On April 27th, 2010, the House of Representatives passed the Interstate Recognition of Notarial Acts bill of 2009. The bill requires any Federal or State court to recognize any notarization made by a notary public licensed by a State other than the State where the court is located when such notarization occurs in or affects interstate commerce. A similar bill was introduced in 2007. The original bill arose out of a Michigan court case where a trial court refused to accept an unauthenticated notarized document from another state. However, the Michigan Supreme Court subsequently overturned the ruling, stating that by law, the court should have accepted and given full faith and credit to the act of another state's official. That ruling made the 2007 act unnecessary.The National Association of Secretaries of States strongly oppose this bill. NASS (rightfully I believe) argues that the act is unnecessary given that three existing acts (The Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act, The Uniform Electronic Transactions Act, and The Uniform Real Property Electronic Recording Act), combined with state notary laws, the Federal Rules of Evidence, and the Full Faith and Credit Clause already address these issues.
Simply put, current laws are already in place recognizing out of state notarial acts. There's no need to fix a problem that doesn't exist.
2 comments:
I have also been watching this decision. Good reporting, Alex.
A law to cover something that is already covered under another law. Reminds me of some mortgage docs. "This is a document that says you signed that other document that we already signed."
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