THOMAS v. WASHINGTON GAS LIGHT CO. ET AL.
No. 79-116
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued March 19, 1980-Decided June 27, 1980
448 U.S. 261
James F. Green argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs were Martin E. Gerel, James A. Mannino, and Mark L. Schaffer.
Kevin J. Baldwin argued the cause for respondent Washington Gas Light Co. With him on the brief were Lewis Carroll, Carl W. Belcher, Henry F. Krautwurst, and Douglas V. Pope. Alan I. Horowitz argued the cause pro hac vice for the federal respondent. With him on the briefs were Solicitor General McCree, Deputy Solicitor General Geller, Laurie M. Streeter, and Joshua T. Gillelan II.
MR. JUSTICE STEVENS announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN, MR. JUSTICE STEWART, and MR. JUSTICE BLACKMUN joined.
Petitioner received an award of disability benefits under the Virginia Workmen‘s Compensation Act. The question
Petitioner is a resident of the District of Columbia and was hired in the District of Columbia. During the year that he was employed by respondent, he worked primarily in the District but also worked in Virginia and Maryland. He sustained a back injury while at work in Arlington, Va., on January 22, 1971. Two weeks later he entered into an “Industrial Commission of Virginia Memorandum of Agreement as to Payment of Compensation” providing for benefits of $62 per week. Several weeks later the Virginia Industrial Commission approved the agreement and issued its award directing that payments continue “during incapacity,” subject to various contingencies and changes set forth in the Virginia statute. App. 49.
In 1974, petitioner notified the Department of Labor of his
The Administrative Law Judge agreed with respondent that the Virginia award must be given res judicata effect in the District to the extent that it was res judicata in Virginia.5 He held, however, that the Virginia award, by its terms, did not preclude a further award of compensation in Virginia.6
Moreover, he construed the statutory prohibition against additional recovery “at common law or otherwise” as merely covering “common law and other remedies under Virginia law.”7 Aftеr the taking of medical evidence, petitioner was awarded permanent total disability benefits payable from the date of his injury with a credit for the amounts previously paid under the Virginia award. Id., at 31.
The Benefits Review Board upheld the award. 9 BRBS 760 (1978). Its order, however, was reversed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, judgment order reported at 598 F. 2d 617,8 which squarely held that a “second and separate proceeding in another jurisdiction upon the same injury after a prior recovery in another State [is] precluded by the Full Faith and Credit Clause.”9 We granted certiorari, 444 U. S. 962, and now reverse.
I
Respondent contends that the District of Columbia was without power to award petitioner additional compensation because of the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the Constitution or, more precisely, because of the federal statute implementing that Clause.10 An analysis of this contention must
In Magnolia, a case relied on heavily both by respondent and the Court of Appeals, the employer hired a Louisiana worker in Louisiana. The employee was later injured during the course of his employment in Texas. A tenuous majority11 held that Louisiana was not permitted to award the injured worker supplementary compensation under the Lоuisiana Act after he had already obtained a recovery from the Texas Industrial Accident Board:
“Respondent was free to pursue his remedy in either state but, having chosen to seek it in Texas, where the award was res judicata, the full faith and credit clause
precludes him from again seeking a remedy in Louisiana upon the same grounds.” 320 U. S., at 444.
Little more than three years later, the Court severely curtailed the impact of Magnolia. In McCartin, the employer and the worker both resided in Illinois and entered into an employment contract there for work to be performed in Wisconsin. The employee was injured in the course of that employment. He initially filed a claim with the Industrial Commission of Wisconsin. Prior to this Court‘s decision in Magnolia, the Wisconsin Commission informed him that under Wisconsin law, he could proceed under the Illinois Workmen‘s Compensation Act, and then claim compensation under the Wisconsin Act, with credit to be given for any payments made under the Illinois Act. Thereafter, the employer and the employee executed a contract for payment of a specific sum in full settlement of the employee‘s right under Illinois law. The contract expressly provided, however, that it would “‘not affect any rights that applicant may have under the Workmen‘s Compensation Act of the State of Wisconsin.‘” 330 U. S., at 624. The employee then obtained a supplemental award from the Wisconsin Industrial Commission; but the Wisconsin state courts vacated it under felt compulsion of the intervening decision in Magnolia.
This Court reversed, holding without dissent12 that Magnolia was not controlling. Although the Court could have relied exclusively on the contract provision reserving the employee‘s rights under Wisconsin law to distinguish the case from Magnolia, Mr. Justice Murphy‘s opinion provided a significantly different ground for the Court‘s holding when it said:
“[T]he reservation spells out what we believe to be implicit in [the Illinois Workmen‘s Compensation] Act—namely, that an award of the type here involved does not foreclose an additional award under the laws of
another state. And in the setting of this case, that fact is of decisive significance.” 330 U. S., at 630.
