GODARD v.

GRAY
 The plaintiffs, who are Frenchmen, sued the defendants, who are Englishmen, on
a charterparty 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
damages, gave judgment against the defendants for the amount of freight on two
voyages.

 On appeal, the superior Court reduced the amount to the estimated freight of one
voyage, giving as their reason that the charterparty itself "xxxx", and the tribunal
proceeds to observe that the amount thus decreed was after all more than
sufficient to cover all the plaintiff's loss.
 All parties in France seem to have taken it for granted that the words in the
charterparty were to be understood in their natural sense; but the English law is
accurately expressed in Abbott on Shipping (xxx), and had 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, and may, 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 damage actually sustained."

 But it was not brought to the notice of the French tribunal that according to the
interpretation put by the English law on such a contract, a penal clause of this sort
was in fact idle and inoperative.

 If it had been, they would, probably, have interpreted the English contract made in
England according to English construction.
 The question raised by the plea is, whether this is a bar to the action brought in
England to enforce that judgment.
 "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.

 But in England and in those States which are governed by the common law, such
judgments are enforced, not by virtue of any statute, but upon a prinicple well
stated by Parke, B, in Williams v. Jones (xxx): "Where a Court of competent
jurisdiction has adjudicated a certain sum to be due from one person to another, a
legal obligation arises to pay the sum, on which an action of debt to enforce the
judgment may be maintained.

 It is in this way that the judgments of foreign and colonial Courts are supported
and enforced." (Paragraph Cont’d on next page)

 And taking this as the principle, it seems to follow that anything which negatives
the existence of that legal obligation, or excuses the defendant from the
performance of it, must form a good defense to the action.
 It must be open, therefore, to the defendant to show that the Court which
pronounced the judgment had no jurisdiction to pronounce it, either because they
exceeded the jurisdiction given to them by the foreign law, or because he, the
defendant, was not subject to that jurisdiction; and so far the foreign judgment
must be examinable.

 Probably the defendant may show that the judgment was obtained by the fraud of
the plaintiff, for that would show that the defendant was excused from the
performance of an obligation thus obtained; and it may be that where the foreign
Court has knowingly and perversely disregarded the rights given to an English
law, that forms a valid excuse for disregarding the obligation thus imposed on
him; but we prefer to imitate the caution of the present Lord Chancellor, in
Castrique v. Irmie (xx) and to leave those questions to be decided when they arise,
only observing that in the present case, as in that, "the whole of the facts appear to
have been inquired into by the French Courts, judicially, honestly, and with the
intention to arrive at the right conclusion, and having heard the facts as stated
before them they came to a conclusion which justified them in France in deciding
as they did decide."
 If, indeed, foreign judgments were enforced by our Courts out of politeness and
courtesy to the tribunals of other countries, one could understand its being said
that though our Courts would not be so rude as to inquire whether the foreign
Court had made a mistake, or to allow the defendant to assert that it had, yet that
if the foreign Court itself admitted its blunder they would not then act: but it is
quite contrary to every analogy to suppose that an English Court of law exercises
any discretion of this sort.

 We enforce a legal obligation, and we admit any defense which shows that there
is no legal obligation or a legal excuse for not fulfilling it; but in no case that we
know of is it ever said that a defence shall be admitted if it is easily proved, and
rejected If it would give the Court much trouble to investigate it.

 Yet on what other principle can we admit as a defence that there is a mistake of
English law apparent on its face of the proceedings, and reject a defence that there
is a mistake of Spanish or even Scotch law apparent in the proceedings, or that
there was a mistake of English law not apparent on the proceedings which the
defendant avers that he can show did exist."