Klausner v. Levy
| Decision Date | 10 March 1949 |
| Docket Number | Civ. A. No. 349. |
| Citation | 83 F. Supp. 599 |
| Parties | KLAUSNER v. LEVY. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Virginia |
John W. Waller, of Alexandria, Va., for plaintiff.
Irving Diener, of Alexandria, Va., for defendant.
The issue of jurisdiction has been tried separately before the Court, and its decision requires a determination of the question whether the plaintiff, averring and proving himself to be a citizen of Palestine when he instituted this action in March 1948, was a citizen of a "foreign state" within the intent of the diversity-jurisdiction clauses of the Constitution and statutes of the United States. Art. III., sec. 2; old Title 28 U.S.C.A. § 41(1), now 28 U.S.C.A. § 1332(2). These clauses give this Court jurisdiction of the present action only if the plaintiff can prove that he was a citizen or subject of a foreign state, and the defendant a citizen of one of the States of the United States of America, when the action was begun. Irwin et al. v. Missouri Valley Bridge & Iron Co., 7 Cir., 19 F.2d 300, 303, certiorari denied, Irwin, Sherman & Ellis v. Missouri Valley Bridge & Iron Co., 275 U.S. 540, 48 S.Ct. 36, 72 L.Ed. 415.
Plaintiff has exhibited in evidence a duly authenticated certificate establishing his naturalization as a citizen of Palestine, issued several years before this litigation, and its subsisting validity is not controverted. Then and at the time of the commencement of this action Palestine was a mandate, with Great Britian its mandatory, created by the Treaty of Versailles. Art. 22, Covenant of the League of Nations. Previously it had been a possession of Turkey, from whose rule it was released by the victory of the Allies in World War I.
A mandate is a trusteeship and the mandatory power is the trustee. The mandatory power here was appointed by the Supreme Council of the Allies, and its duty was to administer the mandated territory. The effect of the mandate of Palestine, effective September 29, 1923, was not to annex it as a part of the mandatory, nor to make its inhabitants citizens of Great Britain. The mandate imposed upon the mandatory a guardianship of the territory and its people, subject to the supervision of the League of Nations, to which it must submit annually a report of its administration. The United States, not a member of the League, gave its consent to the mandate as an Associated Power by a treaty signed at London December 3, 1924.
Palestine, as a mandated territory, was without local autonomy. Art. 3 of the Mandate. Its government was set up by Great Britain and administered by the latter's local officials. Art. 1, 9, id. During the mandate Palestine...
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