Earlier in the opinion, the Court had stated that “[o]nly some unmistakable language by a state legislature or judiciary would warrant our accepting... a construction” that a workmen‘s compensation statute “is designed to preclude any recovery by proceedings brought in another state.” Id., at 627-628. The Illinois statute, which the Court held not to contain the “unmistakable language” required to preclude a supplemental award in Wisconsin, broadly provided:
“‘No common law or statutory right to recover damages for injury or death sustained by any employe while engaged in the line of his duty as such employe, other than the compensation herein provided, shall be available to any employe who is covered by the provisions of this act,...‘” Id., at 627.
The Virginia Workmen‘s Compensation Act‘s exclusive-remedy provision, see n. 4, supra, is not exactly the same as Illinois‘; but it contains no “unmistakable language” directed at precluding a supplemental compensation award in another State that was not also in the Illinois Act. Consequently, McCartin by its terms, rather than the earlier Magnolia decision, is controlling as between the two precedents. Nevertheless, the fact that we find ourselves comparing the language of two state statutes, neither of which has been construed by the highest court of either State, in an attempt to resolve an issue arising under the Full Faith and Credit Clause makes us pause to inquire whether there is a fundamental flaw in our analysis of this federal question.
II
We cannot fail to observe that, in the Court‘s haste to retreat from Magnolia,13 it fashioned a rule that clashes with
The McCartin rule, however, focusing as it does on the extraterritorial intent of the rendering State, is fundamentally different. It authorizes a State, by drafting or construing its legislation in “unmistakable language,” directly to determine the extraterritorial effect of its workmen‘s compensation awards. An authorization to a state legislature of this character is inconsistent with the rule established in Pacific Em-
“This Court must determine for itself how far the full faith and credit clause compels the qualification or denial of rights asserted under the laws of one state, that of the forum, by the statute of another state.”
It follows inescapably that the McCartin “unmistakable language” rule represents an unwarranted delegation to the States of this Court‘s responsibility for the final arbitration of full faith and credit questions.15 The Full Faith and
Thus, a re-examination of McCartin‘s “unmistakable language” test reinforces our tentative conclusion that it does not provide an acceptable basis on which to distinguish Magnolia. But if we reject that test, we must decide whether to overrule either Magnolia or McCartin. In making this kind of decision, we must take into account both the practical values served by the doctrine of stare decisis and the principles that inform the Full Faith and Credit Clause.
III
The doctrine of stare decisis imposes a severe burden on the litigant who asks us to disavow one of our precedents. For that doctrine not only plays an important role in orderly adjudication;17 it also serves the broader societal interests in evenhanded, consistent, and predictable application of legal rules. When rights have been created or modified in reliance on established rules of law, the arguments against their change have special force.18
It is therefore appropriate to begin the inquiry by considering whether a rule that permits, or a rule that forecloses successive workmen‘s compensation awards is more consistent with settled practice. The answer to this question is pellucidly clear.
It should first be noted that Magnolia, by only the slimmest majority, see n. 11, supra, effected a dramatic change in the law that had previously prevailed throughout the United States. See Mr. Justice Black‘s dissent in Magnolia, 320 U. S.,
Thus, all that really remained of Magnolia after McCartin was a largely theoretical difference between what the Court described as “unmistakable language” and the broad language
This history indicates that the principal values underlying the doctrine of stare decisis would not be served either by attempting to revive Magnolia or by attempting to preserve the uneasy coexistence of Magnolia and McCartin. The latter attempt could only breed uncertainty and unpredictability, since the application of the “unmistakable language” rule of McCartin necessarily depends on a determination by one state tribunal of the effect to be given to statutory language enacted by the legislature of a different State. And the former would represent a rather dramatic change that surely would not promote stability in the law. Moreover, since Magnolia has been so rarely followed, there appears to be little danger that there has been any significant reliance on its rule. We conclude that a fresh examination оf the full faith and credit issue is therefore entirely appropriate.
IV
Three different state interests are affected by the potential conflict between Virginia and the District of Columbia. Virginia has a valid interest in placing a limit on the potential liability of companies that transact business within its borders. Both jurisdictions have a valid interest in the welfare of the injured employee—Virginia because the injury occurred within that State, and the District because the injured party was employed and resided there. And finally, Virginia has an interest in having the integrity of its formal determinations of contested issues respected by other sovereigns.
