REVISED - June 25, 2001
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
No. 00-30610
HOME PORT RENTALS, INC.,
Plaintiff-Appellee-Cross-Appellant,
v.
THE INTERNATIONAL YACHTING GROUP, INC., ETC.; ET AL.,
Defendants,
ROGER MOORE,
Defendant-Appellant-Cross-Appellee.
- - - - - - - - - -
Appeals from the United States District Court
for the Western District of Louisiana
- - - - - - - - - -
May 21, 2001
Before WIENER and STEWART, Circuit Judges, and SMITH, District
Judge.*
WIENER, Circuit Judge.
Appellant-Cross-Appellee Roger Moore and several co-defendants
were cast in judgment in March, 1989 (the “1989 judgment”) by the
United States District Court for the District of South Carolina
(the “rendering court”). Although he did not appeal that judgment,
two of his co-defendants did, and it was affirmed. Moore now
appeals from a judgment rendered a decade later by the district
*
District Judge of the Western District of Texas, sitting
by designation.
court for the Western District of Louisiana, (1) denying Moore’s
motion to dismiss two petitions filed simultaneously on March 17,
1999 by Appellee-Cross-Appellant Home Port Rentals, Inc. (“Home
Port”), the successful plaintiff in the rendering court which
sought to register and enforce the 1989 judgment in the district
court for the Western District of Louisiana (the “registration
court”), and (2) declaring the 1989 judgment enforceable in the
Western District of Louisiana until April 2, 2002, the tenth
anniversary of the 1989 judgment’s finality on appeal. We affirm
the registration court’s denial of Moore’s motion to dismiss; we
modify that court’s declaration of enforceability in the Western
District of Louisiana by changing the commencement date of the
applicable period of limitation (Louisiana’s 10-year liberative
prescription for enforcement of judgments) from April 2, 1992 (the
date that the 1989 judgment was affirmed by the Fourth Circuit) to
March 17, 1999, the date it was registered in the registration
court; and, as thus modified, we affirm the registration court’s
declaration of enforceability of the 1989 judgment in the Western
District of Louisiana.
I. Facts and Proceedings
In 1989, the rendering court held Moore and his co-defendants
liable to Home Port for $1,200,000 in compensatory damages and
$50,000 in punitive damages for securities fraud, common law fraud,
and breach of contract. By an order dated March 16, 1989 and
entered March 17, 1989, the rendering court directed its clerk of
court to enter judgment for Home Port, which the clerk did on March
2
20, 1989. This judgment, the 1989 judgment, was affirmed by the
United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, and that
court’s mandate issued on April 2, 1992. Ultimately, the Supreme
Court of the United States denied certiorari.
Fast forward to 1999. On March 17 of that year —— three days
shy of the tenth anniversary of the rendering court’s entry of the
1989 judgment —— Home Port simultaneously filed two petitions in
the registration court. One seeks registration of a foreign
judgment, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1963; the other seeks to enforce
that judgment in the Western District of Louisiana.
After Moore filed a motion to dismiss Home Port’s two
petitions, the registration court referred the case to a magistrate
judge for a Report and Recommendation, which was prepared and filed
in due course. The magistrate judge recommended that the district
court deny Moore’s motion to dismiss Home Port’s petitions and that
the court declare the 1989 judgment enforceable in the Western
District of Louisiana until April 2, 2002, 10 years after the
issuance of the Fourth Circuit’s mandate affirming the appealed
1989 judgment.
