## Facts

- Buchanan obtained a default money judgment against Rucker in the Court of Common Pleas in Tobago.
- Rucker was not resident in Tobago, and the record did not show he had ever been present there or had any agent there.
- Service in Tobago was made only under a local statute permitting service on an “absent” defendant by posting (nailing) the declaration to the courthouse door when the defendant had no local attorney, manager, or overseer.
- Rucker did not appear in the Tobago action.
- Buchanan sued in England in assumpsit, treating the Tobago judgment as creating a debt enforceable in England.
- Rucker objected that the Tobago judgment was invalid on its face because it was entered against a nonresident without personal service or appearance.

## Issues

1. Whether an English court will enforce, as a debt, a foreign (colonial) default judgment when the record shows the defendant was a nonresident who neither was personally served nor appeared.
2. Whether a local statute authorizing substituted service by posting at a courthouse can supply jurisdiction over a defendant who was never subject to the foreign territory’s authority.

## Decision

- The King’s Bench refused to treat the Tobago judgment as a binding debt enforceable in England.
- The court held the judgment could not support an action in assumpsit because the foreign court lacked personal jurisdiction over Rucker on the face of the proceedings.
- Constructive service by courthouse posting, authorized by local law, did not bind a person who had never been within the foreign territory and had not submitted to the court.

## Legal Principles

- A foreign judgment is only prima facie evidence of a debt and may be impeached when it is defective on its face, including for lack of jurisdiction over the defendant.
- A foreign judgment will not be enforced where the record shows the defendant was not resident or present in the territory and neither was personally served nor voluntarily appeared.
- Territorial legislatures and courts cannot, by local procedural rules alone, impose personal obligations recognized elsewhere on persons who were never subject to the territory’s authority.
- Substituted service that provides no reasonable basis to infer notice to an out-of-territory defendant cannot ground in personam jurisdiction recognized in England.

## Conclusion

Because the Tobago proceedings showed a default judgment against a nonresident who was neither personally served nor appeared, the foreign court lacked jurisdiction in the international sense, and the judgment could not be enforced in England through an action in assumpsit.


Buchanan v. Rucker, 9 East 192 (K.B. 1808)