Murthy v Sivajothi

A defendant who voluntarily submits to a foreign court’s jurisdiction in an action may thereby submit to properly brought claims by existing parties which concern the same subject matter or are sufficiently related to it. The submission is not confined irrevocably to the original claimant’s claim.

The connection required is a question of fact and degree. Procedural permission to join the claim is not alone decisive. The English court must also be satisfied that treating the claim as within the submission is fair to the defendant. Unrelated claims, particularly claims by new claimants, remain outside the scope of the submission unless the defendant is otherwise subject to the foreign court’s jurisdiction.

The respondents obtained two default judgments against the appellant in Florida. They arose from allegations that he had fraudulently obtained their savings and used their properties as collateral. The appellant had previously joined a settlement of a Florida mortgage foreclosure claim and thereby accepted that court’s jurisdiction for that claim.

A deputy judge in the Queen’s Bench Division gave the respondents summary judgment to enforce the Florida judgments. He held that the appellant’s submission extended to the respondents’ connected cross-claims. The appellant contended that his submission was confined to the mortgagee’s original foreclosure claim.

The central issue was whether voluntary appearance in foreign proceedings submitted the appellant to the Florida court’s jurisdiction over the respondents’ related claims for the purposes of English recognition and enforcement rules.

1. Appeal dismissed unanimously. Lord Justice Evans gave the judgment, with whom Lord Justice Morritt and Lord Justice Chadwick agreed. The appellant’s settlement in the Florida foreclosure proceedings was an undoubted voluntary submission to that court’s jurisdiction in respect of the mortgagee’s claim.

2. The scope of that submission was not confined to the original claim. A defendant who submits to a foreign court’s jurisdiction may also be taken to have submitted to claims concerning the same subject matter and to sufficiently related claims. This extends to claims properly brought under the foreign court’s procedure by persons already parties when the submission is made.

3. The limitation is fairness. A different and unrelated claim is not within the submission merely because procedural rules permit its joinder. Whether a claim is related is a question of fact and degree. A contribution or indemnity claim between co-defendants illustrates a consequential claim that falls within the submission.

4. The court treated the respondents’ claims as related even on a rigorous view. They challenged the mortgage transaction, alleged a conspiracy between the appellant and the mortgagee to deprive them of their properties, and alleged that the property dealings formed part of the same fraudulent course of conduct as the earlier loss of their savings. It was not unfair to treat those claims as embraced by the appellant’s submission.

5. The Florida court was therefore a court of competent jurisdiction over the appellant for English conflict-of-laws purposes. The foreign judgments were enforceable by action in England. The appeal was dismissed with costs.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): dismissed the appellant’s appeal in [1999] 1 WLR 467.
• High Court, Queen’s Bench Division: Mr Mark Strachan QC, sitting as a deputy judge, granted the respondents summary judgment on 23 February 1998 to enforce the Florida judgments.