Both Moore and Home Port filed written objections to the
magistrate judge’s recommendations. Moore faulted the report for
“failing to apply Louisiana Civil Code art. 3501 in its entirety”
and for finding the 1989 judgment enforceable until April 2, 2002,
rather than until March 20, 1999 only. Moore contended that the
earlier date, 10 years after the 1989 judgment was entered by the
rendering court, was the last date on which South Carolina law
3
would permit that judgment to be enforced, regardless of appeal,
insisting that South Carolina law should control.1
Home Port’s objection criticized only the magistrate judge’s
legal conclusion that the running of Louisiana’s prescriptive
period for an action to enforce a registered judgment commenced to
run on the day the underlying judgment was affirmed on appeal. Home
Port contended that Louisiana’s 10-year liberative prescription,
which applies to money judgments in federal district courts located
in the state, commences to run not from either the date on which
the original judgment was entered in the rendering court or the
date on which it was affirmed on appeal, but from the date it was
registered in the registration court. Specifically, Home Port
faulted the report’s conclusion that, for purposes of enforcement
in the registration court’s district, registration under § 1963 is
not governed by the same prescriptive period as would be applicable
to a plenary judgment of a Louisiana-domiciled federal district
court grounded on a foreign judgment (“judgment-on-judgment”); and
that § 1963 rather than Louisiana law governs the commencement date
for the running of prescription on a judgment of the registration
court.
1
We fail to see the significance of this difference to
Moore because, using either date, Home Port’s commencement of
judicial proceedings to enforce the 1989 judgment in the Western
District of Louisiana was timely, i.e., was started before either
South Carolina’s statute of limitations or Louisiana’s
acquisitive prescription had expired, even when counting from the
1989 judgment’s date of entry. Under any system with which we
are familiar, proceedings to enforce or execute a judgment need
only be commenced before the bar date, even if the limitation
period is a statute of repose or peremption; enforcement need not
be completed before the bar date.
4
Over those objections, the district court adopted the
magistrate judge’s Report and Recommendation and ruled accordingly.
Moore timely filed a notice of appeal, and Home Port timely filed
such a notice for its cross-appeal.
II. Analysis
A. Standard of Review
We review the denial of Moore’s dismissal motion de novo.2 As
the material facts of this case are undisputed, the issues
presented on appeal, including interpretation of state and federal
statutes and jurisprudence, and determining which among those are
applicable, are issues of law so we also review them de novo.3
B. Background
When, on March 17, 1999, the rendering court’s money judgment
was registered in the registration court, it was still “live” ——
enforceable —— under applicable South Carolina law.4 Likewise, as
of its registration on March 17, 1999, the 1989 judgment would
still have been enforceable under Louisiana law.5 Thus, at a time
2
Calhoun County, Tex. v. United States, 132 F.3d 1100,
1103 (5th Cir. 1998).
3
Hart v. Bayer Corp., 199 F.3d 239, 243 (5th Cir. 2000).
4
S.C. Code Ann. § 15-39-30 (Law. Co-op. 2001) (“Executions
may issue upon final judgments or decrees at any time within ten
years from the date of the original entry thereof and shall have
active energy during such period, without any renewal or renewals
thereof, and this whether any return may or may not have been
made during such period on such executions”).
5
La. Civ. Code Ann. art. 3501 (West 2001) (“A money
judgment rendered by a trial court of this State is prescribed by
the lapse of ten years from its signing if no appeal has been
taken, or, if an appeal has been taken, it is prescribed by the
lapse of ten years from the time the judgment becomes final.”).
5
when it remained enforceable in both the rendering and the
registration jurisdictions, (1) the 1989 judgment was registered,
and (2) enforcement proceedings were commenced —— “execution []
issue[d]” in South Carolina terminology —— in the registration
court. Even if measured from the entry date of March 20, 1989 and
not the date of finality under Louisiana law or § 1963, neither
state’s bar date had yet arrived when registration was
accomplished.
The 1989 judgment was registered pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1963,
which provides for the registration of one federal district court’s
money judgment in another federal district court as the precursor
to enforcement of the original judgment in the latter court.6
Prior to the adoption of § 1963, a judgment creditor from one
federal district court who wanted to enforce a money judgment in
another district had to bring suit in the other federal district
court and obtain a new judgment of the second court (a “judgment-
on-judgment”). Section 1963 was enacted in large part to “assist[]
judgment creditors by making it possible for them to pursue the
property of a debtor in satisfaction of a judgment by the ordinary
process of levying execution on a judgment in any district where
6
28 U.S.C. § 1963 (2001). “A judgment in an action for the
recovery of money or property entered in any...district
court...may be registered by filing a certified copy of the
judgment in any other district [court]...when the judgment has
become final by appeal or expiration of the time for appeal....A
judgment so registered shall have the same effect as a judgment
of the district court of the district where registered and may be
enforced in like manner.” (emphasis added).
