Junkers v. Chemical Foundation
| Decision Date | 09 December 1922 |
| Citation | 287 F. 597 |
| Parties | JUNKERS v. CHEMICAL FOUNDATION, Incorporated. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York |
Guthrie Jerome, Rand & Kresel, of New York City (William D. Guthrie and Bernard Hershkopf, both of New York City, of counsel) for the motion.
Alexander Karlin, of New York City, opposed.
AUGUSTUS N. HAND, District Judge (after stating the facts as above).
As this cause comes up on a motion which is equivalent to a demurrer it must be conceded for the present purpose that the United States obtained a conveyance of the patent without consideration, and transferred it to the defendant in like manner.
The provisions of the Trading with the Enemy Act clearly define the rights of the parties. The Treaty with Prussia of 1799 (8 Stat. 174) has no bearing upon the situation, for the only clauses which might conceivably relate to the property of Germans are directed to German merchants residing in this country-- a class to which the complainant avowedly does not belong. Stoehr v. Wallace, 255 U.S.at page 251, 41 Sup.Ct. 293, 65 L.Ed. 604. Moreover, the recent subsequent treaty of peace with Germany, signed August 25, 1921, must prevail over the Treaty of 1799, so far as any of its provisions are inconsistent with the former treaty. The Chinese Exclusion Case, 130 U.S. 600, 9 Sup.Ct. 623, 32 L.Ed 1068; Fong Yue Ting v. United States, 149 U.S. 720, 13 Sup.Ct. 1016, 37 L.Ed. 905.
The recent treaty gave the United States the advantages of the Treaty of Versailles which provided that Germany undertook to compensate her nationals in respect of the sale or retention of their property (part 10 of Treaty of Versailles, article 297 (i)), that no question should be raised as to the regularity of a transfer of any property rights or interests, and that:
'No claims shall be made or action brought by Germany or German nationals in respect of the use during the war by the government of any allied or associated power, or by any person acting on behalf or with the assent of such government, of any rights in industrial, literary, or artistic property, nor in respect of the sale, offering for sale, or use of any products, articles or apparatus whatsoever to which such rights applied.'
These provisions would seem to stand in the way of any present claim of the complainant. Any irregularities of transfer by the Alien Property Custodian are beyond question so far as German nationals are concerned. Whatever rights the United States may be able to assert against the defendant, if the patent has been given away, can be no concern of the complainant, whose claims are barred by the treaty.
The last question involved relates to the effect of the Trading with the Enemy Act upon the patent in suit. No doubt seems to have been cast upon the validity of the seizure by the Alien Property Custodian. Under section 12 of the Trading with the Enemy Act (Comp. St. 1918, Comp. St. Ann. Supp. 1919, Sec. 3115 1/2ff) it is provided that:
'After the end of the war any claim of any enemy or of an ally of enemy to any money or other property received and held by the Alien Property Custodian or deposited in the United States Treasury, shall be settled as Congress shall direct. * * * '
By a prior subdivision of section 12 it was enacted:
'The Alien Property Custodian shall be vested with all of the powers of a common-law trustee in respect of all property, other than money, which has been or shall be, or which has been or shall be required to be, conveyed, transferred, assigned, delivered or paid over to him in pursuance of the provisions of this act. * * * '
While the Alien Property Custodian is a common-law trustee, he holds the property, not in the interest of the former owner but in the public interest. The former owner, by some future act of Congress, may be allowed recognition in respect to property seized. Conceivably he may be limited to such remedies as are already covered by article 297(i) of the Treaty of Versailles, under which it is provided: 'Germany undertakes to compensate her nationals in respect of...
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...Stat. 1939, 1940, at the end of World War I, confirmed the possession of vested enemy property by the United States. Junkers v. Chemical Foundation, Inc., D.C., 287 F. 597; Lange v. Wingrave, D.C., 295 F. 565; Klein v. Palmer, 2 Cir., 18 F.2d 932. For present purposes it does not matter whe......
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