§ 25-1340.Standards for recognition of foreign-country judgment.

Section 25-1340 sets out when a Nebraska court recognizes a foreign-country judgment covered by the Act. The default is recognition: except as the section itself provides otherwise, a Nebraska court shall recognize a qualifying foreign-country judgment. Recognition is the starting rule, not the exception.

Three grounds require a court to refuse recognition, without discretion to look past them: the judgment was rendered under a judicial system that does not provide impartial tribunals or procedures compatible with due process; the foreign court lacked personal jurisdiction over the defendant; or the foreign court lacked jurisdiction over the subject matter. Any one of these defeats recognition outright.

A longer list of grounds gives the court discretion, not a mandate, to withhold recognition. These include inadequate notice of the foreign proceeding, a judgment obtained by fraud that denied the losing party a fair chance to present its case, a judgment or underlying claim repugnant to the public policy of Nebraska or the United States, a conflict with another final and conclusive judgment, a prior agreement between the parties that the dispute would be resolved somewhere other than that foreign court, a seriously inconvenient forum where jurisdiction rested only on personal service, serious doubt about the integrity of the rendering court, and a specific proceeding that did not meet due process requirements even if the broader system did.

The burden of proof runs against the resisting party. A party opposing recognition has to establish that one of the grounds for nonrecognition — mandatory or discretionary — exists.