Arizona Court of Appeals, Division One affirms recognition of Nigerian judgment as valid in Arizona.

In 2008, a Nigerian man loaned his cousin, who lived in the United States, $100,000. As of June 2021, the loan had not been repaid, and so the man filed a lawsuit against his cousin in a Nigerian court seeking the balance of the loan. Pursuant to the Nigerian court’s procedures, the man sought and obtained leave to serve his cousin via email. The man did so, his cousin never appeared before the Nigerian court, and the Nigerian court, after reviewing the evidence presented by the man, entered the equivalent of a default judgment against the man’s cousin.

With the Nigerian judgment in hand, the man filed a petition in Maricopa County Superior Court to register the judgment in Arizona pursuant to Arizona’s version of the Uniform Foreign-Country Money Judgments Recognition Act, A.R.S. §§ 12-3261 to -3254. The cousin argued that the loan was not actually a loan, but a gift that need not be repaid; that he had never been served in the Nigerian case; and that no contract had ever been executed between the two men. The superior court rejected these arguments and recognized the Nigerian judgment as an Arizona judgment. The cousin timely appealed.

The Arizona Court of Appeals affirmed. It began by rejecting the cousin’s argument that the Nigerian judgment was ineligible to be confirmed as an Arizona judgment under the Act because Nigeria lacked a similar, reciprocal law to the Act. The Court noted that Nigeria had its own act governing the recognition of foreign judgments that mirrored Arizona’s, and thus the judgment was eligible to be converted to an Arizona judgment under the Act.

The Court also rejected the cousin’s arguments that specific statutory exceptions to the Act applied. The cousin first argued that the superior court was forbidden from recognizing the Nigerian judgment under the Act because the Nigerian court did not have personal jurisdiction over him (due to lack of proper service) and because the Nigerian court lacked the procedural safeguards necessary to ensure due process. The Court rejected both arguments for the same reasons: the cousin had been properly served in the Nigerian proceeding through email, which both Nigerian and Arizona law authorized in circumstances such as this case. This dovetails with the fact that the cousin was afforded proper procedural safeguards before the Nigerian court entered a default judgment—rules that found common ground with Arizona’s own procedures.

The Court likewise rejected the cousin’s arguments that the superior court should have nevertheless declined to recognize the Nigerian judgment in its own discretion. The cousin had presented no evidence of the type of fraud that would suggest the Nigerian judgment should be disregarded, he was properly served in a lawsuit concerning a transaction (the loan) that had occurred in Nigeria, and the arguments he made regarding the impartiality of the Nigerian court were hypothetical and unsupported. In the same vein, the Court also rejected the cousin’s attempts to relitigate the Nigerian proceeding—the merits of that proceeding were beyond the scope of a petition under the Act.

Finally, the Court rejected the cousin’s arguments regarding the Arizona proceeding. The cousin argued that he was entitled to an evidentiary hearing, but the Court concluded nothing in the Act required such a hearing—indeed, no party requested one—and the facts available to the superior court required it to recognize the Nigerian judgment.

Judge Cattani authored the opinion, joined by Judges Thumma and Paton.

Posted by: Joshua J. Messer