6
the judgment is registered.”7 An express reason for Congress’s
enacting § 1963 was “to spare creditors and debtors alike both the
additional costs and harassment of further litigation which would
otherwise be required by way of an action on the judgment in a
district court other than that where the judgment was originally
obtained.”8 Thus, the question we are asked today is: Strictly
for purposes of enforcement within the registration court’s
district, precisely what are the effects of registration of a money
judgment that is still enforceable in the rendering court’s
district as well as in the district where registered?
C. Case Law
We are aware of no Supreme Court authority on point, and of
very little pertinent jurisprudence from federal appellate or
district courts.9 Still, we are not wholly without jurisprudential
guidance. The landmark case in this area is Stanford v. Utley,
authored by Judge (later Justice) Blackmun for the Eighth Circuit
Court of Appeals.10 The Stanford court was called on to consider the
enforceability, in a federal district court in Missouri, of a
judgment that had been rendered by a federal district court in
Mississippi, then registered the next day, pursuant to § 1963, in
7
S. Rep. No. 1917 (1954), reprinted in 1954 U.S.C.C.A.N.
3142.
8
Id.
9
Juneau v. Couvillion, 148 F.R.D. 558, 560 (W.D. La.
1993)(“Only a handful of courts have addressed the interplay
between § 1963 registration and state statutes of limitation”).
10
Stanford v. Utley, 341 F.2d 265 (8th Cir. 1965).
7
a federal district court in Missouri. Obviously, then, the
judgment from Mississippi had been registered in Missouri at a time
when that judgment was still enforceable in both Mississippi and
Missouri. The kicker in Stanford is that, following registration
pursuant to § 1963, no proceedings to enforce the registered
judgment from Mississippi were instituted in Missouri until more
than seven years after that judgment had been rendered in
Mississippi and registered in Missouri. In the meantime,
Mississippi’s seven-year statute of limitations for enforcing
judgments in that state —— and thus in federal courts located there
—— had expired; but Missouri’s 10-year limitation period had not.
In concluding that the post-registration expiration of the
rendering state’s statute of limitations for enforcement of
judgments had no effect on enforcement proceedings commenced in the
court of registration at a time when the registration state’s
statute of limitations for enforcement of judgments had not yet
expired, the Stanford court recapped its analysis with the
following pronouncement:
We have concluded that § 1963 is more than
“ministerial” and is more than a mere
procedural device for the collection of the
foreign judgment. We feel that registration
provides, so far as enforcement is concerned,
the equivalent of a new judgment of the
registration court. In other words...for
enforcement purposes, the [registration state]
federal registration equated with a new
[registration state] federal judgment on the
original [rendering state] federal judgment,
that is, it is no different than a judgment
timely obtained by action in [the registration
8
state] federal court on that [rendering state]
judgment.11
Stanford’s express recognition of the applicability of Missouri’s
statute of limitations and the inapplicability of Mississippi’s,
for purposes of post-registration enforcement in Missouri,
underpins that court’s holding that, as far as enforcement in the
registration court’s district is concerned, a “live” judgment duly
registered there is the full legal equivalent of a judgment-on-
judgment.
This holding in Stanford makes obvious the legal truism that
once a money judgment of the rendering court is timely registered
in another district court pursuant to § 1963 at a time when
enforcement of that judgment is not time-barred in either
jurisdiction, the subsequent expiration of the rendering court’s
statute of limitations has no effect whatsoever on enforcement of
the judgment in the district of the registration court. After
registration, time of enforcement is controlled solely by the
statute of limitations of the state where the registration court is
domiciled.
We have neither been cited to a case nor found any on our own
that questions Stanford’s holding that, when a money judgment
rendered in one federal district court is registered in another
federal district court at a time when the original judgment is
still enforceable under the laws of both states, registration truly
is the equivalent of a new judgment of the registration court for
11
Id. at 268 (emphasis added).
