Lead Opinion
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This ease concerns the authority of one State’s court to order that a witness’ testimony shall not be heard in any
After entry of the stipulated injunction in Michigan, El-well was subpoenaed to testify in a product liability action commenced in Missouri by plaintiffs who were not involved in the Michigan case. The question presented is whether the national full faith and credit command bars Elwell’s testimony in the Missouri ease. We hold that Elwell may testify in the Missouri action without offense to the full faith and credit requirement.
I
Two lawsuits, initiated by different parties in different States, gave rise to the full faith and credit issue before us. One suit involved a severed employment relationship, the other, a wrongful-death eomplaint. We describe each controversy in turn.
A
The Suit Between Elwell and General Motors
Ronald Elwell was a GM employee from 1959 until 1989. For 15 of those years, beginningin 1971, Elwell was assigned to the Engineering Analysis Group, which studied the performance of GM vehicles, most particularly vehicles involved in product liability litigation. Elwell’s studies and research concentrated on vehicular fires. He assisted in
In May 1991, plaintiffs in a product liability action pending in Georgia deposed Elwell. The Georgia case involved a GM pickup truck fuel tank that burst into flames just after a collision. During the deposition, and over the objection of counsel for GM, Elwell gave testimony that differed markedly from testimony he had given when serving as an in-house expert witness for GM. Specifically, Elwell had several times defended the safety and crashworthiness of the pickup’s fuel system. On deposition in the Georgia action, however, Elwell testified that the GM pickup truck fuel ’ system was inferior in comparison to competing products.
A month later, Elwell sued GM in a Michigan County Court, alleging wrongful discharge and other tort and contract claims. GM counterclaimed,, contending that Elwell had breached his fiduciary duty to GM by disclosing privileged and confidential information and misappropriating documents. In response to'GM’s motion for a preliminary injunction, and after a hearing, the Michigan trial court, on November 22,1991, enjoined Elwell from
“consulting or discussing with or disclosing to any person any of General Motors Corporation’s trade secrets[,] confidential information or matters of attorney-client work product relating in any manner to the subject matter of any products liability litigation whether already filed or [to be] filed in the future which Ronald Elwell received, had knowledge of, or was entrusted with dur*228 ing his employments with General Motors Corporation.” Elwell v. General Motors Corp., No. 91-115946NZ (Wayne Cty.) (Order Granting in Part, Denying in Part Injunctive Relief, pp. 1-2), App. 9-10.
In August 1992, GM and Elwell entered into a settlement under which Elwell received an undisclosed sum of money. The parties also stipulated to the entry of a permanent injunction and jointly filed with the Michigan court both the stipulation and- the agreed-upon injunction. The proposed permanent injunction contained two proscriptions. The first substantially repeated the terms of the preliminary injunction; the second comprehensively enjoined Elwell from
“testifying, without the prior written consent of General Motors Corporation, either upon deposition or at trial, as an expert witness, or as a witness of any kind, and from consulting with attorneys or their agents in any litigation already filed, or to be filed in the future, involving General Motors Corporation as an owner, seller, manufacturer and/or designer of the produet(s) in issue.” Order Dismissing Plaintiff’s Complaint and Granting Permanent Injunction (Wayne Cty., Aug. 26, 1992), p. 2, App. 30.
To this encompassing bar, the consent injunction made an exception: “[This provision] shall not operate to interfere with the jurisdiction of the Court in ... Georgia [where the litigation involving the fuel tank was still pending].” Ibid. (emphasis added). No other noninterference provision appears in the stipulated decree. On August 26,1992, with no further hearing, the Michigan court entered the injunction precisely as tendered by the parties.
Although the stipulated injunction contained an exception only for the Georgia action then pending, Elwell and GM included in their separate settlement agreement a more gen
“ ‘It is agreed that [Elwell’s] appearance and testimony, if any, at hearings on Motions to quash subpoena or at deposition or trial or other official proceeding, if the Court or other tribunal so orders, will in no way form a basis for an action in violation of the Permanent Injunction or this Agreement.’ ” Settlement Agreement, p. 10, as quoted in86 F. 3d 811 , 820, n. 11 (CA8 1996).
In the six years since the Elwell-GM settlement, Elwell has testified against GM both in Georgia (pursuant to the exception contained in the injunction) and in several other jurisdictions in which Elwell has been subpoenaed to testify.
