So long as a state court has jurisdiction, its judgment must be given full faith and credit by the courts of every other state. Here, a Georgia court granted an adoption decree to a female partner of the children’s mother. Alabama violated the Full Faith and Credit Clause by failing to give that judgment binding effect. Georgia’s statutes gave its trial court’s subject matter jurisdiction over all matters relating to adoption. That jurisdiction was not ousted by a statute that permitted adoption by a third party only with a living parent or guardian’s voluntary written consent. Failure to follow that mandatory statute might have rendered the judgment legally erroneous, but the statute did not deprive the court of jurisdiction to render the adoption decree.
United States Supreme Court (per curiam); March 7, 2016; 2016 WL 854160