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Personal Jurisdiction Unnecessary to Issue Judgment on an Out-of-State Judgment, New Published CA Case Holds

Tim Kowal     December 7, 2022

CEB has published my article, “Personal Jurisdiction Unnecessary to Issue Judgment on an Out-of-State Judgment, New Published CA Case Holds.”

The article is about a surprising recent appellate opinion, WV 23 Jumpstart, LLC v. Mynarcik (D3 Nov. 21, 2022) No. C095046, that allowed a Nevada judgment debtor to domesticate a judgment in California—even though the debtor had no contacts with California. And even more surprising, after the Nevada judgment expired, the court allowed the creditor to re-domesticate the judgment back to Nevada.

There are two reasons you should take strong notice of this case, particularly if other states follow this approach:

(1) Judgments accrue interest at different rates depending on state law, so consider domesticating all your judgments in a high-yield jurisdiction—the highest yields are in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington, at 12%.

(2) Judgments lapse after a certain time depending on state law, so consider domesticating all your judgments in a “stay-fresh” jurisdiction—judgments in Delaware, for instance, never expire.

Here is a link to the PDF: Kowal_PersonalJurisdiction.pdf

Here is a link to the original blog post.

This case was covered on the California Appellate Law Podcast here.

Tim Kowal is an appellate specialist certified by the California State Bar Board of Legal Specialization. Tim helps trial attorneys and clients win their cases and avoid error on appeal. He co-hosts the Cal. Appellate Law Podcast at CALpodcast.com, and publishes summaries of cases and appellate tips for trial attorneys. Contact Tim at [email protected] or (949) 676-9989.
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