## Facts

- Aristide Lanari (Italian citizen) and his second wife, Roberta (U.S. citizen), were domiciled in France.
- While domiciled in France, they opened a joint bank account with right of survivorship at Swiss Bank Corporation’s New York branch.
- After Aristide died, Roberta claimed the New York account as surviving joint tenant under New York joint-account survivorship rules.
- Aristide’s daughter from a prior marriage, Maria Elena Meyer, sued in France for a declaration that French succession law (including forced-heirship) governed Aristide’s worldwide estate, including assets held outside France.
- During the French litigation, Roberta died; her executors continued the French case on behalf of her estate.
- The French tribunal entered a final judgment applying French law, limiting Roberta to one-fourth of Aristide’s estate and awarding the remainder to Meyer, treating the New York account as part of the estate subject to that allocation.
- Roberta’s executors then sued Swiss Bank in New York to compel payment of the entire account to Roberta’s estate; Meyer and the bank asserted the French judgment as res judicata.

## Issues

1. Whether the French succession judgment determining ownership interests in the decedent’s worldwide estate, including the New York account, was entitled to res judicata effect in New York.
2. Whether there was sufficient identity of parties (or privity) and identity of issues between the French action and the New York action to support claim/issue preclusion.
3. Whether recognition of the French judgment should be denied as repugnant to New York public policy favoring survivorship in New York joint accounts.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeals affirmed the Appellate Division.
- The French judgment was entitled to res judicata effect in New York as to beneficial ownership of the New York account.
- The parties were the same or in privity: Roberta (and later her executors) and Meyer participated in the French litigation and asserted the same competing inheritance interests.
- The issue litigated in New York—who owned the account proceeds—was treated as the same issue decided in France: the heirs’ respective shares in Aristide’s estate, including assets located outside France.
- Enforcement was not barred by public policy; French forced-heirship rules and France’s treatment of the account as estate property were not so offensive to New York’s sense of justice as to justify nonrecognition.
- The account was to be distributed consistent with the French decree (one-fourth to Roberta’s estate and the balance to Meyer).

## Legal Principles

- New York may recognize a foreign-country judgment and give it res judicata effect as a matter of comity when rendered by a competent tribunal in regular proceedings and when the same parties (or their privies) had a full opportunity to litigate.
- Res judicata applies when there is sufficient identity of parties/privity and identity of the issue actually determined; a later New York action cannot relitigate the same ownership dispute under local substantive rules.
- The public-policy exception to recognition of foreign judgments is narrow; nonrecognition requires that enforcement be fundamentally offensive to New York’s conception of justice, not merely different from New York’s substantive distribution rules.
- When a foreign judgment conclusively determines beneficial interests in property as part of a decedent’s estate, that determination can control distribution of assets located in New York notwithstanding New York presumptions applicable if the issue were first decided locally.

## Conclusion

New York enforced a French succession judgment as preclusive on ownership of a New York survivorship bank account, holding that comity and res judicata controlled and that forced-heirship outcomes, without more, did not trigger the limited public-policy bar to recognition.


Watts v. Swiss Bank Corp., 27 N.Y.2d 270, 317 N.Y.S.2d 315, 265 N.E.2d 739 (N.Y. 1970)