9
purposes of enforcement in the registration district. That the
registered judgment might not be congruent with a new judgment of
the registration court for every purpose other than enforcement ——
a possibility recognized in Stanford and elsewhere —— is of no
moment to the instant inquiry. We are concerned with only the
narrow, two-pronged question, “which state’s statute of limitations
applies for enforcement purposes in the registration court, and
when does that state’s applicable limitation period for enforcement
in the registration court start to run?”
We have not previously addressed this precise question, but in
our otherwise distinguishable case of United States v. Kellum,12 we
expressed agreement with Standford’s core pronouncements. After
quoting Stanford’s holding that “[r]egistration provides...the
equivalent of a new judgment of the registration court....” and is
“no different than a judgment timely obtained by action in [the
registration] court on [the rendering court’s] judgment,” we stated
in Kellum that “[w]e agree with the holding in Stanford....”13
12
523 F.2d 1284 (5th Cir. 1975). Kellum involved a
district court judgment in Mississippi, in favor of the United
States, that was registered in a different district court in the
same state at a time when the judgment was still “live” under
Mississippi’s seven-year statute of limitation which was
applicable in both districts. Id. at 1285-86. Enforcement,
however, was not instituted until more than seven years after
entry of judgment, id. at 1285; but the judgment was enforced
because the United States was not subject to the state statute of
limitation or barred by a federal limitation period. Id. at 1287.
The question ultimately presented in Kellum regarding the effect
of registration on enforcement was whether registration “renewed
or revived” the judgment of the rendering court which was no
longer “live” there. Id. at 1289. We face no such question
today.
13
Id. at 1289.
10
There, we (admittedly in dicta) voiced our approbation of
Stanford’s recognition that, for purposes of enforcement,
registration is the equivalent of a new judgment of the
registration court. Kellum even states that, despite agreement
with Stanford‘s holding, it is inapposite to the precise issue
presented in Kellum. Nevertheless, Stanford remains good law lo
these 36 years and, unlike in Kellum (which dealt with a judgment
in favor of the United States that was exempt from the local
statute of limitations), is pertinent to the issue we decide today.
D. Enforceability
The first prong of the question here presented is not
seriously challenged on appeal, nor was it in the district court.
Section 1963 concludes with the statement that “[a] judgment so
registered shall have the same effect as a judgment of the district
court of the district where registered and may be enforced in like
manner.” Specifically, none here seriously question that § 1963,
particularly when read in context with Stanford, includes
applicability of the registration court’s limitation period among
§ 1963's “same effects,” or that such period is an integral element
of the “like manner” for enforcing both registered judgments and
new judgments of the registration court. “As the Stanford case
holds, if a judgment is properly registered in one state, it may be
enforced within the limitation period of that state even though the
time for enforcement has run in the rendering state.”14 Moore’s
14
Charles Alan Wright, Arthur R. Miller, and Mary Kay Kane,
Federal Practice and Procedure § 2787 (2d ed. 1995).
11
contention that South Carolina’s statute of limitations —— which he
insists expired ten years after entry of the 1989 judgment, i.e.,
on March 20, 1999, and not ten years after it was affirmed on
appeal —— is thus clearly specious. Even more specious is Moore’s
suggestion that South Carolina’s statute of limitations had any
effect on enforcement of the 1989 judgment in the Western District
of Louisiana once that judgment was timely registered there.
