§ 1716.State Required to Recognize Judgments to Which Chapter Applies; Judgments State Shall Not to Recognize; Judgments State Not Required to Recognize

This section is the substantive heart of the chapter, setting out when recognition is owed and when it is not. The baseline rule favors recognition: a California court shall recognize a foreign-country judgment covered by this chapter unless one of the section's specific exceptions applies. Three grounds are absolute and leave the court no discretion to recognize the judgment anyway: the foreign proceeding was conducted under a system that does not provide impartial tribunals or due process, the foreign court lacked personal jurisdiction over the defendant, or the foreign court lacked jurisdiction over the subject matter.

A second set of grounds is discretionary rather than absolute. A court need not recognize a judgment where the defendant did not get adequate notice, where fraud deprived the losing party of a fair chance to present its case, where the judgment or the underlying claim conflicts with California or federal public policy, where the parties had agreed to resolve the dispute somewhere other than that foreign court, where personal-service-only jurisdiction made the foreign forum seriously inconvenient, where circumstances raise real doubt about the rendering court's integrity, or where the specific proceeding leading to the judgment fell short of due process. Even so, the court may still recognize the judgment despite one of these discretionary grounds if the party favoring recognition shows good reason that outweighs it. Separately, a court need not recognize a judgment that conflicts with another final and conclusive judgment, and the burden shifts to whoever resists recognition to prove one of these grounds once the party seeking recognition has met its own initial burden. A distinct, non-discretionary bar applies to foreign defamation judgments that do not satisfy the federal standard set out for such judgments.