Full Faith and Credit Act: Enforcing Out-of-State Judgments

To collect on a civil judgment when the debtor has moved or holds assets in another state, you register the judgment with a court in that state and then use local collection tools such as wage garnishment or property liens. Enforcing out-of-state judgments is possible because Article IV of the U.S. Constitution requires every state to honor valid court judgments from every other state, and Congress reinforced that mandate through the Full Faith and Credit Act at 28 U.S.C. § 1738.¹ The court in the new state does not retry your case. It confirms that the judgment is final, properly authenticated, and issued by a court with jurisdiction, and then treats it like a local judgment.

What Makes a Judgment Eligible

Before you spend anything on filing fees, check two things about the original judgment.

First, it has to be final. The original court must have resolved the actual dispute on its merits.² Temporary restraining orders, preliminary rulings, and procedural orders that leave the core issues unresolved generally do not qualify. If the first court has not finished deciding the case, there is nothing final for the second court to enforce.

Second, the original court must have had proper jurisdiction, both over the type of case (subject matter jurisdiction) and over the people involved (personal jurisdiction). If the defendant was never properly served or notified, the judgment violates due process and another state can refuse to enforce it.² This is the single most common reason enforcement gets blocked. Default judgments, where the defendant never appeared, draw the most scrutiny because service of process in those cases is often questionable. If you have any doubt about how the debtor was served in the original lawsuit, expect that issue to come up.

How to Domesticate the Judgment

Having a valid judgment in one state does not automatically let you garnish wages or seize property somewhere else. You first have to domesticate it, meaning you register it with a court in the state where the debtor lives or holds assets. Nearly every state has adopted some version of the Uniform Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Act, which keeps this from turning into a new lawsuit.

The typical steps:

Obtain a certified or exemplified copy of the judgment from the original court. Under 28 U.S.C. § 1738, the clerk of that court must attest to the record and affix the court’s seal, and a judge of the court must certify that the attestation is in proper form. Without this authentication, the new court will not accept the filing.³
File the authenticated judgment with the clerk of court in the state where you want to enforce it, along with an affidavit identifying both parties, their addresses, and the amount still owed.
Pay the filing fee. Amounts vary by jurisdiction, from under $100 to several hundred dollars.
Notify the debtor. The court clerk or the creditor mails a notice that the judgment has been filed. Most states give the debtor a short window, often 14 to 30 days, to object before enforcement can begin.

Once the objection period passes without a successful challenge, the domesticated judgment is treated the same as any local judgment. The court checks that the judgment is final, properly authenticated, and issued by a court with jurisdiction. It does not reopen the merits. From that point, every collection tool available under local law is available to you.

Collection Tools After Domestication

Once the judgment is domesticated, you have the same options as any other judgment creditor in that state. The two workhorses are wage garnishment and property liens.

Wage Garnishment

A writ of garnishment orders a third party, usually the debtor’s employer or bank, to withhold money and turn it over toward the judgment. Federal law caps the amount that can be taken from a paycheck: garnishment cannot exceed 25% of disposable earnings, or the amount by which those earnings exceed 30 times the federal minimum wage, whichever produces the smaller garnishment.⁴ Many states impose tighter limits, so what you actually collect per pay period depends on where the debtor works.

The federal cap does not apply to certain debts. Child support and alimony orders allow garnishment of 50% to 65% of disposable earnings, depending on whether the debtor supports other dependents and how far behind they are.⁴ Tax debts and certain bankruptcy orders are also exempt from the standard cap.

Property Liens

Once the judgment is docketed in the new state, it typically creates a lien against the debtor’s real property in that jurisdiction. The lien attaches to any real estate the debtor owns and, depending on the state, may also attach to property acquired later. If the debtor sells or refinances, the lien has to be satisfied before clear title passes. For bank accounts and other non-real-estate assets, you generally need a separate writ of execution directing the sheriff or a marshal to seize the property.

Which State’s Time Limit Applies

Every judgment has a lifespan. If you do not collect before it expires, you lose the right to enforce it. The critical question in cross-border cases is which state’s clock controls: the state that issued the judgment or the state where you are trying to collect.

The Supreme Court answered this in McElmoyle v. Cohen, holding that the enforcing state’s statute of limitations controls.⁵ The clock on enforcement and renewal in the new state runs from the date you domesticate the judgment there, not from the date the original court entered it. That timing can work in your favor. Domesticating a judgment that is close to expiring in the state of origin effectively resets the enforcement window in the new state.

Lifespans vary widely. Some states give you five years before the judgment goes dormant, many allow ten years, and others extend enforcement rights to twenty. Most states also allow renewal if you file the right paperwork before the clock runs out. If the debtor has assets in more than one state, you need to know the deadline in each one, not just the state where you won.

When the New State Can Refuse to Enforce

The obligation to honor a sister-state judgment is strong, but it is not absolute.

The most successful ground for blocking enforcement is proving the original court lacked jurisdiction. If the defendant was never properly served, never received notice, or had no meaningful connection to the state where the case was filed, a court in the enforcing state can examine that and refuse enforcement.²

Penal judgments are also outside the enforcement obligation. The Supreme Court has long held that states are not required to enforce another state’s penal judgments.⁶ A penal judgment imposes a criminal punishment or a fine payable to a government, as opposed to a civil judgment that compensates a private party. Money damages for breach of contract or personal injury are not penal, so the exception does not touch ordinary civil judgments.

Fraud in obtaining the judgment can also defeat enforcement, but only a specific kind. Courts distinguish fraud that happened inside the courtroom, like perjured testimony actually presented at trial, from fraud that kept a party out of court entirely, like concealing the lawsuit or an attorney secretly working against their own client. Only the second category, sometimes called extrinsic fraud, typically justifies refusing enforcement. Fraud within the trial itself should have been addressed in the trial or on appeal.

One misconception is worth naming directly. A state cannot refuse to enforce a sister-state judgment just because the judgment conflicts with local public policy. The Supreme Court rejected that idea in Baker v. General Motors, stating there is no “roving public policy exception” to the full faith and credit owed to judgments.⁷ A state court may consider local public policy when choosing which state’s law to apply in a new lawsuit, but once a final judgment exists, the enforcing state must honor it even if it disagrees with the underlying legal theory.⁸

Family Court Orders Follow Different Statutes

If your order is a child custody, child support, or domestic violence protection order rather than a civil money judgment, the general Full Faith and Credit Act is not the whole picture. Congress has enacted separate statutes for each: 28 U.S.C. § 1738A for custody determinations,⁹ 28 U.S.C. § 1738B for child support,¹⁰ and 18 U.S.C. § 2265 for protection orders.¹¹ Each has its own registration procedure and its own rules about which state keeps authority to modify the order. If you are enforcing a family order across state lines, work from those statutes rather than the general domestication process above.

1
Legal Information Institute. Constitution of the United States – Article IV
2
Congress.gov. Modern Doctrine on Full Faith and Credit Clause
3
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 1738 – State and Territorial Statutes and Judicial Proceedings; Full Faith and Credit
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1673 – Restriction on Garnishment
5
GovInfo. Memorandum – In re Gregory Schmidt
6
Justia. Nelson v George, 399 US 224 (1970)
7
Legal Information Institute. Baker v General Motors Corp
8
Legal Information Institute. Current Doctrine on Full Faith and Credit Clause
9
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 1738A – Full Faith and Credit Given to Child Custody Determinations
10
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 1738B – Full Faith and Credit for Child Support Orders
11
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 2265 – Full Faith and Credit Given to Protection Orders