The conflict between the first two interests was resolved in Alaska Packers Assn. v. Industrial Accident Comm‘n, 294 U. S. 532, and a series of later cases. In Alaska Packers,
The converse situation was presented in Pacific Employers Ins. Co. v. Industrial Accident Comm‘n, 306 U. S. 493. In that case the injury occurred in California, and the objection to California‘s jurisdiction was based on a statute of Massachusetts, the State where the employee resided and where the employment contract had been made. The Massachusetts statute provided that the remedy afforded was exclusive of the worker‘s “‘right of action at common law or under the law of any other jurisdiction.‘” Id., at 498. Again, however, California was permitted to provide the employee with an award under the California statute.23
The principle that the Full Faith and Credit Clause does not require a State to subordinate its own compensation policies to those of another State has been consistently applied in more recent cases. Carroll v. Lanza, 349 U. S. 408; Crider v. Zurich Ins. Co., 380 U. S. 39; Nevada v. Hall, 440 U. S., at 421-424. Indeed, in the Nevada case the Court not only rejected the contention that California was required to respect a statutory limitation on the defendant‘s liability, but did so in a case in which the defendant was the sovereign State itself asserting, alternatively, an immunity from any liability in the courts of Californiа.
It is thus perfectly clear that petitioner could have sought a compensation award in the first instance either in Virginia, the State in which the injury occurred, Carroll v. Lanza, supra; Pacific Employers, supra,24 or in the District of Columbia, where petitioner resided, his employer was principally located, and the employment relation was formed, Cardillo v. Liberty Mutual Ins. Co., 330 U. S. 469; Alaska Packers Assn. v. Industrial Accident Comm‘n, supra. And as those cases underscore, compensation could have been sought under either
It is also manifest that the interest in providing adequate compensation to the injured worker would be fully served by the allowance of successive awards. In this respect the two jurisdictions share a common interest and there is no danger of significant conflict.
The ultimate issue, therefore, is whether Virginia‘s interest in the integrity of its tribunal‘s determinations forecloses a second рroceeding to obtain a supplemental award in the District of Columbia. We return to the Court‘s prior resolution of this question in Magnolia.
The majority opinion in Magnolia took the position that the case called for a straightforward application of full faith and credit law: the worker‘s injury gave rise to a cause of action; relief was granted by the Texas Industrial Accident Board; that award precluded any further relief in Texas;25 and further relief was therefore precluded elsewhere as well. The majority relied heavily on Chicago, R. I. & P. R. Co. v. Schendel, 270 U. S. 611, for the propositions that a workmen‘s compensation award stands on the same footing as a court judgment, and that a compensation award under one State‘s law is a bar to a second award under another State‘s law. See 320 U. S., at 441, 446.
But Schendel did not compel the result in Magnolia. See 320 U. S., at 448 (Douglas, J., dissenting); id., at 457 (Black, J., dissenting).26 In Schendel, the Court held that an Iowa state
In contrast, neither Magnolia nor this case concerns a second State‘s contrary resolution of a factual matter determined in the first State‘s proceedings. Unlike the situation in Schendel, which involved two mutually exclusive remedies, compensation could be obtained under either Virginia‘s or the District‘s workmen‘s compensation statutes on the basis of the same set of facts. A supplemental award gives full effect to the facts determined by the first award and also allows full credit for payments pursuant to the earlier award. There is neither inconsistency nor double recovery.
We are also persuaded that Magnolia‘s reliance on Schendel for the proposition that workmen‘s compensation awards stand on the same footing as court judgments was unwarranted. To be sure, as was held in Schendel, the factfindings of state administrative tribunals are entitled to the same res judicata effect in the second State as findings by a court. But the critical differences between a court of general juris
A final judgment entered by a court of general jurisdiction normally establishes not only the measure of the plaintiff‘s rights but also the limits of the defendant‘s liability. A traditional application of res judicata principles enables either party to claim the benefit of the judgment insofar as it resolved issues the court had jurisdiction to decide. Although a Virginia court is free to recognize the perhaps paramount interests of another State by choosing to apply that State‘s law in a particular case, the Industrial Commission of Virginia does not have that power. Its jurisdiction is limited to questions arising under the Virginia Workmen‘s Compensation Act. See
It is true, of course, that after Virginia entered its award, that State had an interest in preserving the integrity of what
As we have already noted, Virginia also has a separate interest in placing a ceiling on the potential liability of companies that transact business within the State. But past cases have established that that interest is not strong enough to prevent other States with overlapping jurisdiction over particular injuries from giving effect to their more generous compensation policies when the employee selects the most favorable forum in the first instance. Thus, the only situations in which the Magnolia rule would tend to serve that interest are those in which an injured workman has either been constrained by circumstances to seek relief in the less generous forum or has simply made an ill-advised choice of his first forum.
