Opinion
March 20, 1951. Rehearing Denied April 20, 1951.
Robert H. Givens, Jr., Miami, for petitioner.
Watkins Cohen, Tallahassee, and Joseph A. Wanick, Miami Beach, for respondent.
In proceeding supplementary to execution, James A. Martin, the respondent here, was appointed by an Ohio court as receiver of certain designated property of Golda L. Hotchkiss, the petitioner here, including United States Treasury bonds in the possession of The First National Bank of Miami, Florida, theretofore pledged and delivered by the petitioner to the Bank as collateral for a loan. The order appointing the respondent as receiver directed him to collect and receive the designated property, including the bonds, and "to apply the same, or the proceeds thereof, under direction of the Court," to the satisfaction of two judgments previously entered against the petitioner by the Ohio court. The respondent thereupon brought suit in a Florida equity court against the petitioner and The First National Bank of Miami, Florida, seeking to compel the Bank to turn over to him the excess of the collateral over the petitioner's indebtedness to the Bank. The lower court denied the petitioner's motion to dismiss the bill of complaint, and we here review such order of denial.
A court created within a sovereignty is necessarily limited as to its sphere of direct action on persons and things, real estate and chattels within that sovereignty. Since the bonds were not within the jurisdiction of the Ohio court, its order could not, per se, operate to transfer the title of the bonds from the petitioner to the respondent. Clark on Receivers, 2d Ed., Vol. 1, Ch. III, Sec. 108, p. 131; ibid, Ch. IX, Sec. 294, p. 392; Tardy's Smith on Receivers, 2d Ed., Sec. 291, p. 685; Towne v. Goldberg, 35 Minn. 231, 28 N.W. 254. Nor was the respondent vested with the title to the bonds by virtue of the statute authorizing his appointment. See Section 11782, Baldwin's 1948 Revision of Throckmorton's Ohio Code Annotated, of which we take judicial notice. Section 92.031, Florida Statutes, same F.S.A.
If the respondent does not have title to the bonds, it would appear that he is in no better position than the judgment creditor, insofar as subjecting the bonds in Florida to the satisfaction of the Ohio judgments is concerned; and the general rule is that a creditor's bill based on a judgment in another state cannot be maintained without first reducing the foreign judgment to a local judgment. Miller v. Security-Peoples Trust Co., 142 Fla. 434, 195 So. 191, 195, 129 A.L.R. 500; 21 C.J.S., Creditors' Suits, § 46; 14 Am.Jur., Creditors' Bills, Sec. 21,
The respondent contends that the decrees of the Ohio court appointing him receiver of the petitioner's assets, "to collect and receive" the same, are entitled to full faith and credit in the Florida courts under Art. IV, Sec. 1, of the United States Constitution. We do not agree with this contention. Unless the receiver appointed in one state has title to the property by voluntary transfer from the owner, or is a quasi assignee by force of some state statute, he has no absolute right to bring suit in his official capacity in a state other than the state wherein he was appointed. Booth v. Clark, 17 How. 322, 15 L.Ed. 164; Great Western Min. Mfg. Co. v. Harris, 198 U.S. 561, 25 S.Ct. 770, 49 L.Ed. 1163.
By suing, as actor, on the Ohio decrees, and solely as an arm of the Ohio court, the respondent is, in effect, requesting a Florida court to put in motion its executory processes for the collection of a judgment debt without such debt first having been reduced to judgment in this state. We do not conceive that this can be done.
For the reasons stated, the writ is granted and the order denying the motion to dismiss is quashed.
It is so ordered.
SEBRING, C.J., and CHAPMAN and ADAMS, JJ., concur.