§ 9-12-112.Applicability; burden of proof

Subsection (a) sets the affirmative test for whether a foreign-country judgment falls within this article at all: the judgment must grant or deny recovery of a sum of money, and, under the law of the foreign country where it was rendered, it must be final, conclusive, and enforceable there. Both conditions have to be met — a judgment that is still subject to further proceedings abroad, for instance, does not yet qualify.

Subsection (b) then removes three categories even when they otherwise involve money. A judgment for taxes is excluded, as is a fine or other penalty, and so is a judgment for divorce, support, or maintenance, or any other judgment connected with domestic relations. Each of those categories tends to raise different policy concerns — tax and penalty judgments touch on sovereign enforcement power, and domestic-relations awards are handled through their own body of law — so this article leaves them outside its scope rather than folding them into the general recognition framework.

Subsection (c) places the burden of proof on the party seeking recognition: that party must establish that the article applies to the judgment in the first place. That is a distinct burden from the one imposed later in the article on a party resisting recognition, which instead concerns whether a specific ground for nonrecognition exists.