The case was this: The Plaintiffs and the Defendant had been
concerned together in trade; and upon settling their accounts, a
considerable ballance appeared against Allen; for the recovery of
which an action was brought in the State of New Jersey in May 1782;
and judgment was therein obtained in November following, when a Fi.
fa. issued, and on a return of Nulia bona to that writ, a Ca. Sa.
was sued out returnable to May 1783 In the mean time, the
Defendant, on the 27th of April 1783, was arrested in Pennsylvania
for the same debt, and gave bail; but, on his return to New Jersey,
he was there taken on the Ca. Sa. which
Page 1 U.S.
188, 189
had issued in that State against him; and, afterwards, in
October, 1783, was discharged by their Act of Insolvency. A rule to
plead had been entered in the action brought in Pennsylvania at
June Term 1783, and judgment was signed for want of a plea, at the
ensuing September Term. Bradford moved to set the judgment of this
Court aside, or to open it in order to admit the Defendant to plead
the proceedings and discharge in New Jersey. Upon the argument it
was stated, and agreed, that no person was entitled to relief under
the Insolvent Law of New Jersey, who was not born in that state, or
had not resided in it one year free from arrest; that a man
indebted to any amount was entitled to the benefit of it; that a
person not in execution was not excluded; that the Act requires
notice to be inserted in the public papers of New York if the
debtor lives in East Jersey, or in those of Pennsylvania if he
lives in West Jersey; and that every debtor, who complied with the
terms of the Act, became thereby expressly discharged from all
debts due at the time of the assignment of his effects for the use
of his creditors, or contracted for before that time and payable
after, 'so far as regards the imprisonment or detention of his
person.' Bradford and Lewis, in support of the motion, contended
that the benefit and effect of the New Jersey law ought, in the
present case, to be extended to Pennsylvania, as well by the
general principle of the law of nations, a by the particular
obligation arising from the articles of confederation. 1. They
observed, that by the Law of Nations, every transaction, not yet
compleated, which has a view to its completion in a foreign
country, must be determined according to the municipal law of that
country: But, if perfectly compleat in the country in which it
originated, the Lex Loci that decided, must protect it in every
other country where the validity of the transaction is called in
question. 1 Black. Rep. 258. 2 Burr. 1078. Finch 186. 2 Show. 231.
If the validity of a contract depends upon the laws of a foreign
country in which it is perfected, and cannot be affected by any
arguments drawn from the laws of the country where a subsequent
action is brought, certainly a judicial decision (which, like an
Act once in force, but afterwards repealed, vests a right in the
party, though its immediate operation is impeded) cannot be
otherwise expounded and enforced than by the laws of the country
where it is pronounced: And proceedings under the Insolvent Act
amount to a judicial decision; for, they determine a debt, and give
a remedy. Sir T. Raym. 473. They might, indeed, be said to amount
to more; as, in giving the creditor all the advantage of the
debtor's effects they become a species of execution, and,
therefore, may be considered a satisfaction. It is no small
injustice, when a debtor has been compelled to assign all his
effects, when he has given every satisfaction that he possibly can,
to pursue his footsteps, on every charge of situation, and commit
him again and again into custody. If the suit in New Jersey had
terminated in another manner, for instance,
Page 1 U.S.
188, 190
by a verdict in favor of the Defendant, that would clearly have
been a bar to the action here. 2. But, should the Defendant find no
protection under the law of nations, the 4th Article of the
Confederation, effectually supplies that defect. The article
declares, that 'full faith and credit shall be given in each of
these States to the records, acts, and judicial proceedings, of the
Courts and Magistrates of every other State.' Now, if a judgment,
or other judicial proceeding in New Jersey had not been evidence
before, this provision (to the true sense of which the law of
Pennsylvania is subservient) would have made it so-if it was only
prima facie evidence before, this would render it conclusive. What
Lord Mans ield declares in Doug. 5. to be the case with respect to
certain Courts in Westminster Hall ( whose decisions and
proceedings are unexaminable evidence) is also true when applied to
the several Courts of Justice in the States of the American Union;
and the discharge in New Jersey may be carried about by the
Defendant into each of those states, as an impenetrable suit of
armour to guard him from all future attacks upon his liberty, for a
cause of action existing at the time it was granted. The motion was
opposed by Coxe, Ingersol, and Sergeant, who argued that judgments
in foreign Courts were only prima facie evidence, except in Courts
of Admiralty, whose decrees were conclusive, because founded upon
the law of nations, which is common to all the world; that as a
judgment without satisfaction could not bar an action for the same
debt in another country, 3 Atk. 598. much less would the
proceedings under the Act in question, which did not extinguish, or
even alter the debt; but only discharged the person of the debtor
from arrest within the State of New Jersey. That this was entirely
a municipal regulation, calculated to protect the inhabitants of
New Jersey from their creditors in New York and Pennsylvania; to
the inhabitants of which states, the citizens of New Jersey (owing
to their having no sea port, and paying an interest of 7 per Cent.
