## Facts

- A North Carolina superior court entered a 1920 separation judgment ordering the husband to pay monthly alimony to the wife (later reduced from $200 to $160).
- The husband stopped paying in 1932.
- In 1940, in the original North Carolina proceeding, the court entered a specific money judgment for alimony arrears of $19,707.20 and directed that execution issue.
- The wife sued in Tennessee chancery court to enforce the North Carolina arrears judgment.
- The husband argued Tennessee could deny enforcement because, under North Carolina law, the arrears judgment allegedly lacked finality and remained subject to modification or recall.
- The Tennessee trial court enforced the judgment; the Tennessee Supreme Court reversed for lack of finality under the Full Faith and Credit Clause.

## Issues

1. Whether Tennessee could deny full faith and credit to a North Carolina money judgment for accrued alimony on the ground that, under North Carolina law, the judgment was modifiable or subject to recall.
2. Whether, in determining finality for full faith and credit purposes, the Supreme Court independently determines the rendering state’s law when a federal right is asserted.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the Tennessee Supreme Court.
- The Court held that the North Carolina arrears award was a money judgment, unconditional on its face, with execution directed, and was final under North Carolina law.
- Because the judgment was final and not subject to later modification or recall, Tennessee was constitutionally required to give it full faith and credit.
- Justice Jackson concurred in the result.

## Legal Principles

- A state must give full faith and credit to a sister-state judgment that is final and enforceable under the rendering state’s law.
- When full faith and credit is denied based on the asserted nonfinality of a sister-state judgment, the adequacy of the refusal grounds presents a federal question subject to Supreme Court review.
- Where a federal right is asserted and the case turns on another state’s law, the Supreme Court determines that law for itself.
- A duly authenticated judgment of a court of general jurisdiction is prima facie evidence of the rendering court’s jurisdiction and the adjudicated right.
- Under the rule applied in cases involving accrued alimony, past-due installments reduced to a definite, nonconditional money judgment that is not retroactively modifiable under the rendering state’s law must be enforced in other states.

## Conclusion

Because North Carolina treated the arrears award as a final money judgment directing execution, Tennessee was required to enforce it under the Full Faith and Credit Clause, notwithstanding the general modifiability of prospective alimony obligations.


Barber v. Barber, 323 U.S. 77 (1944)