Baker v. General Motors Corp., 522 U.S. 222, 23 (1998)

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244

BAKER v. GENERAL MOTORS CORP.

Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment

exceptions to full faith and credit have a potential for disrupting judgments, and this ought to give us considerable pause.

Our decisions have been careful not to foreclose all effect for the types of injunctions the majority would place outside the ambit of full faith and credit. These authorities seem to be disregarded by today's holding. For example, the majority chooses to discuss the extent to which courts may compel the conveyance of property in other jurisdictions. That subject has proved to be quite difficult. Some of our cases uphold actions by state courts affecting land outside their territorial reach. E. g., Robertson v. Howard, 229 U. S. 254, 261 (1913) ("[I]t may not be doubted that a court of equity in one State in a proper case could compel a defendant before it to convey property situated in another State"); see also Carpenter v. Strange, 141 U. S. 87, 105-106 (1891); Muller v. Dows, 94 U. S. 444, 449 (1877); Massie v. Watts, 6 Cranch 148 (1810). See generally 11A C. Wright, A. Miller, & M. Kane, Federal Practice and Procedure § 2945, pp. 98-102 (2d ed. 1995); Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws § 102, Comment d (1969); Reese, Full Faith and Credit to Foreign Equity Decrees, 42 Iowa L. Rev. 183, 199-200 (1957). Nor have we undertaken before today to announce an exception which denies full faith and credit based on the principle that the prior judgment interferes with litigation pending in another jurisdiction. See, e. g., Cole v. Cunningham, 133 U. S. 107, 116- 117 (1890); Simon v. Southern R. Co., 236 U. S. 115, 122 (1915); cf. Baltimore & Ohio R. Co. v. Kepner, 314 U. S. 44, 51-52 (1941); Donovan v. Dallas, 377 U. S. 408, 415-418 (1964) (Harlan, J., dissenting). See generally Reese, supra, at 198 ("[T]he Supreme Court has not yet had occasion to determine whether [the practice of ignoring antisuit injunctions] is consistent with full faith and credit"). As a general matter, there is disagreement among the state courts as to their duty to recognize decrees enjoining proceedings in other courts. See Schopler, Extraterritorial recognition of, and propriety of counterinjunction against, injunction

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