Tunnelite Inc. v. Estate of Rebecca Wight Cherry Sims

An intrastate federal judgment does not need to be domesticated before it is recognized or attains lien status in Georgia state courts.

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This appeal involves the priority of judgment creditors. The procedural history is convoluted, but the essential facts are that one creditor obtained a judgment against a debtor in a federal district court located in Georgia, did not domesticate the judgment, but recorded the federal writ of execution on the judgment on the Fulton Superior Court general execution docket. Months later, another creditor obtained a judgment against the same debtor in the Fulton County Superior Court and recorded it on the general execution docket. In a declaratory judgment action filed by the second creditor, the trial court held that the federal court judgment was a foreign judgment and that since it was not domesticated, the Georgia judgment lien had priority. The main issue on appeal is whether a judgment obtained in a federal district court located in Georgia must be domesticated before a writ on the judgment can be effectively recorded and, if the judgment is not domesticated, whether it can have priority over a Georgia superior court judgment. We hold that domestication was not required, and we thus reverse the judgment of the trial court. This litigation began in 1985 when attorney Moreton Rolleston, Jr., committed legal malpractice against his client, Rebecca Cherry, in a land transaction. Cherry, and later her estate, sued Rolleston in Fulton County Superior Court and won. That judgment was apparently satisfied.

Rolleston’s malpractice insurer, St. Paul Fire & Marine, had defended him in the first action. St. Paul sued Rolleston in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia to recover the money it posted as a supersedeas bond. The federal court entered judgment in St. Paul’s favor in December 1999. St. Paul recorded its writ of execution on Fulton County’s general execution docket in January 2000. Tunnelite, Inc. purchased St. Paul’s judgment in February 2002, and recorded the assignment of the judgment on the general execution docket.

Tunnelite Inc. v. Estate of Rebecca Wight Cherry Sims

An intrastate federal judgment does not need to be domesticated before it is recognized or attains lien status in Georgia state courts.

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