An Out-of-State Judgment Was Filed Against Your Florida Business: What Now?

In most cases, an out-of-state judgment is enforced against your Florida business after the creditor records it in Florida, and the day it is recorded starts a 30-day clock to get an automatic stay. Your company can still contest the judgment on narrow grounds even after that. Here is what the creditor does next, what you can raise, and what to check first.

What Happens When an Out-of-State Judgment Is Recorded in Florida?

Florida treats a recorded out-of-state judgment like one entered by a Florida court. The creditor records a certified copy with the circuit court clerk in any county, and after a waiting period the usual collection tools open up. Florida honors the other state’s judgment and does not retry the underlying dispute, but you keep a narrow set of defenses.

Did a creditor just record a judgment against your company? Talk with a Jimerson Birr lawsuit defense attorney before the 30 days run.

What Does the Creditor Have to File, and When Does Enforcement Start?

The creditor must record the certified judgment and file an affidavit giving the last known addresses of the creditor and your company. Under Florida’s notice statute, the clerk then mails notice to the address in that affidavit by registered mail with return receipt requested. No execution or other enforcement process may issue until 30 days after the clerk mails it, and the judgment does not operate as a lien until then. The creditor may also mail its own notice, so you can receive two.

Keep the two clocks apart. Enforcement waits 30 days after the clerk’s mailing, but your window to get an automatic stay runs from the recording date, so it can close before the enforcement wait ends.

Notice goes to the address the creditor chose. If that is a former office or an outdated registered address, you may learn about the recording late, so check the clerk’s docket instead of waiting for the mail. Jimerson Birr’s domesticating foreign judgments page describes the process from the creditor’s side.

A creditor can also skip recording and file a new Florida lawsuit on the judgment. That brings a summons and Florida’s ordinary 20-day response deadline, and our guide to a missed answer deadline explains what is at stake if that clock runs.

How Long Do You Have to Challenge an Out-of-State Judgment in Florida?

You have 30 days from the date the judgment is recorded. If you file an action within that time contesting the issuing court’s jurisdiction or the judgment’s validity, and you record a lis pendens against the judgment, the statute directs the court to stay enforcement of the judgment and the lien once you file. The clock runs from recording, not from the day the notice reaches you.

Missing the 30 days costs you the automatic stay, not necessarily your defenses. In Whipple v. JSZ Financial Co., the Fourth District said the 30-day period applies only to the stay and does not bar a later collateral attack. It then set aside a Texas default judgment because the process server’s own paperwork showed he was not authorized to serve on the date of service, so Texas never had personal jurisdiction.

Separately, if you show a ground on which a Florida judgment would be stayed, the statute says the court shall stay enforcement for an appropriate period, on the same security Florida requires.

What Defenses Can a Florida Business Raise Against an Out-of-State Judgment?

Mostly jurisdictional ones. Florida owes the other state’s judgment full faith and credit, so you generally cannot reargue whether you owed the money. You can argue that the issuing court never had power over your company, usually because service of process failed.

These challenges are business litigation work that turns on documents: the summons, the return of service, and the issuing court’s docket. The grounds that matter most are:

• No valid service or no jurisdiction. In Whipple, a defect in the service paperwork meant the Texas court never had personal jurisdiction. In Williams v. Cadlerock Joint Venture, L.P., a federal judgment entered against a New York woman was recorded against a Florida man with the same name. The Fourth District held that the debtor carries the burden of proving the issuing court lacked jurisdiction, and it reversed because he showed he was never served.
• Extrinsic fraud in obtaining the judgment. This is a narrow ground. A Florida appellate court has recognized that a sister-state judgment may be attacked for extrinsic fraud, meaning fraud that kept a party from presenting a defense, not a dispute over the evidence or the underlying debt.
• Payment, vacatur, or a stay. The debt was satisfied, or the judgment was vacated or stayed where it was entered.

Reopening the judgment in the issuing state is a separate track under that state’s rules and deadlines. Florida’s version of that motion is described in our guide to vacating a default judgment, though the issuing state’s rules control there.

How Long Can the Creditor Enforce a Recorded Judgment?

For 20 years, under the Florida Supreme Court’s reading. In Patrick v. Hess, the Court held that the 20-year statute that governs Florida judgments applies to enforcing a foreign judgment once it is recorded. It did not decide when that period starts to run, and whether a creditor can use either route also depends on whether the judgment is still enforceable in the state that issued it. Ask how old the judgment is and whether it was renewed or revived where it was entered.

What Will the Creditor Do After the 30 Days?

Expect the tools used against any Florida judgment debtor: liens on property, garnishment of bank accounts, levy on business assets, and post-judgment discovery into where your money sits. Our guide to how creditors collect a judgment in Florida and the firm’s collections and lien enforcement page show that playbook, which helps you decide what to protect.

The exposure can reach beyond the company. If an owner signed a guaranty, read whether a creditor can take personal assets for a business debt. A judgment also reaches daily operations and credit, as we explain in what a judgment against your business really means. If the matter ends in payment or settlement, our post on satisfaction of judgment covers cleaning up the record. The attorney profile for Charles Jimerson lists business litigation and defense matters he has handled.

What Should Your Company Do This Week?

Start with the clerk’s docket and a calendar. These steps cost little and keep the most options open:

• Find the recording date. Search the clerk’s records in every Florida county where your company has offices or property, and write down the date the judgment was recorded.
• Count 30 days from that date. The automatic stay depends on filing an action and recording a lis pendens inside that window, so mark the deadline now.
• Collect the original papers. Pull the summons, complaint, and any proof of service from the issuing state, and compare the names and addresses on them to your company’s records.
• Route every creditor contact to one person. Do not sign anything or pay anything until a lawyer has read what it releases.

What Should You Check Before You Respond?

Five facts change the answer for your company:

1. The recording date and the creditor’s listed address for your company, both on the clerk’s docket.
2. How and on whom the original summons was served, and what the return of service says.
3. Whether your company answered in the original case or a default was entered.
4. Whether the judgment names your company, a similarly named entity, or an owner personally.
5. Whether anything was paid, settled, appealed, vacated, or stayed in the issuing state.

These facts decide which defenses exist and whether the 30 days are still running. An attorney has to review the actual documents before anyone can tell you where you stand.

Not sure when the judgment was recorded or what your service record shows? Talk with a Jimerson Birr business litigation attorney before you respond to the creditor.

How Can Jimerson Birr Help With an Out-of-State Judgment Against a Florida Business?

If an out-of-state judgment was filed against your Florida business, Jimerson Birr’s lawsuit defense attorneys start with an early review of the documents to identify procedural defenses and options. Call (904) 389-0050 or request a free consultation to have the judgment and your service record reviewed. The 30 days to seek an automatic stay run from the recording date, and every week of delay uses part of that window.