But in neither of those cases is there any reason to give extra weight to the first State‘s interest in placing a ceiling on the employer‘s liability than it otherwise would have had. For neither the first nor the second State has any overriding interest in requiring an injured employee to proceed with special caution when first asserting his claim. Compensation proceedings are often initiated informally, without the advice of counsel, and without special attention to the choice of the most appropriate forum. Often the worker is still hospitalized when benefits are sought as was true in this case. And indeed, it is not always the injured worker who institutes the claim. See Schendel, 270 U.S., at 614.31 This informality
Thus, whether or not the worker has sought an award from the less generous jurisdiction in the first instance, the vindication of that State‘s interest in placing a ceiling on employers’ liability would inevitably impinge upon the substаntial interests of the second jurisdiction in the welfare and subsistence of disabled workers—interests that a court of general jurisdiction might consider, but which must be ignored by the Virginia Industrial Commission. The reasons why the statutory policy of exclusivity of the other jurisdictions involved in Alaska Packers and Pacific Employers, could not defeat California‘s implementation of its own compensation policies therefore continue to apply even after the entry of a workmen‘s compensation award.
Of course, it is for each State to formulate its own policy whether to grant supplemental awards according to its perception of its own interests. We simply conclude that the substantial interests of the second State in these circumstances should not be overridden by another State through an unnecessarily aggressive application of the Full Faith and Credit Clause,32 as was implicitly recognized at the time of McCartin.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded.
So ordered.
MR. JUSTICE WHITE, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE and MR. JUSTICE POWELL join, concurring in the judgment.
I agree that the judgment of the Court of Appeals should be reversed, but I am unable to join in the reasoning by which the plurality reaches that result. Although the plurality argues strenuously that the rule of today‘s decision is limited to awards by state workmen‘s compensation boards, it seems to me that the underlying rationale goes much further. If the employer had exercised its statutory right of appeal to the Supreme Court of Virginia and that Court upheld the award, I presume that the plurality‘s rationale would nevertheless permit a subsequent award in the District of Columbia. Otherwise, employers interested in cutting off the possibility of a subsequent award in another jurisdiction need only seek judicial review of the award in the first forum. But if such a judicial decision is not preclusive in the second forum, then it appears that the plurality‘s rationale is not limited in its effect to judgments of administrative tribunals.
The plurality contends that unlike courts of general jurisdiction, workmen‘s compensation tribunals generally have no power to apply the law of another State and thus cannot determine the rights of the parties thereunder. Ante, at 282. Yet I see no reason why a judgment should not be entitled to full res judicata effect under the Full Faith and Credit Clause merely because the rendering tribunal was obligated to apply
As a matter of logic, the plurality‘s analysis would seemingly apply to many everyday tort actions. I see no difference for full faith and credit purposes between a statute which lays down a forum-favoring choice-of-law rule and a common-law doctrine stating the same principle. Hence when a court, having power in the abstract to apply the law of another State, determines by application of the forum‘s choice-of-law rules to apply the substantive law of the forum, I would think that under the plurality‘s analysis the judgment would not determine rights arising under the law of some other State. Suppose, for example, that in a wrongful-death action the court enters judgment on liability against the defendant, and determines to apply the law of the forum which sets a limit on the recovery allowed. The plurality‘s analysis would seem to permit the plaintiff to obtain a subsequent judgment in a second forum for damages exceeding the first forum‘s liability limit.
The plurality does say that factual determinations by a workmen‘s compensation board will be entitled to collateral-estoppel effect in a second forum. Ante, at 280-281. While this rule does, to an extent, circumscribe the broadest possible
Hence the plurality‘s rationale would portend a wide-ranging reassessment of the principles of full faith and credit in many areas. Such a reassessment is not necessarily undesirable if the results are likely to be healthy for the judicial system and consistent with the underlying purposes of the Full Faith and Credit Clause. But at least without the benefit of briefs and arguments directed to the issue, I cannot conclude that the rule advocated by the plurality would have such a beneficial impact.
One purpose of the Full Faith and Credit Clause is to bring an end to litigation. As the Court noted in Riley v. New York Trust Co., 315 U.S. 343, 348-349 (1942):
“Were it not for this full faith and credit provision, so far as the Constitution controls the matter, adversaries could wage again their legal battles whenever they met in other jurisdictions. Each state could control its own courts but itself could not prоject the effect of its decisions beyond its own boundaries.”
