a certain sum of money, and a debt of record, on which an action would lie, as on any other civil judgment inter partes. The Court of Appeals of Maryland, therefore, in deciding this case against the plaintiff, upon the ground that the judgment was not one which it was bound in any manner to enforce, denied to the judgment the full faith, credit and effect to which it was entitled under the Constitution and laws of the United States.
Judgment reversed, and case remanded to the Court of Appeals of the State of Maryland for further proceedings not inconsistent with the opinion of this court.
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE FULLER dissenting.
This suit was not an action at law to recover judgment in Maryland upon the judgment in New York, nor was it an ordinary creditor's bill brought by a creditor to reach equitable assets. The judgment and execution had no extra-territorial force, and Huntington was a judgment creditor in New York only. It was the bill of a creditor at large to set aside an alleged fraudulent transfer, judgment not being essential under the statute of Maryland in that behalf. It could not have been sustained at all but for that act, and it did not assume to proceed upon the theory that the transfer was invalid because
The ground of relief in this case was the charge that Attrill had transferred certain stock in April, 1882, with intent to hinder, delay and defraud the plaintiff of his lawful suits, debts and demands in respect of a liability of Attrill to him as a stockholder and as a director of the Rockaway Company, which accrued in 1880, upon the statute of New York, under which that company was organized. An action upon this liability, either as stockholder or director, was barred by the statute of limitations of Maryland, and so the Maryland court held. The judgment recovered in New York in 1886 by Huntington against Attrill upon the alleged liability as a director was, however, referred to and made part of the bill, and in this judgment that cause of action had been merged. And it was averred that the transfer was fraudulent as to the indebtedness arising "out of the cause of action on which the judgment hereinbefore recited has been recovered," which was set forth in detail.
The New York statute was made part of the pleading and admitted as a fact by the demurrer; and while the Maryland court held that the judgment was conclusive evidence of its existence in the form and under the circumstances stated in the pleadings, it regarded it as not changing the character of the liability upon which it was based. The record established the relation of debtor and creditor at the time stated and the amount and fact of the indebtedness, but nothing further.
As plaintiff had no judgment in Maryland, and had not sought to recover one, the pleader, in order to make out the alleged fraud as perpetrated in 1882, went into the original cause of action at large, and invited the attention of the court to its nature. The question at once arose whether the courts of Maryland were constrained to enforce such a cause of action, although record evidence of its maintenance in New York existed in the form of a judgment there. The court held that the liability was not one arising upon contract, but one imposed
It was for the Maryland court to determine whether such enforcement would either directly or indirectly involve the execution of the penal laws of another State; and although it might have been mistaken in the conclusion arrived at, such error does not give this court jurisdiction to review its judgment. State courts do not adjudicate in the matter of the enforceability of statutory delicts at their peril.
In my opinion, the Maryland court gave all the force and effect to the judgment in question to which it was entitled. The pleadings were necessarily confined to the equities arising out of the original cause of action, and full faith and credit were accorded to the judgment as matter of evidence. Its effect as such could not render it incompetent for the state court to decide for itself the question which was raised upon the record. As there presented, it was for that court to say whether the obligation on Attrill to pay the sum for which the judgment was given was an obligation which the Maryland court was bound to recognize as proper foundation for relief in equity in respect of the transfer of April, 1882.
MR. JUSTICE LAMAR and MR. JUSTICE SHIRAS, not having heard the argument, took no part in the decision of this case.
FootNotes
SEC. 37. In limited liability companies, all the stockholders shall be severally individually liable to the creditors of the company in which they are stockholders, to an amount equal to the amount of stock held by them respectively, for all debts and contracts made by such company, until the whole amount of capital stock fixed and limited by such company has been paid in, and a certificate thereof has been made and recorded as hereinafter prescribed... . The capital stock of every such limited liability company shall be paid in, one half thereof within one year and the other half thereof within two years from the incorporation of said company, or such corporation shall be dissolved. The directors of every such company, within thirty days after the payment of the last instalment of the capital stock, shall make a certificate stating the amount of the capital so paid in, which certificate shall be signed and sworn to by the president and a majority of the directors; and they shall, within the said thirty days, record the same in the office of the secretary of state, and of the county in which the principal business office of such corporation is situated.
SEC. 38. The dissolution for any cause whatever, of any corporation created as aforesaid, shall not take away or impair any remedy given against such corporation, its stockholders or officers, for any liabilities incurred previous to its dissolution.
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