B
The Suit Between the Bakers and General Motors
Having described the Elwell-GM employment termination litigation, we next summarize the wrongfiil-death complaint underlying this ease. The decedent, Beverly Garner, was a front-seat passenger in a 1985 Chevrolet S-10 Blazer involved in a February 1990 Missouri highway accident. The Blazer’s engine caught fire, and both driver and passenger died. In September 1991, Garner’s sons, Kenneth and Steven Baker, commenced a wrongful-death product liability action against GM in a Missouri state court. The Bakers alleged that a faulty fuel pump in the 1985 Blazer caused the engine fire that killed their mother. GM removed the case to federal court on the basis of the parties’ diverse citizenship. On the merits, GM asserted that the fuel pump was neither faulty nor the cause of the fire, and that collision impact injuries alone caused Garner’s death.
The Bakers sought both to depose Elwell and to call him as a witness at trial. GM objected to Elwell’s appearance as a deponent or trial witness on the ground that the Michigan
After in camera review of the Michigan injunction and the settlement agreement, the Federal District Court in Missouri allowed the Bakers to depose Elwell and to call him as a witness at trial. Responding to GM’s objection, the District Court stated altérnative grounds for its ruling: (1) Michigan’s injunction need not be enforced because blocking Elwell’s testimony would violate Missouri’s “public policy,” which shielded from disclosure only privileged or otherwise confidential information; (2) just as the injunction could be modified in Michigan, so a court elsewhere could modify the decree.
At trial, Elwell testified in support of the Bakers’ claim that the alleged defect in the fuel pump system contributed to the postcollision fire. In addition, he identified and described a 1973 internal GM memorandum bearing on the risk of fuel-fed engine fires. Following trial, the jury awarded the Bakers $11.3 million in damages, and the District Court entered judgment on the jury’s verdict.
The United States Court reversed the District Court’s judgment, ruling, inter alia, that Elwell’s testimony should not have been admitted.
The Eighth Circuit also determined that the evidence was insufficient to show that the Michigan court would modify
We granted certiorari to decide whether the full faith and credit requirement stops the Bakers, who were not parties to the Michigan proceeding, from obtaining Elwell’s testimony in their Missouri wrongful-death action.
H
A
The Constitution’s Full Faith and Credit Clause provides:
“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. IV, § 1.3
Pursuant to that Clause, Congress has prescribed:
“Such Acts, records and judicial proceedings or copies thereof, so authenticated, shall have the same full faith and credit in every court within the United States and its Territories and Possessions as they have by law or*232 usage in the courts of such State, Territory or Possession from which they are taken.” 28 U. S. C. § 1738.4
The animating purpose of the full faith and credit command, as this Court explained in Milwaukee County v. M. E. White Co.,
"was to alter the status of the several states as independent foreign sovereignties, each free to ignore obligations created under the laws or by the judicial proceedings of the others, and to make them integral parts of a single nation throughout which a remedy upon a just obligation might be demanded as of right, irrespective of the state of its origin.” Id., at 277.
See also Estin v, Estin,
Our precedent differentiates the credit owed to laws (legislative measures and common law) and to judgments. “In numerous eases this Court has held that credit must be given to the judgment of another state although the forum would not be required to entertain the suit on which the judgment was founded.” Milwaukee County,
A court may be guided by the forum State’s “public policy” in determining the law applicable to a controversy. See Nevada v. Hall,
The Court has never placed equity faith and credit domain. Equity decrees for the payment of money have long been considered equivalent to judgments at law entitled to nationwide recognition. See, e. g., Barber v. Barber,
Full faith and credit, however, does not mean that States must adopt the practices of other States regarding the time, manner, and mechanisms for enforcing judgments. Enforcement measures do not travel with the sister state judgment as preclusive effects do; such measures remain subject to the evenhanded control of forum law. See McElmoyle ex rel. Bailey v. Cohen,
Orders commanding action or inaction have been denied enforcement in a sister State when they purported to accomplish an official act within the exclusive province of that other State or interfered with litigation over which the ordering State had no authority. Thus, a sister State’s decree concerning land ownership in another State has been held ineffective to transfer title, see Fall v. Eastin,
With these background principles in view, we turn to the dimensions of the order GM relies upon to stop Elwell’s testimony. Specifically, we take up the question: What matters did the Michigan injunction legitimately conclude?
As earlier recounted, see supra, at 228-229, the parties before the Michigan County Court, Elwell and GM, submitted an agreed-upon injunction, which the presiding judge signed.