The plurality‘s opinion is at odds with this principle of finality. Plaintiffs dissatisfied with a judgment would have every incentive to seek additional recovery elsewhere, so long as the first forum applied its own law and there was a colorable argument that as a matter of law the second forum would per
Perhaps the major purpose of the Full Faith and Credit Clause is to act as a nationally unifying force. Sherrer v. Sherrer, 334 U.S. 343, 355 (1948). The plurality‘s rationale would substantially undercut that function. When a former judgment is set up as a defense under the Full Faith and Credit Clause, the court would be obliged to balance the various state interests involved. But the State of the second forum is not a neutral party to this balance. There seems to be a substantial danger—not presented by the firmer rule of res judicata—that the court in evaluating a full faith and credit defense would give controlling weight to its own parochial interests in concluding that the judgment of the first forum is not res judicata in the subsequent suit.
I would not overrule either Magnolia or McCartin. To my mind, Mr. Chief Justice Stone‘s opinion in Magnolia states the sounder doctrine; as noted, I do not see any overriding differences between workmen‘s compensation awards and court judgments that justify different treatment for the two. However, McCartin has been on the books for over 30 years and has been widely interpreted by state and federal courts as substantially limiting Magnolia. Unlike the plurality‘s opinion, McCartin is not subject to the objection that its principles are applicable outside the workmen‘s compensation area. Although I find McCartin to rest on questionable foundations, I am not now prepared to overrule it. And I agree with the plurality that McCartin, rather than Magnolia, is controlling as between the two precedents since the Virginia Workmen‘s
MR. JUSTICE REHNQUIST, with whom MR. JUSTICE MARSHALL joins, dissenting.
This is clearly a case where the whole is less than the sum of its parts. In choosing between two admittedly inconsistent precedents, Magnolia Petroleum Co. v. Hunt, 320 U.S. 430 (1943), and Industrial Comm‘n of Wisconsin v. McCartin, 330 U.S. 622 (1947), six of us agree that the latter decision, McCartin, is analytically indefensible. See ante, at 269-272 (plurality opinion); infra, at 291. The remaining three Mеmbers of the Court concede that it “rest[s] on questionable foundations.” Ante, at 289 (opinion of WHITE, J., joined by BURGER, C. J., and POWELL, J.). Nevertheless, when the smoke clears, it is Magnolia rather than McCartin that the plurality suggests should be overruled. See ante, at 285-286. Because I believe that Magnolia was correctly decided, and because I fear that the rule proposed by the plurality is both ill-considered and ill-defined, I dissent.
In his opinion for the Court in Magnolia, Mr. Chief Justice Stone identified the issue as “whether, under the full faith and credit clause, Art. IV, § 1 of the Constitution of the United States, an award of compensation for personal injury under the Texas Workmen‘s Compensation Law . . . bars a further recovery of compensation for the same injury under the Louisiana Workmen‘s Compensation Law. . . .” 320 U.S., at 432. A majority of this Court answered that inquiry in the affirmative,1 holding that the injured employee “was free
As the plurality today properly notes, Magnolia received rather rough treatment at the hands of a unanimous Court in McCartin. I need not dwell upon the inadequacies of that latter opinion, however, since the plurality itself spotlights those inadequacies quite convincingly. As it observes, McCartin is difficult, if not impossible, to recоncile with “normally accepted full faith and credit principles.” Ante, at 270. I also agree completely with the plurality‘s ultimate conclusion that the rule announced in McCartin “represents an unwarranted delegation to the States of this Court‘s responsibility for the final arbitration of full faith and credit questions.” Ante, at 271.
One might suppose that, having destroyed McCartin‘s ratio decidendi, the plurality would return to the eminently defensible position adopted in Magnolia. But such is not the case. The plurality instead raises the banner of “stare decisis” and sets out in search of a new rationale to support the result reached in McCartin, significantly failing to even attempt to do the same thing for Magnolia.
If such post hoc rationalization seems a bit odd, the theory ultimately chosen by the plurality is even odder. It would seem that, contrary to the assumption of this Court for at least the past 40 years, a judgment awarding workmen‘s
The plurality identifies three different “state interests” at stake in the present case: Virginia‘s interest in placing a limit on the potential liability of companies doing business in that State, Virginia‘s interest in the “integrity of its formal determinations of contested issues,” and a shared interest of Virginia and the District of Columbia in the welfare of the injured employee. See ante, at 277. The plurality then undertakes to balance these interests and concludes that none of Virginia‘s concerns outweighs the concern of the District of Columbia for the welfare of petitioner.