Our inquiry does not end, however, with our determination that
Louisiana’s 10-year liberative prescription on enforcement of the
1989 judgment in the Western District of Louisiana is the
applicable limitation law. We must also determine when Louisiana’s
prescription clock started to tick: Was it on (1) March 20, 1989
when the 1989 judgment was entered, as Moore contends, or (2) April
2, 1992, when the Fourth Circuit’s mandate affirming that judgment
issued, as the district court held, or (3) March 17, 1999, when the
1989 judgment was registered in the registration court, as Home
Port contends? This issue was not raised in Stanford because the
judgment at issue there was registered in Missouri only one day
after it was rendered in Mississippi. Section 1963 strongly
implies the answer by equating the registered judgment with a new
judgment of the registration court —— as does Stanford and even our
opinion in Kellum, at least vis-à-vis enforcement. But, one
federal circuit court has addressed and answered the question
directly: Marx v. Go Publishing Co., Inc.15
15
721 F.2d 1272 (9th Cir. 1983) (per curiam).
12
In Marx, the Ninth Circuit couched the issue precisely as
“whether registration under 28 U.S.C. 1963 creates a new judgment
for statute of limitations purposes, giving the judgment-creditor
ten years [in that case, the registration state’s period of
limitation] from the date of registration in which to satisfy the
judgment.”16 Analogizing § 1963 to California’s Sister State
Foreign Money Judgments Act,17 the Marx court found that statute to
be the state analog of § 1963 and noted that California’s 10-year
limitation period “runs anew” from the time of registration,
provided the judgment is not then time-barred and the other
requisites of the statute are fulfilled.18 Thus, in the only
circuit that has squarely held just when it is that the statute of
limitations applicable to registered judgments commences to run,
the date on which a “live” judgment is registered was determined to
be the appropriate date, irrespective of the date of entry of the
underlying judgment or the date it became final.
Despite the magistrate judge’s Report and Recommendation’s
rejection of Marx as instructive on the ground that its reasoning
is extended by analogy to the registration state’s statute
governing enforcement of foreign judgments rather than by analogy
to that state’s statute of limitations on enforcement of domestic
judgments, we find Marx quite persuasive. Moreover, we are
16
Id. at 1273.
17
Cal. Civ. Proc. Code §§ 1710.10-.65 (West 2001); Cal.
Civ. Proc. Code § 337.5 (West 2001); Epps v. Russell, 133 Cal.
Rptr. 30 (Cal Ct. App. 1976).
18
721 F.2d at 1273.
13
reluctant to create a circuit split by holding differently,
particularly when we agree with the Ninth Circuit’s holding despite
getting there via a slightly different route. Given the
pronouncements in Marx,19 Stanford,20 and Kellum,21 and the plain
language of § 1963, we join the Ninth Circuit in holding that when
a money judgment (1) is rendered in a federal district court
located in one state, and (2) is duly registered in a district
court located in another state, (3) at a time when enforcement of
that judgment is not time-barred in either state, the applicable
limitation law for purposes of enforcement of the registered
judgment in the registration district is that of the registration
state —— here, Louisiana’s 10-year liberative prescription —— and
it starts to run on the date of registration.
This accords with the Stanford court’s further statement:
It seems to be conceded that the purposes of §
1963 were to simplify and facilitate the
enforcement of federal judgments, at least
those for money, to eliminate the necessity
and expense of a second lawsuit, and to avoid
the impediments, such as diversity of
citizenship, which new and distinct federal
litigation might otherwise encounter.22
Thus, once a money judgment of a federal district court in one
state is registered in the federal district court of another state
at a time when neither state’s statute of limitations (prescriptive
19
721 F.2d at 1273.
20
341 F.2d at 269-70.
21
523 F.2d at 1289.
22
Stanford, 341 F.2d at 270.
14
period) has expired, neither the limitation period of the rendering
state nor the date the judgment became final in that state has any
effect whatsoever on enforcement of the registered judgment within
the district of registration. Rather, such enforcement proceedings
following registration are governed exclusively by the limitation
rules of the state in which the registration district is situated,
as they would be applied to a judgment-on-judgment of the
registration court. Therefore, enforcement proceedings on a
registered judgment can be instituted in the registration court at
any time before the expiration of that court’s state-determined
limitation (prescriptive) period, that such proceedings could be
instituted on a new judgment —— including a judgment-on-judgment ——
of the registration court. At least in Louisiana, that period
starts to run on the date the judgment is registered.23
We simply cannot read the plain language of the final sentence
of § 1963 —— “A judgment so registered shall have the same effect
as a judgment of the district court of the district where
registered and may be enforced in like manner” —— any way other
than as equating registration with a new judgment-on-judgment, at
least for purposes of enforcement within the district of
23
Fed. R. Civ. P. 69 is the source provision for enforcing
money judgments pursuant to the procedures of the state where the
federal district court is located (“The procedure on execution,
in proceedings supplementary to and in aid of a judgment, and in
proceedings on and in aid of execution shall be in accordance
with the practice and procedure of the state in which the
district court is held....”). None can genuinely dispute that
Louisiana’s 10-year liberative prescription on enforcement of
judgments is procedural and governs money judgments being
enforced in federal courts located in Louisiana.
