FULL FAITH AND CREDIT CLAUSE
The Full Faith and Credit Clause—Article IV, Section 1, of the U.S. Constitution—provides
that the various states must recognize legislative acts, public records, and judicial decisions of the other states within the United States. It states that “Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State.” The statute that implements the clause, 28 U.S.C.A. § 1738, further specifies that “a state’s preclusion rules should control matters originally litigated in that state.” The Full Faith and Credit Clause ensures that judicial decisions rendered by the courts in one state are recognized and honored
in every other state. It also prevents parties from
moving to another state to escape enforcement
of a judgment or to relitigate a controversy
already decided elsewhere, a practice known as
forum shopping.
In drafting the Full Faith and Credit Clause,
the Framers of the Constitution were motivated
by a desire to unify their new country while pre-
serving the autonomy of the states. To that end,
they sought to guarantee that judgments ren-
dered by the courts of one state would not be
ignored by the courts of other states. The
Supreme Court reiterated the Framers’ intent
when it held that the Full Faith and Credit
Clause precluded any further litigation of a
question previously decided by an Illinois court
in Milwaukee County v. M. E. White Co., 296
U.S. 268, 56 S. Ct. 229, 80 L. Ed. 220 (1935).
The Court held that by including the clause in the
Constitution, the Framers intended to make the
states “integral parts of a single nation through-
out which a remedy upon a just obligation
might be demanded as of right, irrespective of
the state of its origin.”
The Full Faith and Credit Clause is invoked
primarily to enforce judgments. When a valid
judgment is rendered by a court that has juris-
diction over the parties, and the parties receive
proper notice of the action and a reasonable
opportunity to be heard, the Full Faith and
Credit Clause requires that the judgment receive
the same effect in other states as in the state
where it is entered. A party who obtains a judg-
ment in one state may petition the court in
another state to enforce the judgment. When
this is done, the parties do not relitigate the
issues, and the court in the second state is
obliged to fully recognize and honor the judg-
ment of the first court in determining the
enforceability of the judgment and the proce-
dure for its execution.
The Full Faith and Credit Clause has also
been invoked to recognize the validity of a mar-
riage. Traditionally, every state honored a mar-
riage legally contracted in any other state.
However, in 1993, the Hawaii Supreme Court
held that Hawaii’s statute restricting legal mar-
riage to parties of the opposite sex establishes a
sex-based classification, which is subject to
STRICT SCRUTINY if challenged on EQUAL PRO-
TECTION grounds (Baehr v. Lewin, 852 P.2d 44,
74 Haw. 530). Although the court did not recog-
nize a constitutional right to same-sex marriage,
it raised the possibility that a successful equal
protection challenge to the state’s marriage laws
could eventually lead to state-sanctioned same-
sex marriages. In response to the Baehr case,
Congress in 1996 passed the Defense of Mar-
riage Act (110 Stat. § 2419), which defines mar-
riage as a union of a man and a woman for
federal purposes and expressly grants states the
right to refuse to recognize a same-sex marriage
performed in another state.
During the 1980s and 1990s, the Full Faith
and Credit Clause was applied to new matters.
CHILD CUSTODY determinations had historically
fallen under the jurisdiction of state courts, and
before the 1970s, other states did not accord
them full faith and credit enforcement. As a
result, a divorced parent who was unhappy with
one state’s custody decision could sometimes
obtain a more favorable ruling from another
state. This was an incentive for a dissatisfied par-
