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GODARD vs.

GRAY

FACTS
Plaintiffs Godar are Frenchmen sued the defendants, who are Englishmen, on a charter party made
atSunderland, which charter party contained the following clause: "Penalty for non-performance of this
agreement,estimated amount of freight." The French Court below, treating this clause as fixing the amount
of liquidated dam-ages, gave judgment against the defendants for the amount of freight on two voyages.
On appeal, the superior Courtreduced the amount to the estimated freight of one voyage, giving as their
reason that the charter party itself and thetribunal proceeds to observe that the amount thus decreed was
after all more than sufficient to cover all the plaintiffs'loss. All parties in France seem to have taken the word
for granted in the charter party which is to be understood intheir natural meaning,

However in English law is accurately expressed that passage been brought to the notice of the French
tribunal,it would have known that in an English charter party, as is there stated, "Such a clause is not the
absolute limit of damages on either side; the party may, if he thinks fit, ground his action upon the other
clauses or covenants, andmay, in such action, recover damages beyond the amount of the penalty, if in
justice they shall be found to exceed it.On the other hand, if the party sue on such a penal clause, he
cannot, in effect, recover more than the damageactually sustained." But it was not brought to the notice of
the French tribunal that according to the interpretation putby the English law on such a contract, a penal
clause of this sort was in fact idle and inoperative. If it had been, theywould, probably, have interpreted the
English contract made in England according to the English construction.

ISSUE: whether this is a bar to the action brought in England to enforce that judgment.

HELD:"It is not an admitted principle of the law of nations that a State is bound to enforce within its territories
the judgment of a foreign tribunal. Several of the continental nations (including France) do not enforce the
judgments of other countries, unless where there are reciprocal treaties to that effect.However in England
and in those States which are governed by the common Iaw, such judgments are enforced,not by virtue of
any treaty, nor by virtue of any statute, but upon a principle very well stated by Parke, B., in
Williamsv. Jones
(13 M. & W. 628; 14 L.J. Exch. 145):

"Where a Court of competent jurisdiction has adjudicated a certain sum to be due from one person to
another, alegal obligation aribes to pay the sum, on which an action of debt to enforce the judgment may
be maintained. It is inthis way that the judgments of foreign and colonial Courts are supported and
enforced."

A judgment in personam of a foreign court of competent jurisdiction cannot be questioned by the parties
on themerits when recognition or enforcement of the judgment is sought in England, notwithstanding that it
may have beenwrong either in fact or law. This derived from the mode of pleading an action on a foreign
judgment in debt, and notmerely as evidence of the obligation to pay the underlying liability

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