15
registration. And we are firmly convinced regarding Louisiana, as
was the Ninth Circuit in Marx regarding California law, that one
feature of any new money judgment of the registration court ——
including a judgment-on-judgment —— is that the limitation period
for enforcement begins to run from entry of the new judgment, not
from either the rendition of the original judgment or from its
finality, whether by affirmance on appeal, by expiration of the
time within which an appeal could have been filed, or by the date
it was signed by the trial court. In Louisiana, this means that
prescription on enforcement of the registered judgment in the
district of registration commences to run on the day of
registration, just as such prescription would begin to run on a new
judgment of the registration court. The only thing that is
governed by the statute of limitations of the rendering court is
the time during which a judgment from the rendering court can be
registered under § 1963 in the first place.24 It has no bearing on
enforcement once registration is accomplished.
Thus, our only disagreement with the Report and Recommendation
of the magistrate judge, as adopted by the district court, is with
its position that, for purposes of enforcement of registered
judgments in the registration court, Louisiana’s 10-year liberative
prescription begins to run from the date that the foreign judgment
became eligible for registration, i.e., “when the [original money
judgment] has become final....”25 This error is the result of an
24
See, e.g., La. Civ. Code Ann. art. 3501.
25
28 U.S.C. § 1963.
16
impermissible cross-over between, on one hand, the limitation
period for registering the judgment —— which, pursuant to § 1963,26
is determined by the rendering state’s law governing finality of
judgments —— and, on the other hand, the limitation period for
enforcing the registered judgment in the registration court, which
is governed solely by the statute of limitations (prescription) of
the registration state. Under the applicable Louisiana law ——
Civil Code article 3501 —— Home Port had 10 years following
registration of the 1989 judgment, i.e., March 17, 1999, within
which to commence enforcement.27
Where the magistrate judge’s Report and Recommendation went
wrong was in treating the 1989 judgment as “the judgment” referred
26
Section 1963 specifies the earliest date for registration
of a money judgment rendered by a district court in another state
(“when the judgment has become final by appeal or expiration of
the time for appeal”), but does not expressly state the latest
date, following finality, for registering such a judgment.
Nevertheless, the last sentence of § 1963 must be read to provide
the answer to that question. By specifying that the registered
judgment shall have the same effect as a judgment of the
registration court and may be enforced in like manner, the final
sentence of § 1963 makes clear that, at a minimum, once the
original judgment becomes registerable, it remains registerable
for as long as it is “live,” i.e., enforceable, in the rendering
state and would be “live” were it to be registered in the
registration state. That issue is not presented here, but the
related question —— how long following registration can
enforcement be commenced —— is the ultimate question of this
appeal.
27
See La. Civ. Code Ann. art. 3501. Inasmuch as the
practice and procedure of Louisiana, specifically art. 2031 of
the Louisiana Code of Civil Procedure, permits judgments to be
re-inscribed and revived at any time prior to the running of
prescription, Home Port could presumably extend the limitation
period for enforcing the 1989 judgment within the Western
District of Louisiana for subsequent prescriptive periods of ten
years each by following the state procedure for revival of
judgments. But this issue is not before us today.
