## Facts

- Saul L. Lebow, a Massachusetts resident, signed a limited-partnership agreement in Massachusetts with Eubank Heights Apartments, Limited (EHAL), a limited partnership formed under Texas law with its business office in Texas.
- As part of the transaction, Lebow executed six promissory notes payable to EHAL. The agreement gave EHAL the right to require payment in Texas.
- Lebow died in Massachusetts in 1973, and his wife, Estelle I. Lebow, was appointed executrix of his Massachusetts estate.
- After learning of Lebow’s death and the probate proceedings, EHAL exercised its contractual right to make the notes payable in Texas and notified the executrix.
- EHAL sued on the notes in a Texas state court, naming the defendant as the “Estate of Saul L. Lebow,” and served process through the Texas Secretary of State under the Texas long-arm procedure. Notice was transmitted to, and received by, the executrix in Massachusetts.
- The executrix did not appear in the Texas action, and the Texas court entered a default judgment for EHAL (including principal, interest, and attorney’s fees) against the “Estate of Saul L. Lebow.”
- EHAL then filed an action in Massachusetts against Estelle I. Lebow in her capacity as executrix, seeking to enforce the Texas default judgment.
- The executrix argued that the Texas judgment was not enforceable in Massachusetts because (among other reasons) Texas lacked personal jurisdiction and the judgment ran against a non-entity (“the estate”), not against her as the personal representative.
- The Massachusetts federal district court entered summary judgment for EHAL on the Texas judgment, and the executrix appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether Texas could exercise personal jurisdiction, consistent with the Texas long-arm statute and due process, over Lebow (and thus his representative) based on his transaction with a Texas limited partnership and notes made payable in Texas.
2. Whether a Texas judgment naming the judgment debtor as the “Estate of Saul L. Lebow” could be enforced in Massachusetts against the executrix, even though Massachusetts does not treat an “estate” as a separate juridical entity.

## Decision

- The First Circuit held that Texas had personal jurisdiction under its long-arm statute and constitutional due process principles, given Lebow’s purposeful commercial relationship with a Texas limited partnership and the notes’ Texas payment connection.
- The court held that the Texas judgment was not void merely because it named the defendant as the “Estate of Saul L. Lebow”; Massachusetts could treat the designation as an error in naming, where the executrix received notice and had an opportunity to defend.
- The First Circuit affirmed the district court’s summary judgment enforcing the Texas default judgment against the executrix in her representative capacity.

## Legal Principles

- A state long-arm statute that extends to constitutional limits permits jurisdiction where the defendant’s acts create meaningful ties to the forum, including voluntary participation in a business arrangement centered in that forum and obligations payable there.
- Due process allows personal jurisdiction when the defendant’s forum-related conduct makes it foreseeable that he could be sued there on the obligation.
- Full faith and credit requires a forum court to recognize and enforce a sister-state judgment unless the rendering court lacked jurisdiction or the judgment is otherwise void.
- A judgment’s naming of the debtor as an “estate” does not necessarily defeat enforcement in another state when the substance of the proceeding concerns the decedent’s liabilities and the personal representative received notice and chose not to appear; the forum may treat the designation as a correctable misdescription rather than a nullity.

## Conclusion

The First Circuit affirmed enforcement in Massachusetts of a Texas default judgment on promissory notes arising from a Texas limited partnership, ruling that Texas had personal jurisdiction based on Lebow’s transaction with a Texas entity and the Texas payment obligation, and that the judgment’s captioning of the debtor as the “Estate of Saul L. Lebow” did not bar enforcement against the Massachusetts executrix who had received notice and declined to defend in Texas.


Eubank Heights Apartments, Limited v. Lebow, 615 F.2d 571 (1980)