Lloyd Sabaudo Societa Anonima Per Azioni v. Elting

• Decision Date: 05 December 1932
• Docket Number: No. 48,48
• Parties: LLOYD SABAUDO SOCIETA ANONIMA PER AZIONI v. ELTING, Collector of Customs
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

287 U.S. 329

53 S.Ct. 167

77 L.Ed. 341

LLOYD SABAUDO SOCIETA ANONIMA PER AZIONI

v ELTING, Collector of Customs.

No. 48.

Argued Nov. 11, 1932.

Decided Dec. 5, 1932.

Mr. Delbert M. Tibbetts, of New York City, for petitioner.

The Attorney General and Mr. Charles B. Rugg, Asst. Atty. Gen., for respondent.

Mr. Justice STONE delivered the opinion of the Court.

Petitioner, a steamship transportation company, brought suit in the District Court for Southern New York to recover from the collector of customs certain fines alleged to have been illegally exacted by the Secretary of Labor under section 9 of the Immigration Act of 1917, c. 29, 39 Stat. 874, 880, or its amendment by section 26 of the Immigration Act of 1924, c. 190, 43 Stat. 153, 166, 8 U.S.C. § 145 (8 USCA § 145). The complaint stated fifteen causes of action, one for each fine involved. The trial court directed a verdict for the petitioner on three causes of action, the ninth, eleventh, and fifteenth, and for the respondent on all the others, and gave judgment accordingly. 45 F.(2d) 405. See, also (D.C.) 46 F.(2d) 315. Upon appeal by both parties the judgment of the District Court was affirmed by the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, 55 F.(2d) 1048, except as to the fifteenth cause of action, with respect to which it was reversed. As certiorari was granted, 286 U.S. 539, 52 S.Ct. 641, 76 L.Ed. 1277, on petition of the steamship company alone, only so much of the judgment below as decided in favor of the collector is brought before us for review. Federal Trade Commission v. Pacific Paper Ass'n, 273 U.S. 52, 66, 47 S.Ct. 255, 71 L.Ed. 534; The Malcolm Baxter, Jr., 277 U.S. 323, 48 S.Ct. 516, 72 L.Ed. 901.

Section 9 of the Immigration Act, as amended, provides that:

'It shall be unlawful for any person, including any transportation company, * * * to bring to the United States * * * from a foreign country * * * any alien afflicted with idiocy, insanity, imbecility, feeblemindedness, epilepsy, constitutional psychopathic inferiority, chronic alcoholism, tuberculosis in any form, or a loathsome or dangerous contagious disease, and if it shall appear to the satisfaction of the Secretary of Labor that any alien so brought to the United States was afflicted with any of the said disease or disabilities at the time of foreign embarkation, and that the existence of such disease or disability might have been detected by means of a competent medical examination at such time, such person or transportation company * * * shall pay to the collector of customs of the customs district in which the port of arrival is located the sum of $1,000, and in addition a sum equal to that paid by such alien for his transportation * * * for each and every violation of the provisions of this section, such latter sum to be delivered by the collector of customs to the alien on whose account assessed. * * *'

The same section also makes it unlawful 'to bring to any port of the United States any alien afflicted with any mental defect other than those above specifically named, or physical defect of a nature which may affect his ability to earn a living, as contemplated in section 136(3) of this title, and if it shall appear to the satisfaction of the Secretary of Labor that any alien so brought to the United States was so afflicted at the time of foreign embarkation, and that the existence of such mental or physical defect might have been detected by means of a competent medical examination at such time, such person shall pay to the collector of customs of the customs district in which the port of arrival is located, the sum of $250, and, in addition a sum equal to that paid by such alien for his transportation. * * *'