17
to in the final clause of the first paragraph of art. 3501
(“[enforcement] is prescribed by the lapse of ten years from the
time the judgment becomes final,” (emphasis added)), rather than
(correctly) treating registration as the equivalent of a new
judgment and thus “the judgment” for purposes of § 1963.28
Syllogistically speaking, (1) a new judgment of a federal district
court situated in Louisiana can be enforced for a period of 10
years, (2) another district court’s judgment registered in a
federal district court situated in Louisiana has the same effect as
the registration court’s own judgment, ergo (3) a judgment
registered in a federal district court situated in Louisiana can be
enforced in that court for a period of 10 years. It follows then,
that the district court’s judgment in this case which would limit
enforcement of the registered 1989 judgment to a period shorter
than the period during which the registration court’s own judgment
could be enforced, i.e. less than 10 years, produces an
impermissible inconsistency that is directly violative of § 1963's
plain wording. Indeed, the intent of Congress in enacting § 1963
to equate registration with a judgment-on-judgment would be
thwarted if, as the Report and Recommendation concluded, a judgment
registered pursuant to § 1963 could be enforced for only two or
three years following registration but a judgment-on-judgment of
the same court of registration, rendered on the same day as the
other judgment is registered, could be enforced for the full 10
28
28 U.S.C. § 1963 (“A judgment so registered shall have
the same effect as a judgment of the district court for the
district where registered and may be enforced in like manner.”).
18
years —— anything but the “same effect” commanded by § 1963. We
hold that prescription of enforcement of a judgment registered
pursuant to § 1963 in a federal district court located in Louisiana
begins to run on registration, without regard to the date the
underlying judgment was rendered or became final.29
We emphasize in closing that the issues we consider and rule
on today implicate only the enforcement of a registered judgment
from another federal district court in the registration court, and
then only enforcement within the district where the registration
court is situated. We need not and therefore do not address or
express an opinion on any effects of registration other than on
enforcement within the geographical confines of the registration
court’s district —— not the effect on the creation of judicial
mortgages or liens against property of the judgment debtor,30 not
the effect on portability; and not the effect on revival, re-
29
Although it makes no difference to the outcome of the
instant case, we note in passing that, given Moore’s failure to
appeal the 1989 judgment, it became final as to him when his time
for appeal expired and likely did so retroactively to date of
entry. Thus, under no reading of § 1963 or art. 3501 could April
2, 1992 have been the date of finality of the 1989 judgment vis-
à-vis Moore. Even though that is the date of finality for those
judgment debtors who appealed, the 1989 judgment became final as
to Moore when the time for appealing ran out without Moore’s
timely filing a notice of appeal pursuant to Fed. R. App. P. 4 ——
and likely did so retroactively to entry of judgment for purposes
of time bar on enforcements. Moreover, if art. 3501 were
applicable, its 10-year prescription would have commenced when
the judgment, unappealed by Moore, was “signed.”
30
See 28 U.S.C. § 1962 (2001).
19
inscription or renewal:31 just the effect on the time and timing
of local enforcement.
III. Conclusion
Home Port’s March 17, 1999 registration, in the Western
District of Louisiana, of the 1989 judgment against Moore et al was
timely for purposes of § 1963 because, inter alia, it was still a
“live” judgment under the limitation laws of both the rendering
jurisdiction (South Carolina) and the registration jurisdiction
(Louisiana). Thus, such registration in the federal court in
Louisiana, after the 1989 judgment had become final as to Moore and
thus registerable under § 1963, made that judgment the equivalent
of a judgment originally rendered by the registration court as far
as local enforcement is concerned. Specifically, such registration
made the 1989 judgment enforceable within the Western District of
Louisiana to precisely the same extent, in precisely the same
manner, and for precisely the same length of time, as an original
judgment —— including a judgment-on-judgment —— of the registration
court.
Therefore, applying as we must the law of Louisiana regarding
the time and location for enforcing a judgment of a federal
district court situated in that state, we hold that the 1989
judgment became enforceable in the Western District of Louisiana
for a period of 10 years commencing on March 17, 1999, the day it
was registered in that court. We therefore affirm the district
court’s denial of Moore’s motion to dismiss Home Port’s petitions
31
See La. Civ. Code Ann. art. 2031 (West 2001).
20
seeking registration and enforcement; modify the judgment of the
district court to declare that Home Port can enforce the 1989
judgment in the Western District of Louisiana until March 17, 2009;
and, as thus modified, affirm the judgment of the district court.
Finally, we remand this case to the district court for further
proceedings consistent with this opinion.
MODIFIED in part; AFFIRMED as modified; REMANDED for further
consistent proceedings.
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4/26/01 3:03 PM
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Home Port Rntls Inc v. Intl Yachting Grp
Combined Opinion