Hilton v. Guyot

Hilton v. Guyot
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued April 10, 1894 Decided June 3, 1895
Full case name	Henry Hilton v. Gustave Bertin Guyot, et al.
Citations	159 U.S. 113 (more) 16 S. Ct. 139; 40 L. Ed. 95; 1895 U.S. LEXIS 2294
Holding
The Court described the factors to be used when considering the application of comity.
Court membership
Chief Justice Melville Fuller Associate Justices Stephen J. Field · John M. Harlan Horace Gray · David J. Brewer Henry B. Brown · George Shiras, Jr. Howell E. Jackson · Edward D. White
Case opinions
Majority	Gray, joined by Field, Brown, Shiras, White
Dissent	Fuller, joined by Harlan, Brewer, Jackson

Hilton v. Guyot, 159 U.S. 113 (1895), was a case decided by the United States Supreme Court in which the court described the factors to be used when considering the application of comity. Hilton established the fundamental basis for recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments in the United States. The decision has been called "the most detailed exposition of any American court of the principles governing the extraterritorial recognition and enforcement of judgments rendered in foreign nations."

Opinion of the Court

The Court stated:

No law has any effect, of its own force, beyond the limits of the sovereignty from which its authority is derived. The extent to which the law of one nation, as put in force within its territory, whether by executive order, by legislative act, or by judicial decree, shall be allowed to operate within the dominion of another nation, depends upon what our greatest jurists have been content to call 'the comity of nations.' Although the phrase has been often criticised, no satisfactory substitute has been suggested.
‘Comity,’ in the legal sense, is neither a matter of absolute obligation, on the one hand, nor of mere courtesy and good will, upon the other. But it is the recognition which one nation allows within its territory to the legislative, executive or judicial acts of another nation, having due regard both to international duty and convenience, and to the rights of its own citizens, or of other persons who are under the protection of its laws.

The Court also stated:

Now, the rule is universal in this country that private rights acquired under the laws of foreign states will be respected and enforced in our courts unless contrary to the policy or prejudicial to the interests of the state where this is sought to be done; and, although the source of this rule may have been the comity characterizing the intercourse between nations, it prevails to-day by its own strength, and the right to the application of the law to which the particular transaction is subject is a juridical right.

See also

• Foreign-Country Money Judgments Recognition Act (a 1962 Uniform State Act promulgated by the Uniform Law Commissioners)