Oakley v. Wagner
Annotate this CaseJanuary 1993 Term
___________
No. 21237
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JACK V. OAKLEY AND JAMES F. SHUMAKER,
EXECUTOR OF THE ESTATE OF HELEN OAKLEY,
Plaintiffs Below, Appellants,
v.
JOE F. WAGNER,
Defendant Below, Appellee
_______________________________________________________
Appeal from the Circuit Court of Logan County
Honorable Eric H. O'Briant, Judge
Civil Action No. 89-C-502
AFFIRMED
_______________________________________________________
Submitted: January 13, 1993
Filed: May 27, 1993
Fred B. Westfall, Jr.
Huddleston, Bolen, Beatty, Porter & Copen
Huntington, West Virginia
Jack V. Oakley
Buchtel, Ohio
Attorney for the Appellant
Charles T. Bailey
Bailey & Wagner
Logan, West Virginia
Bernard L. Spaulding
Logan, West Virginia
Attorney for the Appellee
This Opinion was delivered PER CURIAM.
SYLLABUS BY THE COURT
"If there is no genuine issue as to any material fact
summary judgment should be granted but such judgment must be denied
if there is a genuine issue as to a material fact." Syllabus point
4 of Aetna Casualty & Surety Co. v. Federal Insurance Co. of New
York, 148 W.Va. 160, 133 S.E.2d 770 (1963).
Per Curiam:
This is an appeal by Jack V. Oakley and James F. Shumaker
from a summary judgment order of the Circuit Court of Logan County
terminating their West Virginia action to enforce an Ohio judgment.
The circuit court, in essence, found that the Ohio judgment was
unenforceable because the appellants had failed to bring their
action in West Virginia within the time provided by the appropriate
statute of limitations. The appellants argue that the circuit
court misapplied the West Virginia statute of limitations. They
also claim that the circuit court's action denied them the full
faith and credit guaranteed to them by the United States
Constitution. After examining the record and the questions
presented, this Court disagrees with the appellants' assertions.
The judgment of the Circuit Court of Logan County is, therefore,
affirmed.
On December 1, 1978, R. V. Oakley obtained a judgment in
the Court of Common Pleas, Athens County, Ohio, against Joe F.
Wagner for loans made by the said R. V. Oakley to Joe F. Wagner.
R. V. Oakley died intestate on January 20, 1979, and left
two beneficiaries, his wife, Helen Oakley, and his son, the
appellant, Jack V. Oakley. Helen Oakley subsequently died on
December 20, 1987, and the appellant, James H. Shumaker, was
appointed executor of her estate.
After the death of R. V. Oakley on December 1, 1978, no
legal action was taken to enforce the Ohio judgment until 1989,
more than ten years after its entry. On March 10, 1989, R. V.
Oakley's successors, however, obtained a revival of the judgment in
the Court of Common Pleas of Athens County, Ohio. Then, on June
29, 1989, they instituted the present action in the Circuit Court
of Logan County, West Virginia, to enforce the revived Ohio
judgment.
Following the institution of the West Virginia action,
Joe F. Wagner, the defendant below and appellee in the present
proceeding, moved for summary judgment on the ground that the West
Virginia action was barred by the applicable West Virginia statute
of limitations.
After considering Joe F. Wagner's motion in conjunction
with the various documents filed by the parties, the circuit court,
on December 5, 1991, entered the order from which the present
appeal is taken. In that order, the court granted Joe F. Wagner's
motion for summary judgment and stated:
[T]his court holds that the Ohio judgment
which the plaintiff seeks to enforce in this
State is barred by the statute of limitations
provisions of West Virginia Code 55-2-13 and
55-2A-2 in that because the defendant has
resided in this state continuously during the
ten years next preceding the action brought
upon the Ohio judgment.
In the present proceeding, the appellants claim that the
circuit court erred in granting the summary judgment and claim that
the date from which the West Virginia statute of limitations should
run is March 10, 1989, the date of the revival of the Ohio
judgment. They also claim that the Circuit Court of Logan County
erred in failing to give the Ohio judgment full faith and credit
guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States.
The general rule for when summary judgment should be
granted in West Virginia is set forth in syllabus point 4 of Aetna
Casualty & Surety Co. v. Federal Insurance Co. of New York, 148
W.Va. 160, 133 S.E.2d 770 (1963). That syllabus point states that:
If there is no genuine issue as to any
material fact summary judgment should be
granted but such judgment must be denied if
there is a genuine issue as to a material
fact.
