Ling et Al v Coal Lying Aboard SS Wilhelmina

• Docket Number: Case No. 224
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Washington
• Date: 07 October 1948

United States, District Court for Western District of Washington.

Case No. 224

Ling et Al.

and

1689 Tons of Coal Lying Aboard s.s. Wilhelmina in Harbor of Seattle et Al.

Prize Law — Validity of Capture — Necessity for Intention to Seize in Prize — Lawful Capture — Necessity for Authorization or Ratification of Capture by Government — Jurisdiction — Absence of Jurisdiction to Hear Claim in Prize by National of Foreign State.

The Facts.—On December 7, 1941, the Netherlands Steamship Wilhelmina with a Japanese-owned cargo of 4,500 tons of coal sailed from Muroran for Nagoya, Japan. The next day, upon learning through the vessel's radio of the outbreak of war in the Pacific, the master of the vessel altered course and, with the approval and assistance of the crew, who were Chinese nationals, put the vessel and cargo into Dutch Harbor, Alaska, on December 26, 1941.

For their assistance the crew were promised certain remuneration, but not having received the same they, on April 7, 1942, filed this libel in this Court as a Court of Prize seeking to condemn the cargo of coal as a prize of war captured by the crew and asking certain relief against the master as party respondent.

Held: that the libel must be dismissed. In the first place, the Court held that it had no jurisdiction to hear an action in prize commenced by nationals of a foreign State. The Court said:

“The question of ‘Prize or no prize must be determined by courts of admiralty, belonging to the power whose subjects make the capture’. 1 Magens, 496. ‘The proper and regular court for these condemnations is the court of that state to whom the captors belong.’ 1 Magens, 487. (Both of these Magens quotations appear in notes in 9 Fed. Cas. at page 61.) See also Findlay v. The William, 9 Fed. Cas. page 57, No. 4, 790, where at page 61 it was said ‘That affairs of prizes are only cognizable in the courts of the power making the capture’. The Supreme Court in U.S. v. PetersUNK, 3 U.S. 121, 126, 3 Dall. 121, at 126, 1 L. Ed. 535, held that ‘By the law of nations, the right of judging is vested in the courts of the captor’. And Ruling Case Law states the rule thus: ‘In general this jurisdiction of the national courts of the captor, to determine the validity of captures made in war under the authority of his government, is exclusive of the judicial authority of every other country’. 15 R.C.L., Sec. 109, page 210.

“Under those authorities, it would have been proper for libelants, who are Chinese citizens, to have submitted to a...