Whenever this Court, or any court, attempts to balance competing interests it risks undervaluing or even overlooking important concerns. I believe that the plurality‘s analysis incorporates both errors. First, it asserts that Virginia‘s interest in limiting the liability of businesses operating within its borders can never outweigh the District of Columbia‘s interest in protecting its residents. In support of this proposition it cites Alaska Packers Ass‘n v. Industrial Accident Comm‘n, 294 U.S. 532 (1935), and Pacific Employers Ins. Co. v. Industrial Accident Comm‘n, 306 U.S. 493 (1939). Both of those cases, however, involved the degree of faith and credit to be afforded statutes of one State by the courts of another State. The present case involves an enforceable judgment entered by Virginia after adjudicatory proceedings. In Magnolia Mr. Chief Justice Stone, who authored both Alaska
In a similar vein, the plurality completely ignores any interest that Virginia might assert in the finality of its adjudications. While workmen‘s compensation awards may be “nonfinal” in the sense that they are subject to continuing supervision and modification, Virginia nevertheless has a cognizable interest in requiring persons who avail themselves of its statutory remedy to eschew other alternative remedies that might be available to them. Otherwise, as apparently is the result here, Virginia‘s efforts and expense on an applicant‘s behalf are wasted when that applicant obtains a duplicative remedy in another State.
At base, the plurality‘s balancing analysis is incorrect because it recognizes no significant difference between the events that transрired in this case and those that would have transpired had petitioner initially sought his remedy in the District of Columbia. But there are differences. The Commonwealth of Virginia has expended its resources, at petitioner‘s behest, to provide petitioner with a remedy for his injury and a resolution of his “dispute” with his employer. That employer similarly has expended its resources, again at petitioner‘s behest, in complying with the judgment entered by Virginia. These efforts, and the corresponding interests in seeing that
In further support of its novel rule, the plurality attempts to distinguish the judgment entered in this case from one entered by a “court of general jurisdiction.” See ante, at 282-283. Specifically, the plurality points out that the Industrial Commission of Virginia, unlike a state court of general jurisdiction, was limited by statute to consideration of Virginia law. According to the plurality, because the Commission “was not requested, and had no authority, to pass on petitioner‘s rights under District of Columbia law, there can be no constitutional objection to a fresh adjudication of those rights.” Ante, at 283. See also ante, at 285.
This argument might have some force if petitioner had somehow had Virginia law thrust upon him against his will. In this case, however, petitioner was free to choose the applicable law simply by choosing the forum in which he filed his initial claim. Unless the District of Columbia has an interest in forcing its residents to accept its law regardless of their wishes, I fail to see how the Virginia Commission‘s inability to look to District of Columbia law impinged upon that latter jurisdiction‘s interests. I thus fail to see why petitioner‘s election, as consummated in his Virginia award, should not be given the same full faith and credit as would be afforded a judgment entered by a court of general jurisdiction.
There are, of course, exceptional judgments that this Court has indicated are not entitled to full faith and credit. See, e. g., Huntington v. Attrill, 146 U.S. 657 (1892) (penal judgments); Fall v. Eastin, 215 U.S. 1 (1909) (judgment purporting to convey property in another State). Such exceptions, however, have been “few and far between. . . .” Williams v. North Carolina, 317 U.S. 287, 295 (1942). Furthermore, as this Court noted in Magnolia, there would appear to be no precedent for an exception in the case of a money judgment rendered in a civil suit. See 320 U.S., at 438. In this regard, there is no dispute that the award authorized by the Industrial Commission of Virginia here is, at least as a matter of Virginia law, equivalent to such a money judgment. See
I fear that the plurality, in its zeal to remedy a perceived imbalance in bargaining power, would badly distort an important constitutional tenet. Its “interest analysis,” once removed from the statutory choice-of-law context considered by the Court in Alaska Packers and Pacific Employers, knows no metes or bounds. Given the modern proliferation of quasi-judicial methods for resolving disputes and of various tribunals of limited jurisdictiоn, such a rule could only lead to
The Full Faith and Credit Clause did not allot to this Court the task of “balancing” interests where the “public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings” of a State were involved. It simply directed that they be given the “Full Faith and Credit” that the Court today denies to those of Virginia. I would affirm the judgment of the court below.
Notes
“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.”
“The Acts of the legislature of any State, Territory, or Possession of the United States, or copies thereof, shall be authenticated by affixing the seal of such State, Territory or Possession thereto.
“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 usage in the courts of such State, Territory, or Possession from which they are taken.” The plurality characterizes the majority in Magnolia as “tenuous” because Mr. Justice Jackson joined four other Members of the Court in the belief that the result was dictated by Williams v. North Carolina, 317 U.S. 287 (1942), a decision from which he had dissented. See ante, at 267, n. 11. I do not read Mr. Justice Jackson‘s concurrence as casting any doubt upon the logical underpinning of Magnolia. Instead, he seemed to direct his concurrence at what he perceived to be an inconsistency in the position adopted by Mr. Justice Black and Mr. Justice Douglas, both of whom had joined Williams but were dissenting in Magnolia. For a similar exchange, see Dennis v. United States, 339 U.S. 162, 173-175 (1950) (Jackson, J., concurring in result), and id., at 175-181 (Black, J., dissenting).
