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from one person to another, a legal obligation arises to pay that sum on which an action of debt to enforce the judgment. may be maintained. It is in this way that the judgments of foreign and colonial courts are supported and enforced, and the same rule applies to inferior courts in this country, and applies whether they be courts of record or not."

These two cases, and especially the views taken by Baron Parke in them, are referred to in the later English cases as establishing the principle on which foreign judgments are held to be conclusive on the merits.

General Steam Navigation Co. v. Guillou (1843), 11 M. & W. 877. Plaintiff sued in case for injuries to plaintiff's ship by a ship of the defendant, under charge of the defendant's servants. It was pleaded that the company to which the defendant's ship belonged, and of which defendant was a member, brought suit in a court of France against the plaintiffs for negligence of their officers and crew, whereby she was sunk; that the plaintiffs appeared and defended themselves against the claim of the company, and insisted that the collision proceeded from the negligence of the defendant's servants, and that the court adjudged that the plaintiff's ship did, by the negligence of the plaintiff's officers and crew, run on board of and sink the ship of the company, and condemned the plaintiff in damages. The plea was held bad in form, so that it was unnecessary to determine whether it was bad in subParke, B.: But it is not to be understood that we feel much doubt on that question. They (the pleas) do not state that the plaintiffs were French subjects, or resident, or even present in France when the suit began, so as to be bound by reason of allegiance or domicil, or temporary presence, by a decision of a French court; and they did not elect the tribunal and sue as plaintiffs; in any of which cases the determination might have possibly bound them. They were mere strangers who put forward the negligence of the defendant as an answer, in an adverse suit in a foreign country, whose laws they were under no obligation to obey."

stance.

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In Henderson v. Henderson (1843), 3 Hare, 100, the next of kin of an intestate filed their bill in equity in the Supreme

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Court of Newfoundland against the plaintiff, and obtained a decree for a certain sum due them and afterwards brought their actions in England against him on the decree. The plaintiff thereupon brought this bill in England against the next of kin for an accounting concerning not only the same matters that had been passed upon in the colonial court, but other matters which might have been litigated in that suit, and alleged irregularities and errors in the proceedings in that court, and asked that the next of kin be restrained by injunction from proceeding with their action. The defendants demurred to the bill for want of equity. Vice-Chancellor Wigram held that the suit in Newfoundland was between the same parties as those in the present suit; that most of the matters concerning which an accounting was prayed for had been passed upon in that suit, and as to the remainder they were such as might have been litigated in it, and were therefore res judicata also.

Henderson v. Henderson (1843), 6 Q. B. 288, was an appeal by the plaintiff in the preceding suit from a judgment in the suit brought by the next of kin to enforce the Newfoundland decree. One of the points raised on the appeal was whether a foreign decree in equity could be enforced, the objection being that a decree for payment of money by a court of equity is not a declaration that the plaintiff has any legal right to the money, but only that upon certain views peculiar to the court the payment ought to be made.

The Court, per Lord Denman, C. J., after examining the authorities, was of the opinion that there was no doubt but that such a decree might be enforced where the chancery suit terminates in the simple result of ascertaining a clear balance and an unconditional decree that an individual must pay, but that there might be instances where such a decree would be enforceable nowhere but in courts of equity, because they involve collateral and provisional matters to which a court of law could give no effect.

Another point made on the appeal was that the defendants in the suit in chancery in Newfoundland had not had justice done them. Lord Denman, C. J.: "This is never to be presumed; but the contrary principle holds unless we see in the

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clearest light that the foreign law or at least some part of the proceedings of the foreign court are repugnant to natural justice; and this has been often made the subject of inquiry in our courts. But it steers clear of an inquiry into the merits of the case upon the facts found; for whatever constituted a defence in that court ought to have been pleaded there," etc.

In Vallee v. Dumergue (1849), 4 Exch. 290, plaintiff obtained a judgment in France against the defendant. The defendant claimed he had never resided or been in France nor subject to its laws, nor served with any process or notice whatever, nor did he have any notice or knowledge of any proceeding, nor did he appear. He claimed that the circumstances under which the judgment was obtained were contrary to natural justice. But it appeared that the defendant was a shareholder in a certain company in France; that by the law of France it was necessary for the defendant to elect a domicil in France it he resided abroad, at which the directors of the company might notify him of all proceedings relative to the company or him self as a shareholder; that by the law of France all legal proceedings affecting any party having his real domicil out of the kingdom, left for him at such elected domicil, were as valid as if left at his real domicil; that the defendant made election of domicil at Paris, and gave notice thereof to the plaintiff; and the plaintiff caused the summons to be left at the elected domicil in Paris. The court, by Alderson, B., held that whether the defendant had had actual notice of the proceedings was unimportant, as he had waived that by becoming a shareholder and thereby agreeing to accept a particular form of notification less than actual notice.

