McDonald v. Mabee

Background

A holder of a promissory note got a prior judgment in Texas that purported to bind the defendant personally and foreclose a lien. The defendant, Mabee, had been domiciled in Texas but left the State intending to establish a home elsewhere; his family remained in Texas. He later briefly returned and then established a domicile in Missouri. In the Texas suit the only notice was an advertisement in a local newspaper once a week for four successive weeks after his final departure, and Mabee did not appear. The Texas Supreme Court held that this satisfied state statutes and treated the judgment as a valid personal money judgment.

Reasoning

The Court asked whether newspaper publication alone gives fair notice and real authority to bind someone who left the State intending not to return. It emphasized that jurisdiction rests on a court’s real power to carry out a judgment and on notice likely to reach the defendant. An advertisement in a local paper is not sufficient to bind a person who has left and does not expect to return. The opinion explained that ordinary personal money judgments require effective notice, and so the earlier personal judgment was void for lack of due process rather than merely voidable. The Court noted that different rules might apply to decrees about personal status, but that those exceptions did not support this money judgment.

Real world impact

The ruling prevents courts from treating publication in a local paper as enough to create binding personal money judgments against nonresidents who left a State intending not to return. People who leave a State keep protection against enforcement of money judgments unless they receive real, effective notice. Creditors relying only on newspaper publication may find prior judgments unenforceable and will need other means to give defendants actual notice.