Between the years 1923 and 1927 the petitioner brought to the United States in its vessels the thirteen aliens with respect to whose transportation the fines now in question were imposed. All were found, upon arrival, to be inadmissible because they were afflicted either with one of the diseases specified in section 9, or with a physical defect which might affect the alien's ability to earn a living. In each case in the proceedings before the Board of Special Inquiry to pass on the admissibility of the alien, the examining physicians of the Health Department certified to his diseased condition or disability on arrival, adding: 'In our opinion the condition herein certified might have been detected by competent medical examination at the port of embarkation.' In each instance the petitioner was notified of the certificate of the medical examiners, advised that such findings indicated its liability to fine under section 9 of the Act of 1917 or its amendment of 1924, and given thirty or sixty days in which to have a hearing. In each case the petitioner responded to the notice by depositing the amount of the possible fine, in order to secure clearance of the vessel,¹ and transmitting an unverified letter of protest against the imposition of the fine, stating generally that it was the regular practice of the petitioner to have each immigrant carefully examined by competent doctors before embarkation, and that, therefore, the disease or disability either did not exist at the time of embarkation or could not then have been discovered by means of competent medical examination, or was of such a nature as could not affect the alien's ability to earn a living. In one case, that of Fusco, stated in the tenth cause of action, the letter of protest was accompanied by affidavits, tending to confirm the statements contained in the protests. In all thirteen cases fines were imposed by the Secretary and the funds deposited by petitioner were retained by the government.

The 'files' or 'records' upon which the Secretary of Labor based his decisions that the fines should be imposed consisted in general of the transcript of the hearing and examination before the Board of Special Inquiry at Ellis Island, in which the admissibility of the alien was passed upon, which included a reference to the medical certificate, the petitioner's letter of protest and any accompanying documents, and various communications of an interdepartmental character relating to the disposition of the alien by the Secretary.

At the trial in the District Court, the petitioner introduced evidence which had not been presented to the Department of Labor tending to show that a competent med- ical examination had been made of the aliens at the port of embarkation, and that the diseases or disabilities, on the basis of which the fines had been imposed, had not in fact been discovered, and were not discoverable at that time by such an examination. Although the trial judge thought that this evidence tended to show in detail the thoroughness of the examinations and the competence of the physicians, he struck out this class of testimony, and held, on the basis of the record made before the Secretary, that there was evidence supporting his action.

The petitioner contends here, as it did before the courts below, that the evidence offered at the trial was erroneously excluded; that, if section 9 is construed to preclude a judicial trial of the issues before the Secretary, it denies to petitioner due process of law, and, finally, that in any case the fines were not validly imposed because the Secretary of Labor abused the discretion reposed in him by the statute.

The first two objections are untenable. By the words of the statute, the Secretary's is the only voice authorized to express the will of the United States with respect to the imposition of the fines; the judgment of a court may not be substituted for the discretion which, under the statute, he alone may exercise. In conferring that authority upon an administrative officer, Congress did not transcend constitutional limitations. Under the Constitution and laws of the United States, control of the admission of aliens is committed exclusively to Congress, and, in the exercise of that control, it may lawfully impose appropriate obligations, sanction their enforcement by reasonable money penalties, and invest in administrative officials the power to impose and enforce them. Oceanic Steam Navigation Co. v. Stranahan, 214 U.S. 320, 29 S.Ct. 671, 53 L.Ed. 1013; Passavant v. United States, 148 U.S. 214, 13 S.Ct. 572, 37 L.Ed. 426; see Hampton, Jr., & Co. v. United States, 276 U.S. 394, 406, 48 S.Ct. 348, 72 L.Ed. 624; Navigazione Libera Triestina v. United States (C.C.A.) 36 F.(2d) 631; Zakonaite v. Wolf, 226 U.S. 272, 275, 33 S.Ct. 31, 57 L.Ed. 218.

In Oceanic Steam Navigation Co. v. Stranahan, supra, this Court upheld the constitutionality of section 9 of the Immigration Act of 1903, c. 1012, 32 Stat. 1213, 1215, which is substantially the same as the present section, except that it imposed smaller penalties. Petitioner contends that, as the fines have been increased tenfold, the issue of liability has become so grave that the Stranahan Case is no longer controlling, and the imposition of the fines by administrative action is a denial of due process, unless opportunity is afforded at some stage to test their validity in court by a trial of the facts de novo.

As was pointed out in the Stranahan Case, the statute imposing the fines must be regarded as an incident to the exercise by Congress of its plenary power to control the admission of aliens, and due process of law does not require that the courts, rather than administrative officers, be charged, in any case, which determining the facts upon which the imposition of such a fine depends. It follows that, as the fines are not invalid, however imposed, because unreasonable or confiscatory in amount, which is conceded, Congress may choose the administrative rather than the judicial method of imposing them. Indeed, the Court rested its decision in Oceanic Steam Navigation Co. v. Stranahan, supra, on the authority of cases arising under the revenue laws, authorizing the administrative imposition of civil penalties...