Michigan’s judgment, however, cannot reach beyond the Elwell-GM controversy to control proceedings against GM brought in other States, by other parties, asserting claims the merits of which Michigan has not considered. Michigan has no power over those parties, and no basis for commanding them to become intervenors in the Elwell-GM dispute. See Martin v. Wilks,
In line with its recognition of the interference potential of the consent decree, GM provided in the settlement agreement that, if another court ordered Elwell to testify, his testimony would “in no way” render him vulnerable to suit in Michigan for violation of the injunction or agreement. See
In sum, Michigan has no authority to shield a witness from another jurisdiction’s subpoena power in a case involving persons and causes outside Michigan’s governance. Recog
For the reasons stated, the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Notes
A judge new to the case, not the judge who conducted a hearing at the preliminary injunction stage, presided at the settlement stage and entered the permanent injunction.
In conflict with the Eighth Circuit, many other lower courts have permitted Elwell to testify as to nonprivileged and non-trade-secret matters. See Addendum to Brief for Petitioners (citing cases).
Predating the Constitution, the Articles of Confederation contained a provision of the same order: “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.” Articles of Confederation, Art. IV. For a concise history of full faith and credit, see Jackson, Full Faith and Credit — The Lawyer’s Clause of the Constitution, 45 Colum. L. Rev. 1 (1945).
The first Congress enacted the original full faith and credit statute in May 1790. See Act of May 26, 1790, ch. 11, 1 Stat. 122 (codified as amended at 28 U. S. C. § 1738) (“And the said records and judicial proceedings authenticated as aforesaid, 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 whence the said records are or shall be taken.”). Although the text of the statute has been revised since then, the command for full faith and credit to judgments has remained constant.
“Res judicata” is the term traditionally used to describe two discrete effects: (1) what we now call claim preclusion (a valid final adjudication of a claim precludes a second action on that claim or any part of it), see Restatement (Second) of Judgments §§ 17-19 (1982); and (2) issue preclusion, long called “collateral estoppel” (an issue of fact or law, actually litigated and resolved by a valid final judgment, binds the parties in a subsequent action, whether on the same or a different claim), see id., §27. On use of the plain English terms claim and issue preclusion in lieu of res judicata and collateral estoppel, see Migra v. Warren City School Dist. Bd. of Ed.,
See also Paulsen & Sovem, “Public Policy” in the Conflict of Laws, 56 Colum. L. Rev. 969, 980-981 (1956) (noting traditional but dubious use of the term “public policy” to obscure “an assertion of the forum’s right to have its [own] law applied to the [controversy] because of the forum’s relationship to it”).
See supra, at 233, n, 5; 18 C. Wright, A. Miller, & E. Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure § 4467, p. 635 (1981) (Although “[a] second state need not directly enforce an injunction entered by another state . . . [it] may often be required to honor the issue preclusion effects of the first judgment.”).
Congress has provided for the interdistrict registration of federal-court judgments for the recovery of money or properly. 28 U. S. C. § 1963 (upon registration, the judgment “shall have the same effect as a judgment of the district court of the district where registered and may be enforced in like manner”). A similar interstate registration procedure is effective in most States, as a result of widespread adoption of the Revised Uniform Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Act, 13 U. L. A. 149 (1986). See id., at 13 (Supp. 1997) (Table) (listing adoptions in 44 States and the District of Columbia).
This Court has held it impermissible for a state court to enjoin a party from proceeding in a federal court, see Donovan v. Dallas,
GM emphasizes that a key factor warranting the injunction was El-well’s inability to assure that any testimony he might give would steer dear of knowledge he gained from protected confidential communications. See Brief for Respondent 28-29; see also id., at 32 (contending that Elwell’s testimony “is pervasively and uncontrollably leavened with General Motors’ privileged information”). Petitioners assert, and GM does not dispute, however, that at no point during Elwell’s testimony in the Bakers’ wrongful-death action did GM object to any question or answer on the grounds of attorney-client, attorney-work product, or trade secrets privilege. See Brief for Petitioners 9.
