Does the Full Faith and Credit Clause require a Missouri court to bar a witness from testifying in a lawsuit between non-parties to a Michigan consent injunction that prohibits the witness from testifying against General Motors in any litigation?

Ronald Elwell worked for General Motors (GM) from 1959 to 1989, spending 15 years in its Engineering Analysis Group studying vehicle fires and assisting GM lawyers defending product liability suits. After his relationship with GM soured, Elwell testified in a 1991 Georgia product liability deposition that the GM pickup fuel system was inferior to competitors', contradicting his prior in-house testimony. Elwell then sued GM in Michigan for wrongful discharge, and GM counterclaimed for breach of fiduciary duty and misappropriation of confidential information. In August 1992, they settled: Elwell received an undisclosed sum, and the Michigan court entered a stipulated permanent injunction barring Elwell from testifying as a witness of any kind, without GM's written consent, in any litigation involving GM as a product owner, seller, manufacturer, or designer, except the pending Georgia case. In a separate settlement agreement, GM agreed that court-ordered testimony would not be actionable as a violation of the injunction or agreement. Meanwhile, Kenneth and Steven Baker sued GM in Missouri after their mother died in a 1990 fire in a 1985 Chevrolet S-10 Blazer, alleging a faulty fuel pump. The Bakers, who were not parties to the Michigan case, sought to depose and call Elwell, and GM objected based on the Michigan injunction.

The Bakers sued GM in Missouri state court in September 1991, and GM removed the case to federal court based on diversity. The District Court reviewed the Michigan injunction and settlement agreement in camera and allowed the Bakers to depose Elwell and call him at trial, reasoning that Missouri public policy shielded only privileged or confidential information and that a court elsewhere could modify the injunction as a Michigan court could. The jury awarded the Bakers $11.3 million, and judgment was entered. The Eighth Circuit reversed, concluding that Elwell's testimony should not have been admitted because, even assuming a public policy exception to full faith and credit, Missouri had an equally strong policy favoring full faith and credit, and the evidence was insufficient to show Michigan would modify the injunction. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.

(Ginsburg, J.)

No. Full faith and credit does not require a Missouri court to bar Elwell's testimony in a suit brought by strangers to the Michigan litigation. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed and the case remanded.

The Full Faith and Credit Clause, Art. IV, § 1, and 28 U.S.C. § 1738 make a sister-state judgment preclusive of claims and issues between the parties and their privies, and there is no roving public policy exception to the credit owed judgments. The District Court therefore erred in assuming such an exception, and equity decrees are not outside the full faith and credit domain.

However, full faith and credit does not extend the enforcement mechanisms of the rendering State to other States. Enforcement measures do not travel with a judgment the way preclusive effects do; the law of the enforcing forum governs how a judgment is enforced, and sanctions for violating an injunction are generally administered by the issuing court. See McElmoyle v. Cohen, 13 Pet. 312 (1839). A sister-state decree likewise cannot transfer title to land in another State, Fall v. Eastin, 215 U.S. 1 (1909), and antisuit injunctions have not controlled the second court's handling of its own litigation.

The Michigan decree is claim preclusive between Elwell and GM, but Michigan has no power over the Bakers, who were not parties, and lacks authority to control courts elsewhere in deciding what witnesses are competent to testify and what evidence is admissible. A forum's own law governs witness competence and the exclusion of evidence. The decree itself confirms this: it exempted the Georgia action so as not to interfere with that court's jurisdiction, and GM's settlement agreement ruled out suing Elwell in Michigan for court-ordered testimony elsewhere. This result is not a public policy exception. Michigan's decree may bind Elwell as to volunteering testimony, but it cannot dictate to a Missouri court that evidence relevant in a case foreign to Michigan is inadmissible.

Concurring in the judgment (Scalia, J.) Enforcement measures do not travel with sister-state judgments as preclusive effects do. A judgment of one State cannot be enforced out of the State by execution; the Full Faith and Credit Clause establishes a rule of evidence, not of jurisdiction, and a judgment must be made a judgment in the second State and executed as its laws permit. Missouri was no more obliged to enforce the Michigan injunction by excluding Elwell's testimony than by holding him in contempt. McElmoyle v. Cohen settles the case.

Concurring in the judgment (Kennedy, J., joined by O'Connor and Thomas, JJ.) The case is controlled by settled principles that make the majority's extended analysis unnecessary and problematic. The majority's exceptions for judgments purporting to accomplish an official act within another State's exclusive province and for injunctions interfering with litigation in another jurisdiction are inconsistent with its rejection of a public policy exception, rest on unarticulated rationale, and address unsettled questions this Court has not resolved. The proper first step is to ask what preclusive effect the rendering State would give the judgment. Michigan adheres to mutuality of estoppel, and its courts have refused to bind non-parties to prior injunctions, so Michigan would not bind the Bakers, who were never parties or subject to its jurisdiction. GM bears the burden of showing preclusion and failed to carry it. Michigan Court Rule 2.613(B), directing modification requests to the issuing court, is a procedural comity rule not binding on other States. This resolves the case without new exceptions to full faith and credit. The majority answers in footnote 11 that Kennedy's point is obvious and misses the thrust of GM's argument, which is that the decree binds only Elwell, so issue preclusion standing alone cannot resolve the case. The majority answers in footnote 12 that it recognizes no sweeping exception; the Michigan judgment is not entitled to credit because it interferes with Missouri's control of litigation by parties who were not before the Michigan court, and if the Bakers had litigated in Michigan they would be precluded.