for money) were constantly indebted; so that the extention of the
Act did not deserve to be favored here. That in the case of Lopez,
in the Court of Appeals, and in the cause between Connecticut and
Pennsylvania, depositions taken in Connecticut, according to one of
their statutes, were not admitted to be read, because contrary to
the common law. That the payment of interest for money lent, was
the only instance regulated by foreign laws. That a certified
English bankrupt, was liable to arrest in Ireland. That, even if
the validity of a foreign proceeding is admitted, a right to
examine the ground, upon which it was founded, remains; and,
therefore, that it might be proved, that the Defendant was not
entitled to the benefit of the Act; as he was not a native of New
Jersey, nor had he resided there one year previous to the arrest.
That, upon the whole, it would be extremely hard, after the
creditors on the spot who, having joined in the petition according
to the directions of the Act, had shared the spoils; an absent
creditor, who never knew of the discharge, should be barred.
Page 1 U.S.
188, 191
SHIPPEN, President. This is a motion, in effect, to discharge
the Defendant from execution, on the ground of his having been
confined by a Ca. Sa. for the same Debt in the State of New Jersey,
and there discharged as an insolvent Debtor, by virtue of an Act of
Assembly of that State: And the question is, whether the discharge
of his person from imprisonment there, will intitle him to a like
discharge here? It is contended, that the decisions of even foreign
Courts of Justice, shall have a binding force here; and that in the
situation in which we stand with regard to New Jersey, a Sister
State, we are under an additional obligation to pay respect to the
decisions of the Courts there, by the terms of the Articles of
Confederation. The Judgment of a foreign Court establishing a
demand against a Defendant, or discharging him from it, according
to the laws of that country, would certainly have a binding force
here: And not only the decisions of Courts, but even the Laws of
foreign countries, where no suits have been instituted, would in
some cases be taken notice of here; where such laws are explanatory
of the contracts, and appear to have been in the contemplation of
the parties at the time of making them; as if the interest of money
should be higher in a foreign country where the contract was made,
than in that where the suit was brought, the foreign interest shall
be recovered, as being understood to be part of the contract. But
it does not follow that every order of a foreign Court with respect
to the imprisonment of the Defendant's person, or any local laws of
that country, with regard to his release from confinement, can have
the effect of restraining us from proceeding according to our own
laws here. The insolvent law of New Jersey relates not to the
substance of the Plaintiff's demand, which had already been
established, but merely authorizes the Court to make an order, on
certain terms, for the discharge of the Defendant's person from
imprisonment; which order has no connection with the merits of the
cause, and cannot with any propriety be called the judgment of the
Court in that action; and the law itself on which the order was
founded, is a private act, made for that particular purpose; it is
local in its nature, and local in its terms. Insolvent laws subsist
in every State in the Union, and are probably all different from
each other; some of them require personal notice to be given to the
creditors, others do not, as in the present case; and they have
never been considered as binding out of the limits of the State
that made them. Even the Bankrupt Laws of England, while we were
the subjects of that country, were never supposed to extend here,
so as to exempt the persons of the Bankrupts from being arrested.
The Articles of Confederation, which direct that full faith and
credit shall be given in one State to the Records, Acts, and
judicial proceedings, of the others, will not admit of the
construction contended for, otherwise executions might issue in one
State upon
Page 1 U.S.
188, 192
the judgments given in another; but seem chiefly intended to
oblige each State to receive the records of another as full
evidence of such Acts and judicial proceedings.
*
Whatever might have been the effect of an order or judgment of
the Court of New Jersey, if it had actually discharged the
Defendant from the Plaintiff's demand, the present order, as well
as the Act of Assembly on which it is founded, is local in its
terms, and goes no further than to discharge him from his
imprisonment in the Gaol of Essex County in the State of New
Jersey; which, if the fullest obedience were paid to it, could not
authorize a subsequent discharge from imprisonment, in another
Gaol, in another State.
The motion is, therefore, not granted.
Footnotes
[
Footnote *] See post. Phelps vs.
Holker, and Mittar vs. Hall in the Supreme Court.
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