Cite as: 522 U. S. 222 (1998)
Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment
against actions in courts of other states, 74 A. L. R. 2d 831- 834, §§ 3-4 (1960 and Supp. 1986).
Subjects which are at once so fundamental and so delicate as these ought to be addressed only in a case necessarily requiring their discussion, and even then with caution lest we announce rules which will not be sound in later application. See Restatement, supra, § 102, Comment c ("The Supreme Court of the United States has not had occasion to determine whether full faith and credit requires a State of the United States to enforce a valid judgment of a sister State that orders the doing of an act other than the payment of money or that enjoins the doing of an act"); E. Scoles & P. Hay, Conflict of Laws § 24.9, p. 964 (2d ed. 1992) (noting that interstate recognition of equity decrees other than divorce decrees and decrees ordering payment of money "has been a matter of some uncertainty"). We might be required to hold, if some future case raises the issue, that an otherwise valid judgment cannot intrude upon essential processes of courts outside the issuing State in certain narrow circumstances, but we need not announce or define that principle here. Even if some qualification of full faith and credit were required where the judicial processes of a second State are sought to be controlled in their procedural and institutional aspects, the Court's discussion does not provide sufficient guidance on how this exception should be construed in light of our precedents. The majority's broad review of these matters does not articulate the rationale underlying its conclusions. In the absence of more elaboration, it is unclear what it is about the particular injunction here that renders it undeserving of full faith and credit. The Court's reliance upon unidentified principles to justify omitting certain types of injunctions from the doctrine's application leaves its decision in uneasy tension with its own rejection of a broad public policy exception to full faith and credit.
The following example illustrates the uncertainty surrounding the majority's approach. Suppose the Bakers had anticipated the need for Elwell's testimony in Missouri and
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