Full Faith and Credit Under the Constitution

The U.S. Constitution is based on a federalist structure. This indicates that two tiers of government typically govern the nation: federal and state. Each level possesses the power to enact laws and maintains a certain measure of independence from one another.

However, Article I of the Constitution establishes certain powers reserved for the federal government. We refer to these powers as enumerated powers. Likewise, the Tenth Amendment reserves certain powers for the states. For example, states can establish and oversee their taxing and policing power, insurance laws, and state courts.

This dual sovereignty affords each state the general ability to govern its territory. This can sometimes mean that more than one state may exert authority over the same dispute or matter. The full faith and credit clause was designed to mitigate the uncertainty and confusion resulting from these situations.

Historical Background

Historically, the principles behind this clause are rooted in private international law. This body of law addressed whether one nation should recognize and enforce rights based on another country’s laws and judgments.

Like private international law, the full faith and credit clause aims to address conflicts of laws and interstate comity. Comity refers to the courtesy one jurisdiction shows another by honoring its laws or judgments.

The Framers didn’t want to leave these matters to the states based on comity alone. They wanted to hold the states to a constitutional obligation. As such, they incorporated the full faith and credit clause.

Article IV, Section 1 of the Constitution of the United States reads,

“Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.”

We refer to these two sentences together as the Constitution's full faith and credit clause. This clause addresses the states’ relationships with each other, also known as horizontal federalism.

Similarly, the Constitution’s privileges and immunities clause provides that citizens of one state should be afforded the same privileges and immunities of other states. We also refer to this clause as the comity clause. The Supreme Court has determined that a strict parity rule qualifies this duty.  

What Does the Article IV Full Faith and Credit Clause of the Constitution Mean?

The first sentence of the full faith and credit clause largely comes from the Articles of Confederation. The Constitutional Convention adopted its language for this clause with two modifications.

First, the Framers added “public acts” as statutes or laws. Then, at James Madison’s suggestion, the Framers added the second sentence.

This second sentence gives Congress permission to pass federal laws governing how these acts, records, and judgments may be proven in court. For example, Congress has enacted legislation requiring federal and territorial courts to adhere to the same principles as state courts under the clause.

The Full Faith and Credit Act

Congress enacted the Full Faith and Credit Act in 1948. It added legislative acts to the list of sister state materials entitled to full faith and credit.

We find this implementing statute at 28 U.S.C. § 1738. An implementing law or statute refers to how a law is implemented and enforced. In this case, the law is the full faith and credit clause.

The clause’s second sentence also allows Congress to identify the effects of those out-of-state acts, records, and judgments.

How Does the Full Faith and Credit Clause Apply to Court Judgments Across Different States?

As the final arbiter of the Constitution, the Supreme Court interprets the full faith and credit clause. Its decisions establish a precedent for lower courts and subsequent decisions.

The Court’s interpretation of the full faith and credit clause has changed over the years. Shortly after the Constitution's ratification, the Supreme Court decided Mills v. Duryee. The 1813 Mills Court addressed whether the clause required a D.C. court to recognize a New York state court judgment as conclusive or merely as evidence.

The Court ruled that judgments from out-of-state courts must carry the same conclusive effect in other states as they do in the issuing state. The courts may not disregard a judgment from another state just because it doesn’t agree with it or its merits.

In 1940, the Court determined that the full faith and credit clause “precludes any inquiry into the merits of the cause of action, the logic or consistency of the decision, or the validity of the legal principles on which the judgment is based.”

As long as the state court has jurisdiction over the parties and the matter, its judgment will definitively determine the parties’ rights in all other states.

The courts must generally accept that the out-of-state court’s jurisdiction was proper unless something in the record or evidence indicates otherwise. This is true even if the judgment violates public policy in the state where the judgment is being enforced. The Court has also held this true for federal courts regarding state court judgments.

However, the Court has recognized certain exceptions where a court may refuse to enforce judgments from another state.

For example, the full faith and credit clause doesn’t require one state to enforce a criminal punishment from another state’s judgment. But, under certain circumstances, they must allow claims based on other states’ laws to be heard in their courts.

How Does the Full Faith and Credit Clause Apply to Laws of Different States?

The Court does seem to have settled on a standard that treats out-of-state laws and out-of-state court judgments differently. As the Court said in Baker v. General Motors Corp. (1998), its “precedent differentiates the credit owed to laws (legislative measures and common law) and to judgments.”

With respect to laws and state statutes, the Supreme Court has not interpreted the Full Faith and Credit Act literally. Doing so would require states to give their sister states’ laws a conclusive effect.

Yet the Supreme Court has consistently held that the states may establish their own laws and govern themselves. Likewise, the Court has determined that the states may generally apply their own laws in the courts within their territories.

Conflicting State Laws

The clause also raises questions about which law applies when two states’ laws conflict. If there’s a conflict of laws between two states, the Supreme Court acknowledged in 1935 that both states can’t give full effect to the other state’s laws.

However, in matters where the law of either state could apply, the Supreme Court established the current standard in 1981. In Allstate Insurance Co. v. Hague, the Court said that in such cases, either court may follow its own state law to resolve the matter. However, a state may only follow its laws if it has “a significant contact or significant aggregation of contacts, creating state interests, such that choice of its law is neither arbitrary nor fundamentally unfair.”

As the Court clarified in Franchise Tax Board of California v. Hyatt, the first sentence of the full faith and credit clause requires states to recognize public acts, like statutes, of other states.

But whether a state has to recognize a status granted by the laws of another state has kept the full faith and credit clause in recent court cases. The issue has typically arisen in family law matters. For example, the question may be whether one state has to recognize a marriage issued in a different state under different laws.

Protection Orders and Child Support

Congress has also passed full faith and credit legislation for certain categories of law, records, and judgments.

In 1980, it established the Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act, which requires the states to enforce child support determinations from other states. Similarly, it passed the 1994 Full Faith and Credit for Child Support Orders Act. This law required states to enforce child support orders from a child's home state.

Likewise, the 2000 Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) requires the states to give full faith and credit to out-of-state protection orders. For example, if a domestic violence victim has a state-issued order of protection but moves, the new state must enforce it.

Same-Sex Marriage

Congress also enacted DOMA, the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act. Section 2 of DOMA allowed the states to refuse to honor same-sex marriages performed in other states. However, the Court struck this down in 2015 with its decision in Obergefell v. Hodges.

The Obergefell Court mooted the full faith and credit discussion surrounding same-sex marriage. Instead, it applied the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process and equal protection clauses. It said, “there is no lawful basis for a State to refuse to recognize a lawful same-sex marriage performed in another State on the ground of its same-sex character.”

In the 2016 matter of V.L. v. E.L., the Court held that an Alabama court had to recognize a Georgia adoption decree. As it explained in 1935 and again in this case, the full faith and credit clause effectively changes the states’ status as “independent foreign sovereignties…to make them integral parts of a single nation.” As such, it requires the states to give full effect to valid judgments from their sister state courts.

The Constitution’s full faith and credit clause is short and sweet. But its application is far from straightforward. The limits on Congress’s authority under the clause remain untested. Likewise, its effect on same-sex marriage recognition across state lines remains unresolved.

The High Court’s limited case law reveals very little controversy surrounding the full faith and credit clause. However, should Congress decide to test the limits of its legislative authority under the clause or should the Supreme Court start interpreting the implementing legislation literally, we’re bound to see some robust jurisprudential discussions.