Drewry v Onassis

• Docket Number: Case No. 85
• Date: 31 March 1947
• Court: New York Supreme Court

United States, Supreme Court (Special Term) of New York County.

Case No. 85

Drewry

and

Onassis.

War — Effects of — Enemy Corporation — Persona Standi in Judicio — French Corporation after Liberation of Country.

The Facts.—The plaintiff in this action was a French corporation. A previous action brought by it against the same defendant was dismissed by the Appellate Division and the Court of Appeals on the ground that under the provisions of the Trading with the Enemy Act plaintiff was an enemy and not entitled to sue. At the time these decisions were given, France was occupied by the armed forces of Germany. At the time the present action was commenced, however, all of France had been freed. Defendant contended that plaintiff continued to be an enemy until the war had officially come to an end, and argued that the withdrawal of enemy forces from a given territory was an unsatisfactory and very variable criterion of enemy character.

Held: that defendant's motion to dismiss the complaint must be denied. France ceased to be an enemy, as defined by the Act, when it was no longer occupied by the military forces of nations with which the United States is at war. The Court said:

“… There is no provision in the Trading with the Enemy Act that any individual or firm which is defined as an enemy, because it is a resident of a country occupied by enemy forces, continues to be an enemy until the official end of the war, notwithstanding the fact that the enemy forces no longer occupy the country.

“The provision of Section 7 (b) of the Act that nothing therein contained shall be deemed to authorize the prosecution of an...