Wong Wai v. Williamson

• Decision Date: 03 July 1900
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of California
• Parties: WONG WAI v. WILLIAMSON et al.

103 F. 384

WONG WAI v. WILLIAMSON et al.

United States Circuit Court, N.D. California.

July 3, 1900

Reddy Campbell & Metson, Maguire & Gallagher, Samuel M. Shortridge John E. Bennett, and Robert Ferral, for complainant.

F. L Coombs, U.S. Atty., for defendant J. J. Kinyoun.

Before MORROW, Circuit Judge, and DE HAVEN, District Judge.

MORROW Circuit Judge (orally).

On the 28th day of May, 1900, this court issued a writ of injunction in this cause, enjoining and restraining the defendants comprising the board of health of the city and county of San Francisco, and J. J. Kinyoun, federal quarantine officer at this port, from inoculating the complainant and other Chinese residents of this city against their will; from imprisoning, restraining, or confining the complainant, or any of the Chinese residents of this city and county, within the limits thereof; and from otherwise interfering with or restraining the complainant, or any of said Chinese residents, in the exercise of their personal liberty to freely pass from said city and county of San Francisco to other parts of the state of California. On the 16th day of June, 1900, Wong Wai, the complainant, filed an affidavit stating that the defendant J. J. Kinyoun, in disregard and defiance of said order of injunction, and in contempt of this court, 'prevented and prevents your affiant and others from passing beyond the territorial limits of said city and county of San Francisco, and restrains and confines your affiant and others within said city and county, without any right whatever, and in disobedience of said order of injunction. ' It appears that on June 16, 1900, the complainant was desirous of taking passage on the steamer Orizaba for the port of Eureka, in this state, but was denied that privilege by the agents of the steamship company. Affidavits were introduced, of four Chinese persons other than the complainant, residents of the former quarantined district of San Francisco, to the effect that on the same day they were also desirous of departing to Eureka and to other places within the state of California, but were unable to obtain transportation without a certificate from the defendant Kinyoun that the holder had in all respects complied with the United States quarantine laws and regulations, and was, in the opinion of the quarantine officer, free from the infection of plague or the danger of conveying the same; that they presented themselves before said defendant Kinyoun, and said certificate was refused by him for the sole reason that the applicants were Chinese. It is also averred that the officers and agents of the steamship company, in refusing transportation to the affiants, acted under the direct orders of said Kinyoun, and not otherwise; and that said Kinyoun had stated to said officers and agents that, if any one were taken on board said steamship without said certificate, the said steamship would be quarantined at its place of destination. Accompanying this evidence is the affidavit of Milton Bernard, a clerk in the employ of a firm of attorneys representing the complainant herein, stating that he accompanied the several Chinese persons to the office of Dr. Kinyoun, and substantiating the statements contained in their affidavits. Dr. Kinyoun, in his return and reply affidavit, declares the statements of the complainant to be untrue; that, to the best of his knowledge, he did not see the complainant or the other Chinese on the 16th day of June, and did not issue orders or directions pertaining to them. He further states that, if the complainant or others had applied for certificates to leave San Francisco for Eureka or other parts of the state, he would have informed them that the transportation company was acting without authority from him in requiring such certificates, and that, on the contrary, his orders and directions to his assistants and subordinates were that certificates should not be required as a warrant for the traveling of any persons from San Francisco to any other part of this state. The return and affidavit are both under oath. Affidavits of the assistant surgeons in the United States marine hospital service detailed to assist Dr. Kinyoun also deny knowledge of the issuance of any orders by Dr. Kinyoun since May 28, 1900, requiring certificates of health to be obtained by persons desiring to travel between different parts of the state.

The opinion of the court in the injunction proceedings in this case held that the quarantine restrictions and regulations imposed by the defendants upon the complainant in traveling from San Francisco to other parts of the state were illegal and void, and, so far as the judgment and opinion of the court related to the defendant Dr. J. J. Kinyoun, and his conduct as involved in the present contempt proceedings, it declared the law to be: First that, as quarantine officer in the marine hospital service of the United States at the port of San Francisco, he had no jurisdiction, under the act of March 27, 1890, to impose quarantine regulations or restrictions upon any class of persons traveling from place to place within the state; second, that any quarantine regulation or restriction imposed upon any particular class of persons, as Chinese or Japanese, and not imposed upon others similarly situated, was an arbitrary and unreasonable interference with, and discrimination against, the individual liberty of the persons regulated and restrained,...