§ 1710.10.Definitions

Every registration statute needs to say plainly whose judgment qualifies and who the parties are, and this section does that work for the whole chapter. A judgment creditor is whoever can sue to enforce the sister state judgment; a judgment debtor is whoever that enforcement action could be brought against. Those two labels then carry through every later section describing how registration works and who has to be notified.

The definition of “sister state judgment” draws the chapter's outer boundary. It reaches only the part of another state's judgment, decree, or order that requires paying money, not injunctions, custody orders, or other non-monetary relief, and it pointedly excludes family support orders, which California handles through a separate interstate support framework rather than this chapter's registration process. Limiting the term this way keeps this streamlined procedure focused on ordinary money judgments and leaves other kinds of interstate relief to the statutes built for them.