Notwithstanding the seeming approval by Chief Justice Wilde in Bank of Australasia v. Harding (1850), 9 C. B. 661, of Lord Brougham's views as expressed in Houlditch v. Donegal, supra, the case is referred to in subsequent cases as sustaining the rule of the conclusiveness of foreign judgments upon the merits, and indeed, it was held that the declaration which set forth the colonial judgment as establishing his liability was good.

In the Bank of Australasia v. Nias (1851), 16 Q. B. 717,

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which was assumpsit on the same judgment of the court of New South Wales, it was held that the judgment was binding on a member of the company sued in England. The question of the conclusiveness of the foreign judgment was fully argued. In Reimers v. Druce (1856), 23 Beavan, 145, a bill by a foreign creditor to enforce a judgment obtained in the kingdom of Hanover was dismissed on the ground of laches, but the Master of the Rolls, Sir John Romilly, discussed at some length the extent to which a foreign judgment is impeachable when sought to be enforced in England, and after a review of the principal cases, and especially of the cases of the Bank of Australasia v. Nias and Ricardo v. Garcias, said it could be impeached for error apparent on the face of it, sufficient to show that such judgment ought not to have been pronounced, but that this error cannot be shown by extrinsic evidence.

It was held in Sheehy v. Professional Life Ass. Co. (1857), 3 C. B. (N. S.) 597, affirming 2 C. B. (N. S.) 211, that a foreign judgment could be enforced notwithstanding an irregularity in the service of process, where the defendant voluntarily appeared during the argument. Erle, J., said: "I have always understood that the only ground upon which our courts can refuse to give effect to a foreign judgment is that the whole foundation of the proceeding in the foreign court fails." In De Cosse Brissac v. Rathbone (1861), 6 H. & N. 301, the suit was on a French judgment. The plea that it was erroneous on the merits. This plea was held bad. Wilde, B.: "Ricardo v. Garcias is an authority that the judgment of a foreign court of competent jurisdiction cannot be impeached upon the merits." Martin, B.: "We are all of opinion that this question is so concluded by the authorities that it is impossible for us to decide contrary to them, and the case must go to the Court of Errors. I may observe that the question does not come before me for the first time. For many years I have had occasion to consider it." In this case also it was ruled that a plea to the effect that a defendant appeared in the French. action and defended the same for the purpose of protecting his property in France, which was subject to sequestration in case of a judgment, was bad.

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Scott v. Pilkington (1862), 2 B. & S. 11. Suit on a New York judgment. Held, that the fact that an appeal is pending is not a bar, but may be a ground for delay; and that a plea that the court mistook the law of the forum was bad.

Simpson v. Fogo (1862), 1 Johns. & Hem. 18, on demurrer, and 1 Hem. & Mill. 195, on motion for a decree. In chancery. A ship being subject to a valid mortgage in England, went to Louisiana and was there attached by a creditor of the mortgagor. The mortgagee intervened and proved his rights, which were superior by the law of England, but they were disregarded, and the ship was sold and the proceeds paid to the attaching creditor. The purchaser having brought the ship to England, it was decided that the mortgagee might seize and sell her, and that the Louisiana decree was not binding, because founded on a perverse disregard of the English law, though a case properly subject to that law by the comity of nations.

In Crawley v. Isaacs, 16 Law Times, (N. S.) 529 (1867), it is said that the repugnancy to natural justice, spoken of in the cases, refers not to the decision on the merits of the case, but to matters of procedure.

The syllabus of Godard v. Gray, L. R. 6 Q. B. 139 (1870), gives a clear idea of the points decided.

"It is no bar to an action, on a judgment in personam of a foreign court having jurisdiction over the parties and cause, that the foreign tribunal has put a construction erroneous according to English law on an English contract.

"Declaration on a judgment of a French court having jurisdiction in the matter. Plea setting out the judgment, from which it appeared that the suit was for the breach by the shipowner of a charter party made in England, in which was a clause: Penalty for the non-performance of this agreement, estimated amount of freight'; and that the court had treated this clause (contrary to the English law) as fixing the amount of damages recoverable, and had given judgment accordingly for the amount of freight. The proceedings showed that both parties had appeared and been heard before the judgment was pronounced, but no objection was taken by the defendant to