Enforcing Foreign Judgments in Non-Uniform Act States
April 16, 2025
The recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments in the United States are generally governed by state law. Most states have adopted one of two uniform acts to address this. Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia have adopted the 2005 Uniform Foreign-Country Money Judgments Recognition Act. Nine additional states still rely on its predecessor, the 1962 Uniform Foreign Money-Judgments Recognition Act.
But twelve states have not adopted either of the Uniform Acts: Arkansas, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Hampshire, South Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. What happens when a court is asked to recognize a foreign judgment in one of these states? A recent decision by Chief Judge Eric F. Melgren (District of Kansas), Raney v. Raney, provides a good illustration.
A Farm in Belize
In 1993, brothers Carl and Wayne Raney, along with their mother and a family friend, purchased two tracts of agricultural land and started a farm in Belize. Ultimately, the farm failed. Carl sued the others in the Supreme Court of Belize—that country’s trial court—arguing that he was owed management fees under an alleged oral contract. The defendants denied owing fees and counterclaimed, asking that the property be sold and the proceeds divided. In 2018, the Belize court ruled for the defendants, finding no evidence of an oral agreement. It ordered that the property be sold.
Carl appealed. But in the meantime, he also filed the same claims in U.S. district court in Kansas. The district court stayed its proceedings pending the appeal in Belize. In 2023, the Belize Court of Appeals affirmed dismissal of Carl’s claims. And, while tweaking the trial court’s decision on ownership of the property, the appellate court also ordered the property sold and the proceeds divided. The defendants then moved to dismiss the Kansas action, arguing that all the issues had been decided by the Belize judgment.
The District Court’s Decision
Judge Melgren began by correctly noting that the recognition of a foreign judgment in the United States is governed by state law and that a federal court sitting in diversity must apply the law of the state in which it sits. Although Kansas has no statute on this subject, Kansas courts have long recognized foreign judgments as a matter of comity.
Looking Back to Hilton v. Guyot
For the rule on comity, the court looked to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Hilton v. Guyot (1895). Hiltonwas decided as a matter of general common law, and even before Erie Railroad v. Tompkins (1938), state courts were not bound to follow it. After Erie, the shoe is on the other foot, and it is federal courts that must follow state law. But the Kansas Court of Appeals had previously looked to Hilton in another case involving foreign judgments.
Hilton held that a foreign judgment should be recognized if:
there has been opportunity for a full and fair trial abroad before a court of competent jurisdiction, conducting the trial upon regular proceedings, after due citation or voluntary appearance of the defendant, and under a system of jurisprudence likely to secure an impartial administration of justice between the citizens of its own country and those of other countries, and there is nothing to show either prejudice in the court, or in the system of laws under which it is sitting, or fraud in procuring the judgment.
Because Carl had not argued that any of Hilton’s bases for nonrecognition applied to the Belize judgment, the district court held that the judgment was entitled to recognition.
Reciprocity?
Of course, Hilton also famously imposed a reciprocity requirement on the recognition of foreign judgments, refusing to enforce the French judgment in that case because France would not grant similar recognition to U.S. judgments.
The district court did not ask whether Belize grants reciprocity to U.S. judgments (and I do not know if it does). But presumably Carl did not make this argument either, in which case the district could properly consider it waived. Moreover, most U.S. states have not adopted Hilton’s reciprocity requirement for foreign judgments. So, Judge Melgren’s decision is consistent with the trend of U.S. decisions.
Res Judicata
Having recognized the Belize judgment, Judge Melgren next looked to see whether it was entitled to res judicata effect. The general rule in the United States, as stated in § 487 of the Restatement (Fourth) of Foreign Relations Law, is that “[a] foreign judgment will not be given greater preclusive effect in the United States than the judgment would be accorded in the state of origin.” According to Judge Melgren, that is the rule in Kansas too.
This rule is generally more of a problem for issue preclusion (collateral estoppel) than for claim preclusion (res judicata). Most foreign states recognize claim preclusion, even when they don’t recognize issue preclusion. In any event, the district court found that Belize would treat the judgment as res judicata, quoting a Belize decision.
A Form of Abstention?
There is only one point upon which I would fault Judge Melgren’s decision. At the very end, he characterized his recognition of the Belize judgment as a form of abstention based on international comity. In fact, a decision to give a foreign judgment res judicata effect is an exercise of jurisdiction and a decision on the merits.
The court seems to have been led astray by decisions from the Eleventh Circuit like Turner Entertainment Co. v. Degeto Film GmbH (1994) and Belize Telecom, Ltd. v. Government of Belize (2008), which created and applied a federal doctrine of abstention to give effect to foreign judgments. I am not a fan of international comity abstention doctrines. But they are doubly problematic when applied to foreign judgments. That is because, under Erie, recognition of foreign judgments is governed by state law. By treating such recognition as a question of federal abstention, the Eleventh Circuit’s decisions ignore the state law that should properly govern.
To his credit, Judge Melgren did not ignore state law. He understood that recognition of the Belize judgment, even in federal court, turned on Kansas law. But that makes it all the odder that he cited to Eleventh Circuit cases that have taken a very different approach.
Conclusion
When recognition and enforcement of a foreign judgment is sought in one of the twelve states that has not adopted one of the uniform acts, state common law applies, and the federal or state court must determine the content of that law. Like Kansas, other states have also looked to Hilton v. Guyot, including Louisiana and South Dakota. None of these states appears to have adopted Hilton’s reciprocity requirement.
It would promote uniformity if these remaining states would adopt the 2005 Uniform Act, as Nebraska and Rhode Island have recently done. But even without such adoptions, the law on foreign judgments remains relatively uniform throughout the United States. Hilton is the origin, after all, of most of the bases for non-recognition found in the Uniform Acts. Courts might also consult the 2018 Restatement (Fourth) of Foreign Relations Law, which tracks the Uniform Acts and fleshes out other principles, such as not giving a foreign judgment greater preclusive effect than it has in its state of origin.
Recognizing and enforcing a foreign judgment in a non-uniform-act state is not difficult. It just requires the court to work a little harder.