suppose in country A there is a dowry related law that says that if a husband divorces the wife, he should refund the “dowry” to her or to her family. Now suppose this guy flees to America which does not normally have such a practice. How would the court go about handling this?
What if the situation is more objectionable to Western sensibilities, such as a husband’s demand to refund “bride price” if the wife divorces him? (this particular example might be more of a hypothetical, not sure if at present any societies with bride price also have wife-initiated divorce)
But… if a court anywhere presumes to uphold a contract and hence a debt, I suppose the next question is “how ya gonna collect?” The court in another jurisdiction may or may not choose to recognize a judgement debt? IIRC there was another thread where they talked about California refusing to enforce (libel?) judgements earned in Britain?
well, that’s my whole point. If either of the cases I described occur, an American court may be called upon to either permit the plaintiff to use the collections agency to recover the money or else block them from doing so. How are they going to go about deciding which will it be?
The OP mentions dowry and bride price. If the divorce took place in a country where these concepts were not part of the legal system, then I suspect that the court would be able to ignore them in favour of an equitable financial settlement between the divorcing parties, and taking into consideration the financial needs of any children of the marriage. I’m not a family lawyer – or a lawyer of any specialty – but it would likely become a matter of family law, rather than ordinary debtor-and-creditor law.
Your thread title posits a different situation than your OP. But there are a few general things to note. First, if a contract (i.e., a written contract) includes a choice of law provision, courts will generally apply the law the parties have agreed to. There are, of course, many exceptions, but the general rule still holds true.
If this is a family law issue, as the OP suggests, look at the law governing the dissolution (it seems, for example, that the question is what if someone gets married in Florida but gets divorced in California? Which state’s law governs how the divorce goes?). In California, you need to have been a California resident for X (2 years, I think?) and a county resident for six months prior to filing before the court has jurisdiction to entertain a dissolution petition. (Nevada, as I recall, is 6 weeks.) I suspect but do not know that in that situation, California would apply its law.
Here is an interesting article about different choice of law analyses. It may answer your question.
As to the question of how you collect on a foreign judgment – you file an action in the jurisdiction where you want to enforce the debt, and have that court affirm it. You can then collect. This is, of course, grossly oversimplified.
Although not foreign countries, I think a very interesting example was Rita Hayworth.
She was arguably one of the most, if not the most powerful woman in Hollywood in the 40s, anyway she wanted to marry Dick Haymes. Problem was Haymes was married. So Haymes got a divorce in Nevada. Then he and Hayworth got married.
California refused to recognize the divorce. Then a lawyer got creative. Haymes was not supporting his wife and children. The lawyer for Haymes wife got a California court to issue an attachment for Hayworth’s wages. Nevada refused to enforce this judgement.
This was significant 'cause while Haymes owed everyone and his brother (including the IRS) money, Hayworth had just signed a deal for $1,000,000 (back in the 40s that was a lot. She was the first woman to have such a million dollar deal).
So Haymes was married in California, divorced in Nevada (and other states which would recognize Nevada divorces). Hayworth on the other hand had a problem. She wasn’t married in California and in order to go back to work she had to go to Hollywood. The second she was there, her earnings would be attached. If she didn’t go back to Hollywood and work, the studio fined her every day a percentage of her salary for not showing up to work.
And back in the 40s, California was the only place she could work.
As you can see the whole thing was a total mess. Hayworth quickly did some legal things and managed to get the California judgement axed, when Haymes wife agreed to allow the Nevada divorce, and pay his now ex-wife, back alimony and child support. Which he probably got from Hayworth, though it was never stated where Haymes came up with the money to pay her off.
In the OP, the court may find that a marriage arrangement is not a contract under the local law - marriage has a different place in first world countries and is usually handled by its own specific laws. For example, a prenup may be invalidated in some jurisdictions if it is patently unfair… A contract requires an exchange of consideration, i.e. I give you $X if you give me Y. I suspect most N. AMerican jurisdictions do not consider marriage or divorce a valid service for money in a contract, and therefore would not consider the result a legal enforceable contract?
Cicero - a court that refuses to uphold judgements from other courts in the same system would quick result in an unemployed judge. Even a creative judgement -“Mr. Smith needs all $1 million a month for the necessities of life, therefore cannot be garnisheed” would be overturned on appeal.
IIRC in the 60’s and 70’s the Dominican Republic was famous for quickie divorces, which had varying legality in the rest of the world.
The thread about British Libel judgements mentioned that what was considered libel in Britain was basically free speech in the USA, so the courts in California were basically saying “the judgement is bogus so the award is bogus too”.
A foreign judgment might automatically be enforcable if there is an agreement in place between the two jurisdictions.
Failing this, the normal couse is to get the order affirmed (as Campion has already pointed out). It is at this point where a court might refuse to affirm the judgment for policy reasons, but usually judgments on simple contracts are affirmed.
As far as a dowry goes, all bets are off, for the law on gifts made in anticipation of marriage is not consistent and is highly fact driven.
Judges don’t get removed from office because of an erroneous decision. That’s what judicial independence protects. The appeals process is designed to correct erroneous decisions.
There is an agreement between the countries which governs such incidents. Often times it provides that they will mutually enforce each others judgments.
Most major commercial contracts provide for which jurisdictions law and courts will have jurisdiction in case of a dispute. It is this court to who you will be referred.
If neither applies then there is a concept of comity. Courts worldwide generally respect and give force to each other decisions, provided the other court was seised of the matter. It is discretionary, but generally you have to show some reason why the foreign judgemnet should not be enforced, for example it is against public policy of that state whose courts are being asked to give effect.
Well the US Ninth Circuit did enforce a judgement of a French court banning the auction of Nazi Memorobillia on Yahoo! even though Yahoo was based in the US. I suspect the decision you relate to was a lower court decison, the decisions of the US superior courts from my own readings have been decidely in favour of giving comity.