Say the ratio out loud before you open Reasoning — recalling it unprompted is exactly what the exam pays for.
Why it matters
The doctrine of obligation says that a foreign court's adjudication of a sum due creates a debt. This case tests the words sum due, and shows that an order to pay something not yet quantified is not enough.
Facts
A Jamaican decree ordered payment of a sum after deducting costs which were still to be taxed.
Held
Until the costs were determined the sum was indefinite, and no action lay on the decree in England.
Reasoning
Step one — go back to the basis of enforcement. On Williams v. Jones, where a court of competent jurisdiction has adjudged a certain sum of money to be due from one person to another, a legal obligation arises to pay that sum, on which an action of debt may be maintained.
Step two — take the word certain seriously. The obligation enforced in England is a debt. A debt of an unascertained amount is not a debt that a court can enter judgment for.
Step three — the defect is curable. Once the costs are taxed and the figure is fixed, the objection disappears. The rule is about the state of the foreign decree, not about its merits.
Exam use
It opens: What conditions must a foreign judgment satisfy before it can be enforced? — as the third condition, after competence and finality.
State the three together in order. Competence in the international sense — presence or submission for a judgment in personam, and the overriding requirement. Finality — res judicata by the law of the country where the judgment was given, so provisional judgments and preliminary decrees fail, though a pending appeal is no bar. A definite sum — this case.
Show how the Indian scheme reproduces the money requirement. Under s. 44A of the Code, Explanation 2 confines decree to a decree or judgment under which a sum of money is payable, excluding sums payable for taxes or other charges of a like nature or a fine or penalty, and excluding an arbitral award even if it is enforceable as a decree. Direct execution is therefore available only for a money decree, of a superior court of a notified reciprocating territory, and even then execution must be refused if any exception in s. 13 is made out.
It does not decide that the Jamaican decree was bad; it decides that it could not found an action in that form at that time.