In the present case, it does not appear that there was a
factual dispute as to the circumstances giving rise to the
controversy between the parties. The real issue in the case is
whether the Circuit Court of Logan County properly applied the West
Virginia statute of limitations to the facts presented and whether
the circuit court's application of the statute of limitations
resulted in a denial of full faith and credit to the Ohio judgment.
West Virginia Code, 55-2-13, discusses the barring of
foreign judgments and decrees in West Virginia. That statutory
section provides:
Every action or suit upon a judgment or
decree rendered in any other state or country
shall be barred, if by the laws of such state
or country such action or suit would there be
barred, and the judgment or decree be
incapable of being otherwise enforced there.
And whether so barred or not, no action
against a person who shall have resided in
this State during the ten years next preceding
such action shall be brought upon any such
judgment or decree rendered more than ten
years before the commencement of such action.
Relating to foreign judgments, the Uniform Limitations on Foreign
Claims Act, which has been adopted in West Virginia as W.Va. Code,
55-2A-1 et seq., also provides, in part:
The period of limitation applicable to a
claim accruing outside of this State shall be
either that prescribed by the law of the place
where the claim accrued or by the law of this
State, whichever bars the claim.
W.Va. Code, 55-2A-2. In interpreting this last statute, this
Court, consistent with the clear language of W.Va. Code, 55-2-13,
has indicated that W.Va. Code, 55-2A-2, provides that where a claim
accrues beyond state boundaries, the shorter limitation, West
Virginia's or the foreign limitation, shall govern such action.
Nellas v. Loucas, 156 W.Va. 77, 191 S.E.2d 160 (1972). See also,
Harrison v. Piedmont Aviation, Inc., 432 F. Supp. 980 (S.D.W.Va.
1977).
In line with these authorities, in Gonzalez Perez v.
Romney Orchards, Inc., 184 W.Va. 20, 399 S.E.2d 50 (1990), this
Court indicated that where the statute of limitations was fifteen
years in the jurisdiction where the foreign judgment was obtained,
a suit to enforce that judgment in West Virginia must be brought
within the ten-year limit provided in West Virginia, which is the
shorter of the limitations periods established by the foreign
jurisdiction and West Virginia.
A careful examination of W.Va. Code, 55-2-13, suggests
that there are two theories under which the appellants' action
could be barred in West Virginia. First, if the action was barred
in Ohio, or otherwise incapable of being enforced there, it must be
deemed to be barred in West Virginia. Second, even if the action
was not barred in Ohio, it would be barred as to any person who has
resided in West Virginia more than ten years after the Ohio decree
was rendered.
It appears that under Ohio law a judgment rendered in
favor of a private individual, as is the situation in the present
case, is deemed to become "dormant" if an execution is not taken on
it or a certificate of judgment is not filed within five years from
the date of the judgment. Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 2329.07 (Anderson
1991).See footnote 1 Ohio law further provides, however, that a dormant
judgment may be revived. Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 2325.15 (Anderson
1991). Under ordinary circumstances, such revival may occur within
twenty-one years after the judgment became dormant. Ohio Rev. Code
Ann. § 2325.18 (Anderson 1991).See footnote 2 It thus appears that in Ohio the
enforcement of a judgment, under ordinary circumstances, is not
absolutely barred for twenty-six years. This is considerably
longer than the ten year limitation period for enforcing a foreign
judgment in West Virginia against a West Virginia resident who has
been a West Virginia resident for ten years before the bringing of
the action. W.Va. Code, 55-2-13.
In View of the fact that W.Va. Code, 55-2A-1, et seq., as
well as Nellas v. Loucas, supra, and Gonzalez Perez v. Romney,
supra, indicate that where a claim accrues beyond state boundaries,
the shorter limitation, West Virginia's or the foreign limitation,
shall govern the action, this Court concludes that the Circuit
Court of Logan County properly concluded that, given the fact that
Joe F. Wagner had resided in West Virginia continuously before the
West Virginia action was brought, the ten-year alternative
limitation period provided by W.Va. Code, 55-2-13, applies.
The Court notes that the appellants, in effect, argue
that the revival in 1989 created a new judgment and that their West
Virginia action, which was instituted within months of the revival,
was barred by neither Ohio's, nor West Virginia's, statute of
limitations.
As a general proposition, it appears that where an action
is on a foreign judgment that has been revived, the computation of
the period of limitations depends on whether the revival is a mere
continuation of the original action or whether it constitutes a new
action. On this point, 50 C.J.S. Judgments § 871b(2) (1947)
states:
Where a foreign judgment has been revived, it
has been held in some jurisdictions that the
statute commences to run from the date of
revival, and not from the time when the
judgment was first obtained, notwithstanding a
want of personal service; and whether the
proceeding to revive is denominated a new or
an old action is immaterial. In other
jurisdictions it has been held that, where a
proceeding to revive a judgment is considered
a mere continuance of the original suit, the
judgment of revivor does not become the
judgment, and an action on the revived
judgment is on the original judgment, so that
the bar of the action by limitations must be
determined according to the judgment's
original date.