“Employee‘s rights under Act exclude all others.—The rights and remedies herein granted to an employee when he and his employer have accepted the provisions of this Act respectively to pay and accept compensation on account of personal injury or death by accident shall exclude all other rights and remedies of such employee, his personal representative, parents, dependents or next of kin, at common law or otherwise, on account of such injury, loss of service or death.”
“In view of the foregoing, it is determined that, because the Virginia award was not a bar to further recovery of compensation in Virginia, it
Mr. Justice Jackson concurred in Mr. Chief Justice Stone‘s opinion for the Court, but only because he felt bound by Williams v. North Carolina, 317 U. S. 287, a decision from which he vigorously dissented. Id., at 311. In that case, the Court held that North Carolina had to respect an ex parte divorce decree obtained in Nevada in a bigamy prosecution of a North Carolina resident. (It was assumed for purposes of decision that the petitioner was a bona fide domiciliary of Nevada at the time of the divorce, id., at 302.) In his concurring opinion in Magnolia, Mr. Justice Jackson explained that he was “unable to see how Louisiana can be constitutionally free to apply its own workmen‘s compensation law to its citizens despite a previous adjudication in another state if North Carolina was not free to apply its own matrimonial policy to its own citizens after judgment on the subject in Nevada.” 320 U. S., at 446.
Mr. Justice Douglas, author of the opinion for the Court in Williams, pointed out, in one of the two dissents filed in the Magnolia case, that as compared with the dual workmen‘s cоmpensation award problem then before the Court, “questions of status, i. e., marital capacity, involve conflicts between the policies of two States which are quite irreconcilable.” 320 U. S., at 447.
“Full faith and credit is a national policy, not a state policy. Its purpose is not merely to demand respect from one state for another, but rather to give us the benefits of a unified nation by altering the status of otherwise ‘independent, sovereign states.’ Hence it is for federal law, not state law, to prescribe the measure of credit which one state shall give to another‘s judgment. In this regard, it is interesting to note that in dealing with full faith and credit to statutes the Supreme Court in recent years has accorded no weight to language which purported to give a particular statute extraterritorial effect.49 There is every reason why a similar attitude should be taken with respect to judgments.
”49Pacific Employers Insurance Co. v. Industrial Accident Commission, 306 U. S. 493 (1939); Alaska Packers Assn. v. Industrial Accident Commission, 294 U. S. 532 (1935); Tennessee Coal Iron & R. R. Co. v. George, 233 U. S. 354 (1914); Atchison, T. & S. F. Ry. v. Sowers, 213 U. S. 55 (1909)....” (Some footnotes omitted.)
In Tennessee Coal, Iron & R. Co. v. George, cited in the authors’ fоotnote, the Court held that a Georgia court, consistent with its full faith and credit obligations, could ignore a provision in the Alabama statute creating the cause of action there sued upon, which required that any suit to enforce the right of action “must be brought in a court of competent jurisdiction within the State of Alabama and not elsewhere.” 233 U. S., at 358. The Sowers case is much like the George case. Pacific Employers and Alaska Packers are discussed in Part IV, infra.
The full faith and credit area presents special problems, because the Constitution expressly delegates to Congress the authority “by general Laws [to] prescribe the Manner in which [the States‘] Acts, Records аnd Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.” (Emphasis added.) See n. 1, supra. Yet it is quite clear that Congress’ power in this area is not exclusive, for this Court has given effect to the Clause beyond that required by implementing legislation. See Bradford Electric Light Co. v. Clapper, 286 U. S. 145, in which the Court required the New Hampshire courts to respect a Vermont statute which precluded a worker from bringing a common-law action against his employer for job-related injuries where the employment relation was formed in Vermont, even though the injury occurred in New Hampshire. At the time the Clapper case was decided, the predecessor of
Thus, while Congress cleаrly has the power to increase the measure of faith and credit that a State must accord to the laws or judgments of another State, there is at least some question whether Congress may cut back on the measure of faith and credit required by a decision of this Court. See Freund 1229-1230.
As the majority opinion in Magnolia recognized, 320 U. S., at 441, n. 5, the American Law Institute‘s Restatement of Conflict of Laws § 403 (1934) was flatly contrary to the Magnolia result: “Award already had under the Workmen‘s Compensation Act of another state will not bar a proceeding under an applicable Act, but the amount paid on a prior award in another state will be credited on the second award.” As we note below, see n. 21, infra, Texas’ rule was otherwise.
