`SWIFT v. Ml'JYERB.`l 43
reads- "Served the summons attire’defendant’s"usual place of abode}
which place of abode was then in Clark»county.” ‘ I ‘ A ‘
_ Ajclmitting the insutiiciency of the return, counsel for the defendants
insist that the judgment of the circuit court of Linn county thereon is Y
valid in the courts of this state, and cannot be questioned therein collat-
erally; and that the judgmentof a court of this state, when calledin
question or attacked in the circuit court of the United States for this dis-
trict, must be regarded as a domestic one; `
I cannot assent to either of these propositions. As was said by Mr;
Justice FIELD in Gahnin vt Page, 3 Sawy. 107: ‘ i
" Whilst the courts of the United States are not foreign courts in their rela--
` tion to the state courts, they are courts of a different sovereignty, exercising
a distinct and independent jurisdiction, and are bound to give to the judg-
ments of the state courts only thesamc faith and credit which the courts of
another, state are bound to give them." t .
And what faith and credit must be given to the judgment of astate,
court in the courts of another state may be seen in Christmas v. Russell,
5 Wall. 305, where it is said such a judgment is neither foreign nor do-
mestic, in every sense, in said courts, but it is "`open to inquiry asto the
_ jurisdiction of the court and notice to the defendant;" citing D’Arcy` v.
Ketchum, 11 How. 165; Webster v. Reid, Id. 437. U U
Elliott v. Peirsol, 1 Pet. 328, was ejectment brought in the circuit cdurt
of the United States for Kentucky. The title of the defendants depended
on the validity of an order of a county court of that state, concerning the
privy examination of a feme covert, who was a party to a deed on which.
the defendants relied. The court instructed the jury that the order of
the county court was void for want of jurisdiction over the subject." On
error to the supreme court the ruling was ailirmed. The court, Tm1ui1L1¤:,"
J.,said: i _ M  
" Where a court has jurisdiction, itjhas a right to decide every question which
occurs in the cause; and, whether its decision be correct or otherwise, its judg-
ment, until reversed, is regarded as binding in every other count. But: if it
uct without authority, its judgments and orders are regarded as ·nu11ities.‘
They are not voidable, but simply void. * * W The jurisdiction of any"
court exercising authority over a subject may be inquired into in every courti ·~
when the proceedings of the former are relied on and brought before the latter
by the party claiming the beneht of such proceedings." _ A   _
In Thompson v. Whitman, 18 Wall. 467, the supreme court, in refer-
ring to the opinion of the court in Christmas v. Russell, supra, in which it
is said that the judgment of a state court is "open to inquiry as to the
jurisdiction of the court and notice to the defendant/’ said: “ In a num-
ber ot' cases, in which was questioned the jurisdiction of a court, whether ‘
of the same or another state, over the general subject-matter in which the Q
particular case adjudicated was embraced, this court has maintained the"
same general language ;" citing particularly Elliott  Peirsol, supra. ·-
Galpin v. Page, 18 Wall. 350, was a case in which the jurisdiction'of` ·
a state court was questioned in an action in a national court,·lsitting·in“‘
the same state. 3 Sawy. 93. The court held that the-presumption"