In no event, we have observed, can issue predusion be invoked against one who did not participate in the prior adjudication. See Blonder-Tongue Laboratories, Inc. v. University of Ill. Foundation,
Justice Kennedy inexplicably reads into our decision a sweeping exception to full faith and credit based solely on “the integrity of Missouri’s judicial processes.” Post, at 246. The Michigan judgment is not entitled to full faith and credit, we have endeavored to make plain, because it impermissibly interferes with Missouri’s control of litigation brought by parties who were not before the Michigan court Thus, Justice Kennedy's hypothetical, see post, at 245-246, misses the mark. If the Bakers had been parties to the Michigan proceedings and had actually litigated the privileged character of Elwell’s testimony, the Bakers would of course be precluded from relitigating that issue in Missouri. See Cromwell v. County of Sac,
Concurrence Opinion
concurring in the judgment.
I agree with the Court that enforcement measures do not travel with sister-state judgments as preclusive effects do. Ante, at 235. It has long been established that “the judgment of a state Court cannot be enforced out of the state by an execution issued within it.” McElmoyle ex rel. Bailey v. Cohen,
General Motors asked a District Court in Missouri to enforce a Michigan injunction. The Missouri court was no more obliged to enforce the Michigan injunction by preventing Elwell from presenting his testimony than it was obliged to enforce it by holding Elwell in contempt. The Full Faith and Credit Clause “'did not make the judgments of other States domestic judgments to all intents and purposes, but only gave a general validity, faith, and credit to them, as evidence. No execution can issue upon such judgments without a new suit in the tribunals of other States.’” Thompson v. Whitman,
“establish a rule of evidence, rather than of jurisdiction. While they make the record of a judgment, rendered after due notice in one State, conclusive evidence in the courts of another State, or of the United States, of the matter adjudged, they do not affect the jurisdiction, either of the court in which the judgment is rendered, or of the court in which it is offered in evidence. Judgments recovered in one State of the Union, when proved in the courts of another government, whether state or national, within the United States, differ from judgments recovered in a foreign country in no other respect than in not being reexaminable on their merits, nor impeachable for fraud in obtaining them, if rendered by a court having jurisdiction of the cause and of the parties.” Wisconsin v. Pelican Ins. Co.,127 U. S. 265 , 291-292 (1888) (citation omitted).
The judgment that General Motors obtained in Michigan “ ‘does not carry with it, into another State, the efficacy of a judgment upon property or persons, to be enforced by execution. To give it the force of a judgment in another State, it must be made a judgment there; and can only be executed in the latter as its laws may permit.’ ” Lynde v. Lynde,
Because neither the Pull Faith and Credit Clause nor its implementing statute requires Missouri to execute the injunction issued by the courts of Michigan, I concur in the judgment.
Concurrence Opinion
concurring in the judgment.
I concur in the judgment. In my view the case is controlled by well-settled foil faith and credit principles which render the majority’s extended analysis unnecessary and, with all due respect, problematic in some degree. This separate opinion explains my approach.
The majority, of course, is correct to hold that when a judgment is presented to the courts of a second State it may not he denied enforcement based upon some disagreement with the laws of the State of rendition. Full faith and credit forbids the second State to question a judgment on these grounds. There can be little doubt of this proposition. We have often recognized the second State’s obligation to give effect to another State’s judgments even when the law underlying those judgments contravenes the public policy of the second State. See, e. g., Estin v. Estin,
My concern is that the majority, having stated the principle, proceeds to disregard it by announcing two broad exceptions. First, the majority would allow courts outside the issuing State to decline to enforce those judgments “purporting] to accomplish an official act within the exclusive province of [a sister] State.” Ante, at 235. Second, the basic rule of foil faith and credit is said not to cover injunctions “interfering] with litigation over which the ordering State had no authority.” Ibid. The exceptions the majority recognizes are neither consistent with its rejection of a public policy exception to full faith and credit nor in accord with established rules implementing the Full Faith and Credit Clause. As employed to resolve this case, furthermore, the
Our decisions have been careful not to foreclose all effect for the types of injunctions the majority would place outside the ambit of full faith and credit. These authorities seem to be disregarded by today’s holding. For example, the majority chooses to discuss the extent to which courts may compel the conveyance of property in other jurisdictions. That subject has proved to be quite difficult. Some of our cases uphold actions by state courts affecting land outside their territorial reach. E. g., Robertson v. Howard,
Subjects which are at once so fundamental and so delicate as these ought to be addressed only in a case necessarily requiring their discussion, and even then with caution lest we announce rules which will not be sound in later application. See Restatement, supra, § 102, Comment c ("The Supreme Court of the United States has not had occasion to determine whether full faith and credit requires a State of the United States to enforce a valid judgment of a sister State that orders the doing of an act other than the payment of money or that enjoins the doing of an act”); E. Seoles & P. Hay, Conflict of Laws §24.9, p. 964 (2d ed. 1992) (noting that interstate recognition of equity decrees other than divorce decrees and decrees ordering payment of money "has been a matter of some uncertainty”). We might be required to hold, if some future case raises the issue, that an otherwise valid judgment cannot intrude upon essential processes of courts outside the issuing State in certain narrow circumstances, but we need not announce or define that principle here. Even if some qualification of full faith and credit were required where the judicial processes of a second State are sought to be controlled in their procedural and institutional aspects, the Court’s discussion does not provide sufficient guidance on how this exception should be construed in light. of our precedents. The majority’s broad review of these matters does not articulate the rationale underlying its conclusions. In the absence of more elaboration, it is unclear what it is about the particular injunction here that renders it undeserving of fall faith and credit. The Court’s reliance upon unidentified principles to justify omitting certain types of injunctions from the doctrine’s application leaves its decision in uneasy tension with its own rejection of a broad public policy exception to full faith and credit.