“[I]f an employee who has been hired or is regularly employed in this state receives personal injury by accident arising out of and in the course of such employment outside this state, and he... accepts any compensation or benefits under the provisions of this chapter, the acceptance of such compensation shall constitute a waiver by such employee... of all rights and remedies against the employer at common law or given under the laws of any other state, аnd shall further constitute a full and complete release of such employer from any and all liability arising from such injury....” (Emphasis added.)
In Magnolia, the Court noted the existence of a Texas statute precluding a supplemental award in Texas when an injured worker had obtained an award under the workmen‘s compensation law of another State. 320 U. S., at 435. But that provision, of course, was directed not at the effect Texas desired a Texas award to be given in a second State, but rather at the converse situation. That is, it governed the effect that the Texas Industrial Accident Board had to give to an award previously rendered in another State. See id., at 454 (Black, J., dissenting). While the Texas statute so understood may be obliquely probative of the Texas Legislature‘s intent as regards the effect to be given a Texas award in another State, that intent is surely not indicated with the unmistakable language required by McCartin.
It is worth noting that the Virginia statute involved in this case expressly allows a second recovery in Virginia in certain cases in which a prior recovery has been obtained in another State.
But see Gasch v. Britton, 92 U. S. App. D. C. 64, 202 F. 2d 356 (1953) (2-to-1 decision, Fahy, J., dissenting) (prior Maryland award held preclusive of supplemental award in District of Columbia as construction of Maryland law, which construction was specifically rejected by Hudson, supra, and, significantly, by the Maryland Court of Appeals in a declaratory judgment action, see Wood v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Co., 260 Md. 651, 273 A. 2d 125 (1971)); Cofer v. Industrial Comm‘n, 24 Ariz. App. 357, 359, n. 2, 538 P. 2d 1158, 1160, n 2 (1975) (refusing to permit second award in Arizona after claimant obtained first award in Texas, under
“The Supreme Court of California has recognized the conflict and resolved it by holding that the full faith and credit clause does not deny to the courts of California the right to apply its own statute awarding compensation for an injury suffered by an employee within the state.
“To the extent that California is required to give full faith and credit to the conflicting Massachusetts statutе it must be denied the right to apply in its own courts its own statute, constitutionally enacted in pursuance of its policy to provide compensation for employees injured in their employment within the state. It must withhold the remedy given by its own statute to its residents by way of compensation for medical, hospital and nursing services rendered to the injured employee, and it must remit him to Massachusetts to secure the administrative remedy
“While the purpose of that provision was to preserve rights acquired or confirmed under the public acts and judicial proceedings of one state by requiring recognition of their validity in other states, the very nature of the federal union of states, to which are reserved some of the attributes of sovereignty, precludes resort to the full faith and credit clause as the means for compelling a state to substitute the statutes of other states for its own statutes dealing with a subject matter concerning which it is competent to legislate.” 306 U. S., at 501.
See 4 A. Larson § 86.40, at 16-44; Cheatham 344. The reason for this is the special nature of a workmen‘s compensation remedy. It is not merely a grant of a lump-sum award at the end of an extended adversary proceeding. See 4 A. Larson § 84.20, at 16-9:
“[A] highly developed compensation system does far more than that. It stays with the claimant from the moment of the accident to the time he is fully restored to normal earning capacity. This may involve supervising an ongoing rehabilitation program, perhaps changing or extending it, perhaps providing, repairing, and replacing prosthetic devices, and supplying vocational rehabilitation. Apart from rehabilitation, optimum compensation administration may require reopening of the award from time to time for change of condition or for other reasons. . . .”
Thus, a workmen‘s compensation remedy is potentially quite different from the application of a particular State‘s law to a transitory cause of action based on fault. See generally New York Central R. Co. v. White, 243 U.S. 188 (1917).
Cf. Restatement (Second) of Judgments § 61.2 (c) (Tent. Draft No. 5, 1978):
“(1) When any of the following circumstances exists, the general rule of § 61 [under which a valid judgment extinguishes a claim by its merger in the judgment] does not apply to extinguish a claim, and part or all of the claim subsists as a possible basis for a second action by the plaintiff against the defendant:
“(c) The plaintiff was unable to rely on a certain theory of the case or to seek a certain remedy or form of relief in the first action because of the limitations on the subject matter jurisdiction of the courts or restrictions on their authority to entertain multiple theories or demands for multiple remedies or forms of relief in a single action, and the plaintiff desires in the second action to rely on that theory or to seek that remedy or form of relief. . . .”