(8) Summary of Argument
(Citations Case - Callahan, Danloe J., Paschen, Rinella Schornack, B., Schornack, J.)

Illinois has adopted the Uniform Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Act, which provides a procedure for enforcement of judgments of sister states, which are automatically entitled to full faith and credit under the United States Constitution. It has also adopted the Uniform Foreign Money Judgments Recognition Act, which sets out the substantive bases on which a judgment rendered in a foreign country may or may not be recognized in Illinois, and also provides that if such judgments are entitled to recognition, they may be enforced in the same manner as judgments are enforced under the Enforcement Act. The Recognition Act does not state what procedure is to be employed to give effect to its provisions. The only sensible way to construe the Recognition Act is as requiring that judgment creditors seeking recognition must file an action seeking recognition first, before becoming entitled to employ the procedures provided in the Enforcement Act. Such a construction comports with other provisions of Illinois law, the wording of the Recognition Act and the intent of the drafters. To read the Recognition Act, as the district court did, as enabling a judgment creditor to proceed immediately to enforcement upon filing a copy of the judgment with the court, as is permitted with sister state judgments, would be to render the Recognition Act meaningless, as enforcement could always precede recognition. Such a reading would erase the difference between judgments of sister states, which need not be subjected to the tests of the Recognition Act, and judgments of foreign countries, which must be so tested.

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