after stating the case, delivered ’ the opinion of the court.
; The judgment of the Canadian court is, beyond all doubt, sufficient to support this action, unless it is successfully impeaohed. Testing the answer in this case by the rules laid down in Hilton v. Guyot, just decided, no adequate ground for impeaching that judgment is shown.
Upon this record, the Queen’s Bench Division of the High Court of Justice of the Province of Ontario must be taken to have been a competent court, so far as the subject-matter or cause of action was concerned, to entertain jurisdiction of the action brought before it by the plaintiffs against the defendant. The petition in the present case alleges that the plaintiffs brought in that courtj described as “ a duly and lawfully constituted court of record, having jurisdiction over all civil matters” in and for the Province of Ontario, an action upon a certain contract in writing between the. parties. The defendant, in his answer to this petition, expressly admits that “ an action was commenced against him in the Province of Ontario, Canada, for the general purpose stated in the petition.” The competency of the Canadian court must therefore be deemed to be admitted, and, indeed, was hardly denied at the bar.
Giving to the answer the .construction, most favorable to the defendant, of setting up two distinct and independent defences, separated by the words, “And for a further .defence,” there is nothing in it to show that the Canadian court had not jurisdiction of the person of the defendant. The first part of the answer' expressly admits that “ certain attorneys entered,
*241
or undertook to enter, the appearance of this defendant in said action.” As it does not allege that the attorneys were not authorized to enter the defendant’s appearance in that action, they must be taken to have been .authorized by him to do so.
Osborn
v.
Bank of United States,
The defendant, indeed, in the first part of his answer, alleges that the “ judgment was entered without his knowledge and in his absence, and without any hearing whatever; ” and, likewise, in the second part of his answer, “ says that he was not present at the time that said pretended judgment was rendered,” and “ denies that any hearing occurred before said court,” and “ says that said judgment was irregular and without evidence,” and “ entered' up against him in his absence, without his knowledge.” But, as he had once submitted himself to the jurisdiction of the court, all these allegations and denials are quite consistent with the position, taken by the plaintiffs at the argument here, that the defendant, at the timé appointed for the hearing, failed to appear and made default, and therefore no hearing or evidence was necessary to entitle the court to proceed to judgment.
The general averments, in the first part of the answer, that’ the judgment was “ an irregular and void judgment,” and, in the second part, that “said judgment was irregular,” and, “without any jurisdiction or authority on the part of the court to enter such a judgment upon- the facts and upon the pleadings in said action,” are but averments of legal conclusions, and wholly insufficient to impeach the judgment, without specifying the grounds upon which it is supposed to be *242 irregular and void, or without jurisdiction or authority to enter it. Cowan v. Braidwood, 1 Man. & Gr. 882; S. C. 2 Scott N. R. 138.
To warrant the impeaching of a foreign judgment because procured by fraud, fraud must be distinctly alleged and charged.
White
v.
Hall,
12 Ves. 321;
Wallingford
v.
Mutual
Society, 5 App. Cas. 685, 697, 701;
Ambler
v.
Choteau,
By the law of England, prevailing in Canada, a judgment ■rendered by an American court under like circumstances would be allowed full and conclusive effect. Scott v. Pilkington, 2 B. & S. 11; Abouloff v. Oppenheimer, 10 Q. B. D. 295, 307; Vadala v. Lawes, 25 Q. B. D. 310, 316; Nouvion v. Freeman, 15 App. Cas. 1, 10; Fowler v. Vail, 27 Upper Canada C. P. 417, and 4 Ontario App. 267.
The defences set up in the answer to this action upon the Canadian judgment reduce themselves to an attempt, without any sufficient allegation of want of jurisdiction of the cause or of the defendant, or of any fraud in procuring that judgment, of of any- other special ground for not allowing the judgment full effect, but upon general allegations setting up the same matters of defence which were pleaded and might have been tried in the foreign court, to reopen and try anew the whole merits of the original claim in an action upon the *243 judgment. This, for the reasons stated in Hilton v. Guyot, ante, 113, cannot be allowed.
Upon principle, therefore, as well as upon authority, comity requires that the judgment sued on should beheld conclusive of the matter adjudged.
Judgment affirmed.