Domesticating Foreign Judgments

What happens if you have a judgment issued against a person or entity, the judgment debtor doesn’t pay you as ordered, and the judgment debtor doesn’t own any property located in the state where you sued them? A judgment from a state court in one state will not allow you to seize property located in another state. Domesticating your foreign judgment is the process by which you get around this problem so that you can seize property in the other state. Once a foreign judgment has been domesticated by a court in the state where the judgment debtor has property, you can use that state’s enforcement mechanisms to satisfy your judgment. Although each state has its own procedures for domesticating foreign judgments, the overall process is the same. You will not have to have your previous trial over again, that part is done. In the process of domestication the court in second state will simply accept the judgment from the first state and issue a new judgment with essentially the same terms as the original judgment. Once the second state court has issued its judgment against the judgment debtor, you will be able to use all of the enforcement remedies of the second state to enforce your judgment against the judgment debtor’s property in that state. This post relates to state court judgments. Federal court judgments are treated differently.