Godard v.

Gray (1870)
Facts:
Plaintiffs Godard are Frenchmen who sued defendants who are
Englishmen on a charter party made at Sunderland.
This charter agreement contained a clause: Penalty for non-
performance of this agreement, estimated amount of freight.
The French court treated this clause as fixing the amount of
liquidated damages and rendered judgment against defendants
for the freight on 2 voyages.
On appeal, the court reduced the amount to one voyage.
However, in English Law, had the passage been brought to
notice of the French tribunal, it would have known that in an
English charter-party such a clause is not the absolute limit of
damages on either side, the other party may ground his action in
other clauses and may recover damages beyond the amount of
the penalty, if in justice they shall found to exceed it.
But such was not brought to the notice of the French tribunal
that according to the interpretation put by the English law on
such contract, a penal clause of this sort was in fact idle and
inoperative.
If it had been they would have interpreted the English contract
made in England according to English construction.
Issue/s:
WON there is a bar to the action brought in England to enforce
that judgmentNO

Held:
It is not an admitted principle of the law of nations that a State is
bound to enforce within its territories the judgment of a foreign
tribunal. Several of the continental nationsincluding France
do not enforce the judgments of other countries unless there are
reciprocal treaties to that effect.
 In England, which is governed by common law, judgments are
enforced not by virtue of a treaty but because of a principle in
the case of Williams v. Jones which state that:
Where a court of competent jurisdiction has adjudicated a
certain sum to be due from one person to another, a legal
obligation arises to pay the sum, on which an action of debt to
enforce the judgment may be maintained. It is in this way that
the judgments of foreign and colonial courts are supported and
enforced.
In order for the defendant to show that the court which
pronounced the judgment had no jurisdiction to pronounce it,
either because they exceeded the jurisdiction given to them by
foreign law or because he, the defendant, was not subject to
that jurisdiction, and foreign judgment must be examinable.
Defendant may also show that the judgment was obtained by
the fraud of the plaintiff for that would show that the defendant
was excused from the performance of the obligation.
In English courts we enforce a legal obligation and we admit any
defense which shows that there is no legal obligation or a legal
excuse for not fulfilling it, but in no case that we know of is it
easily proved and rejected it would give the court much trouble
to investigate it.