Foreign Judgment = Final Judgment

January 12, 2022

The Fifth Court found that an appeal, taken from the domestication of a foreign judgment under the Uniform Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Act, was untimely. The Appellant cited the later filing of a third-party action, and a related special appearance, as reasons the clock did not start to run. The Court disagreed:

“The Foreign Judgment became a final Texas Judgment on January 22, 2020, the day it was filed. ‘By its very nature, the UEFJA does not contemplate or authorize the entry of a judgment replacing the foreign judgment.’ … [I]t is well settled that a Texas trial court has no jurisdiction to set aside another state’s judgment and return the parties to the positions they occupied before the foreign judgment was rendered. An intervention and a third-party claim in an enforcement proceeding do not in any way alter this fact.”

Moreno v. Halperin, No. 05-20-00858-CV (Dec. 14, 2021) (mem. op.).