The following example illustrates the uncertainty surrounding the majority’s approach. Suppose the Bakers had anticipated the need for Elwell’s testimony in Missouri and
In any event, the rule would be an exception. Pull faith and credit requires courts to do more than provide for direct enforcement of the judgments issued by other States. It also “requires federal courts to give the same preclusive effect to state court judgments that those judgments would be given in the courts of the State from which the judgments emerged.” Kremer v. Chemical Constr. Corp.,
II
In the case before us, of course, the Bakers were neither parties to the earlier litigation nor subject to the jurisdiction
If we honor the undoubted principle that courts need give a prior judgment no more force or effect that the issuing State gives it, the ease before us is resolved. Here the Court of Appeals and both parties in their arguments before our Court seemed to embrace the assumption that Michigan would apply the full force of its judgment to the Bakers. Michigan law does not appear to support the assumption.
The simple fact is that the Bakers were not parties to the Michigan proceedings, and nothing indicates Michigan would make the novel assertion that its earlier injunction binds the Bakers or any other party not then before it or subject to its jurisdiction. For collateral estoppel to apply under Michigan law, “ ‘the same parties must have had a fill opportunity to litigate the issue, and there must be mutuality of estoppel.’ ” Nummer v. Treasury Dept.,
It makes no difference that the judgment in question is an injunction. The Michigan Supreme Court has twice rejected arguments that injunctions have preclusive effect in later litigation, relying in no small part on the fact that the persons against whom preclusion is asserted were not parties to the earlier litigation. Bacon v. Walden,
The opinion of the Court of Appeals suggests the Michigan court which issued the injunction intended to bind third parties in litigation in other States.
The fact that other Michigan trial courts refused to reconsider the injunction but instead required litigants to return to the trial court which issued it in the first place sheds little light on the substance of issue preclusion law in Michigan. In construing state law, we must determine how the highest court of the State would decide an issue. See King v. Order of United Commercial Travelers of America,
In this case, moreover, those Michigan trial courts which declined to modify the injunction did not appear to base their rulings on preclusion law. They relied instead on Michigan Court Rule 2.613(B), which directs parties wishing to modify an injunction to present their arguments to the court which entered it. See Brief for Respondent 10. Rule 2.613(B) is a procedural rule based on comity concerns, not a preclusion rule. It reflects Michigan’s determination that, within the State of Michigan itself, respect for the issuing court and judicial resources are best preserved by allowing the issuing court to determine whether the injunction should apply to further proceedings. As a procedural rule, it is not binding on courts of another State by virtue of full faith and credit. See Sun Oil Co. v. Wortman,
Under Michigan law, the burden of persuasion rests on the party raising preclusion as a defense. See Detroit v. Qualls,
Although inconsistent on this point, GM disavows its desire to issue preclude the Bakers, claiming “the only party being ‘bound’ to the injunction is Elwell.” Brief for Respondent 39. This is difficult to. aeeept because in assessing the preclusive reach of a judgment we look to its practical effect. E. g., Marlin v. Wilks,
In all events, determining as a threshold matter the extent to which Michigan law gives preclusive effect to the injunction eliminates the need to decide whether full faith and credit applies to equitable decrees as a general matter or the extent to which the general rules of full faith and credit are subject to exceptions. Michigan law would not seek to bind the Bakers to the injunction and that suffices to resolve the ease. For these reasons, I concur in the judgment.