## Facts

- In 1822, McElmoyle obtained a money judgment in a South Carolina court against Levy Florence on a promissory note; the judgment remained unpaid.
- Florence later relocated to Georgia and died there intestate.
- Cohen was appointed administrator of Florence’s Georgia estate.
- In 1835, McElmoyle (for the use of Bailey) sued in federal circuit court in Georgia to recover on the South Carolina judgment, producing an authenticated copy of that judgment.
- Cohen pleaded Georgia’s statute limiting actions on out-of-state judgments to five years from rendition; the suit was filed well after five years.
- The parties also disputed whether the South Carolina judgment should be paid ahead of simple contract debts in administering the Georgia estate.
- The circuit court certified questions to the Supreme Court due to a division of opinion.

## Issues

1. Whether Georgia may apply its statute of limitations to an action filed in Georgia on a judgment rendered in South Carolina, consistent with the Full Faith and Credit Clause and the federal Full Faith and Credit Act.
2. Whether, in administering a decedent’s estate in Georgia, a South Carolina judgment must be paid in preference to simple contract debts.

## Decision

- Georgia’s statute of limitations may be pleaded to bar an action in Georgia on a South Carolina judgment.
- In administering assets in Georgia, the South Carolina judgment does not, by virtue of full faith and credit, receive mandatory priority over simple contract debts under Georgia’s administration rules.
- The Court’s answers required application of Georgia remedial and probate-administration law to the enforcement effort.

## Legal Principles

- Full faith and credit requires that a sister-state judgment be treated as conclusive on the merits and not reexamined for underlying liability.
- A sister-state judgment does not automatically carry the same enforcement incidents into the forum; to be executed, it must proceed under the forum’s enforcement mechanisms and conditions.
- Statutes of limitations generally govern the remedy and are controlled by the law of the forum (lex fori), including in suits on sister-state judgments.
- A state may set and apply its own time limits for bringing actions on out-of-state judgments without impairing the judgment’s conclusiveness on the merits.
- The administering state’s law governs classification and priority of claims against a decedent’s estate, and full faith and credit does not require treating a sister-state judgment as a locally privileged claim for probate distribution purposes.

## Conclusion

The Court held that full faith and credit makes sister-state judgments conclusive as to liability, but it does not displace the forum state’s control over remedies and estate administration; therefore Georgia could bar the suit under its limitations statute and apply its own rules on payment priority in administering the estate.


McElmoyle v. Cohen, 38 U.S. 312 (1839)