The Uniform Enforcement of Foreign Judgment Act (UEFJA); MCL 691.1173; Whether Michigan trial courts can decline to enforce a foreign judgment by using MCR 2.612(C)(1)(f); The Full Faith & Credit Clause

As a matter of first impression, the court held that the UEFJA does not authorize “Michigan trial courts to decline to enforce a judgment issued by another state’s court by invoking MCR 2.612(C)(1)(f)” when the grounds for doing so would be based on “evaluating the merits of the foreign judgment or its potential conflict with Michigan public policy[.]” Defendants contended that the trial court was authorized under “MCL 691.1173, to use MCR 2.612(C)(1) to refuse to domesticate and enforce” plaintiff’s New York judgment. The court noted that it has “recognized that Michigan courts are required to enforce foreign judgments that undoubtedly violate our state’s public policy.” And it concluded here that the Full Faith and Credit Clause compelled it “to hold that, despite MCL 691.1173’s seemingly broad language, an attack on a foreign judgment made under MCR 2.612(C)(1)(f) due to disagreement with the merits of that judgment or a conflict with our state’s public policy falls outside of the limited scope of collateral attacks a Michigan court may entertain to the enforceability of a foreign judgment. To hold otherwise would allow MCL 691.1173 and MCR 2.612(C)(1)(f) to create a back-door public-policy exception to the Full Faith and Credit Clause despite the United States Supreme Court’s clarification that no such exception exists.” The court determined that its approach was “consistent with the constitutional-doubt canon of statutory interpretation, which requires us to construe a statute, if it is fairly possible to do so, in such a way as not to violate the Constitution.” In so holding, the court joined its “sister courts in other UEFJA jurisdictions which, from our survey, have uniformly concluded that, beyond challenging jurisdiction, a lack of due process safeguards, and procurement of a judgment by fraud, a motion for relief from judgment may not be used to avoid enforcement of a foreign judgment.” In this case “the trial court had no authority under MCL 691.1173, out of disagreement with the merits of the New York judgment or due to a conflict with Michigan public policy, to decline to enforce the New York judgment by finding relief warranted under MCL 2.612(C)(1)(f).” Thus, it “properly declined to analyze defendants’ challenge to the enforceability of the foreign judgment and hence did not abuse its discretion in denying [their] motion to strike.”