Mitsue Masuko Kai v. Acheson, Civ. A. No. 10685.

• Decision Date: 14 November 1950
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 10685.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of California
• Parties: MITSUE MASUKO KAI v. ACHESON, Secretary of State.

94 F. Supp. 383

MITSUE MASUKO KAI v. ACHESON, Secretary of State.

Civ. A. No. 10685.

United States District Court S. D. California, Central Division.

November 14, 1950.

A. L. Wirin and Fred Okrand, Los Angeles, Cal., for plaintiff.

Ernest A. Tolin, U. S. Atty., Clyde C. Downing, Asst. U. S. Atty., Chief of Civil Division, by Arline Martin, Asst. U. S. Atty., Los Angeles, Cal., for defendant.

CAVANAH, District Judge.

This case also presents the two questions: First, Whether Japan in April, 1946, was a "Foreign State" within the meaning and intent of Section 401(e) of the United States Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C.A. § 801(e). This question has often been decided by this court under facts similar to those in the present case, and the conclusion reached was that it was not a "foreign state", and is, and was, under the supreme control and sovereignty over Japan and her people after its surrender, to the Allies, who transferred that to the United States. The situation and reasons given by the court in those other cases apply to the present case. Japan at the time this plaintiff voted was not a "foreign state", and the election held was not a political one. Japan, under the evidence and the statute, is simply an occupied country and the area is being ruled by the United States.

Coming now to the second question here, as to whether the plaintiff voted at the election of her own free will, and not through mistake, confusion and misunderstanding and as the result of undue influence, coercion and duress, here again we are confronted with the thought as to what are the particular facts in this case. The plaintiff was born in September, 1920, on the Island of Oahu, Territory of Hawaii, a territory of the United States. In July, 1928, together with her parents and brothers and sisters, she visited Japan for the purpose of visiting her grandmother. Other children of the family remained in Hawaii in the family residence. In September, 1929, all of this family who had gone to Japan returned to Hawaii. Later, in 1934, the plaintiff, her parents and two brothers and two of her sisters, returned to Japan again, leaving some of the children in the family residence in Hawaii. The purpose of the trip was to visit an aunt and attend school in Japan.

The war broke out in 1941, when plaintiff was going to school in Japan. Prior to that, in the spring of 1934, plaintiff received certain papers from her relatives who were then in Hawaii, which papers she filled out and prepared and presented to the American Consul in Yokohama for the purpose of returning to the United States, but was advised by the Yokohoma Consulate to present the papers to the Consul in Tokyo, which plaintiff did, but received no word from the American Consul when the war broke out in 1941. During the war she completed school and went to work in a private school in Japan as a teacher. Her husband was drafted into the...