Dillard, Presiding Judge. Teresa C. Robinson argues the trial court erred by domesticating and reviving a North Carolina judgment entered in favor of Citi Bank, N.A., successor by merger to Citibank (South Dakota), N.A. Specifically, she contends that—as of the date of the court’s order—the period in which to revive the judgment had lapsed. For the reasons set forth infra, we affirm.[1] On October 5, 2021, Citi Bank filed a complaint in the State Court of Carroll County to revive a dormant judgment entered by a North Carolina court on October 17, 2011. According to the complaint, under OCGA § 9-12-60 (a), the judgment became dormant on October 17, 2018. Specifically, Citi Bank asked that the judgment—which was attached as an exhibit to its complaint—be revived. Robinson responded on November 9, 2021, asserting that, under OCGA § 9-12-61, the period to domesticate and revive the judgment lapsed on October 17, 2021, and thus the action was time-barred. But on January 24, 2022, the trial court issued an order domesticating the North Carolina judgment. Robinson now appeals that order, again contending that the time period in which to domesticate and revive the foreign judgment lapsed on October 17, 2021. We disagree. First, as to so-called “foreign judgments,” that phrase encompasses “a judgment, decree, or order of a court of the United States or of any other court that is entitled to full faith and credit in this state.”[2] An authenticated copy of a foreign judgment “may be filed in the office of the clerk of any court of competent jurisdiction of this state,”[3] after which the clerk “shall treat the foreign judgment in the same manner as a judgment of the court in which the foreign judgment is filed.”[4] At that point, a filed foreign judgment has “the same effect and is subject to the same procedures, defenses, and proceedings for reopening, vacating, staying, enforcing, or satisfying as a judgment of the court in which it is filed and may be enforced or satisfied in like manner.”[5] And Robinson makes no assertion that Citi Bank failed to properly authenticate the North Carolina judgment filed in the State Court of Carroll County or to otherwise satisfy the statutory filing requirements.[6] As for the revival of dormant judgments, under OCGA § 9-12-60 (a) (1), a judgment becomes dormant and shall not be enforced “[w]hen seven years shall elapse after the rendition of the judgment before execution is issued thereon and is entered on the general execution docket of the county in which the judgment was rendered[.]” But under OCGA § 9-12-61, when any judgment obtained in any court becomes dormant, “ the same may be renewed or revived by an action or by scire facias, at the option of the holder of the judgment, within three years from the time it becomes dormant.”[7] Thus, these two statutes “operate in tandem as a tenyear statute of limitation for the enforcement of Georgia judgments.”[8] We have previously explained that OCGA § 9-12-61 “permits the judgment holder to revive [a] dormant judgment by instituting an action within three years of the date the judgment becomes dormant.”[9] And we have further construed the plain language of the statute to mean that “dormant judgments [can] be revived during a threeyear period thereafter by bringing an action into existence, i.e., filing an action.”[10] Indeed, it would be “patently unfair to require a party to obtain a judgment by a certain time when entry of judgment is not within the party’s control.”[11] Here, Citi Bank filed its complaint to domesticate and revive the dormant foreign judgment on October 5, 2021. This was 12 days before the 10-year period in which to do so would have expired—i.e., October 17, 2021 (three years after the judgment became dormant on October 17, 2018). And once filed in the State Court of Carroll County on October 5, 2021, the North Carolina judgment was “subject to the same procedures, defenses, and proceedings for reopening, vacating, staying, enforcing, or satisfying as a judgment of the court in which it is filed and may be enforced or satisfied in like manner.”[12] Importantly, Citi Bank simultaneously filed the dormant foreign judgment with its revival action, and the act of filing the action revived the dormant judgment.[13] Thus, Citi Bank timely filed its action to domesticate and revive the dormant foreign judgment on October 5, 2021, and the trial court did not err by failing to conclude the action was time-barred as Robinson asserted.[14] Accordingly, for all these reasons, we affirm the trial court’s judgment. Judgment affirmed. Mercier and Markle, JJ., concur.