In an early case, Owens v. Henry, 161 U.S. 642, 16 S. Ct. 693, 40 L. Ed. 837 (1896), the Supreme Court of the United States
specifically held that the revival of a judgment by issuance of a
scire facias which revived a Pennsylvania judgment did not so
revive the judgment as to give it binding force against a defendant
who resided in another state.
Echoing the rationale of this United States Supreme Court
decision, the Appellate Court of Illinois in Welch v. Downs, 1
Ill.App.2d 424, 118 N.E.2d 51 (1954), held that a revivor suit
instituted in Ohio, with respect to a deficiency judgment rendered
therein, was in personam and service by publication on a non-resident of Ohio did not confer jurisdiction on the Ohio court
which had jurisdiction of the judgment debtor in the original
judgment proceeding. The court went on to hold that where the
judgment was rendered in 1931 against a non-resident by an Ohio
court, which at that time had personal jurisdiction over the non-resident, and a revivor's suit was brought with service of
publication only in Ohio in 1952, and judgment was entered in the
revivor suit against the non-resident, the revived judgment was
barred by Illinois' five-year statute of limitations.
The facts in the present case are sufficiently similar to
those in Welch v. Downs, Id., for this Court to conclude that it is
persuasive, and this Court believes that, given the circumstances,
the appellants' claim that the Ohio revival created a new judgment
for limitation purposes is without merit.
The Court is aware that the appellants claim that by
applying the West Virginia statute of limitations and barring their
enforcement of their Ohio judgment, the Circuit Court of Logan
County has failed to give full faith and credit to their Ohio
judgment and has thus violated the full faith and credit
requirement of the United States Constitution.
This Court notes that the Supreme Court of the United
States, in Wells v. Simonds Abrasive Company, 345 U.S. 514, 73 S. Ct. 856, 97 L. Ed. 1211 (1953), recognized that the application of
a statute of limitations to bar the enforcement of a foreign decree
did not, in and of itself, constitute a denial of full faith and
credit to that decree. The Court said:
Long ago, we held that applying the statute of
limitations of the forum to a foreign
substantive right did not deny full faith and
credit, McElmoyle v. Cohen, 13 Pet. 312
(1839); Townsend v. Jemison, 9 How. 407
(1850); Bacon v. Howard, 20 How. 22 (1857).
Recently we referred to ". . . the well
established principle of conflict of laws that
'If action is barred by the statute of
limitations of the forum, no action can be
maintained though action is not barred in the
state where the cause of action arose.'
Restatement, Conflict of Laws § 603 (1934)."
Order of United Commercial Travellers v.
Wolfe, 331 U.S. 586, 607 (1947).
The rule that the limitations of the
forum apply (which this Court has said meets
the requirements of full faith and credit) is
the usual conflicts rule of the states.
345 U.S. at 516-17, 73 S. Ct. at 857-58, 97 L. Ed. at 1215.
This rule is generally recognized, as indicated in 51
Am.Jur.2d Limitation of Actions § 66 (1970):
Furthermore, the full faith and credit clause
does not compel the forum state to use the
period of limitation of a foreign state, and
this is true whether the foreign right was
known to the common law or arises under a
foreign statute which has a period of
limitation included in the section creating
the right.
This Court concludes that the Circuit Court of Logan
County properly determined that the West Virginia limitations
period barred the enforcement of the Ohio judgment. Consequently,
the judgment of the Circuit Court of Logan County is affirmed.
Affirmed.
Footnote: 1That section provides, in relevant part:
If neither execution on a judgment
rendered in a court of record or certified to
the clerk of the court of common pleas in the
county in which the judgment was rendered is
issued, nor a certificate of judgment for
obtaining a lien upon lands and tenements is
issued and filed, as provided in sections
2329.02 and 2329.04 of the Revised Code,
within five years from the date of the
judgment or within five years from the date
of the issuance of the last execution thereon
or the issuance and filing of the last such
certificate, whichever is later, then, unless
the judgment is in favor of the state, the
judgment shall be dormant and shall not
operate as a lien upon the estate of the
judgment debtor.
Footnote: 2Section 2325.18 provides:
An action to revive a judgment can only be brought within twenty-one years from the time it became dormant, unless the party entitled to bring such action, at the time the judgment became dormant, was within the age of minority, of unsound mind, or imprisoned, in which cases the action may be brought within fifteen years after such disability is removed.
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