Pintsch Compressing Co. v. Bergin

Decision Date19 November 1897
Docket Number624.
Citation84 F. 140
PartiesPINTSCH COMPRESSING CO. v. BERGIN.
CourtU.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts

Heman W. Chaplin and Edward D. Whitford, for petitioner.

Anson M. Lyman, for respondent.

PUTNAM Circuit Judge.

The petitioner represents that the respondent has been admitted by this court to become a citizen of the United States when she should not have been, and it prays that her 'certificate of naturalization be returned to this court and canceled. ' The certificate is a nonessential, but we need not stop at the mere form of prayer of the petition. The only interest the petitioner alleges in the question is that as a citizen, the respondent has sued the petitioner in this court, and that it is only by force of her apparent citizenship that she is enabled to maintain such a suit. It however, assumes to prosecute the petition on behalf of all persons interested, but, inasmuch as the United States have not intervened, we regard this allegation of no avail.

The respondent was admitted a citizen in accordance with provisions of section 2167 of the Revised Statutes. Under those provisions she was required to 'prove to the satisfaction of the court that for two years next preceding' her application it had been her bona fide intention to become a citizen of the United States. The petition alleges that during the larger portion of that period of two years she had been under disability as the wife of an alien, who nevertheless resided with her in the United States, so that she could not in law have the required operative intention. This proposition involves, technically mixed questions of law and fact, which were presumably passed on by the court before it admitted the respondent to citizenship, and all which were merged in its final act. Therefore, no question raised by the petitioner appears on the face of the proceedings, and the very form of the petition in this case necessarily concedes that the record is regular in every particular. It follows that the petitioner demands to review the findings of the court, and is not merely bringing to our attention an irregularity or fatal defect apparent on the face of the record. As, moreover, the petition alleges that the naturalization was at a former term, it does not apply for the exercise of that summary power over its own proceedings which the court reserves during the term when they occur, but asks what is, in effect a judgment on scire facias, annulling the proceedings admitting the respondent to citizenship. The section of the Revised Statutes referred to, both in the Revised Statutes and in its original enactment (Act May 26, 2824, c. 186, Sec 1; 4 Stat. 69), was incorporated in, and became a part of the system established by Act April 14, 1802, c. 28 (2 Stat. 153), now represented by Secs. 1993, 2165, and 2172 of the...

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8 cases
  • Tutun v. United States Neuberger v. Same
    • United States
    • U.S. Supreme Court
    • April 12, 1926
    ... ... 190; Spratt v. Spratt, 4 Pet. 393, 408, 7 L. Ed. 897. It may not be collaterally attacked. Pintsch Compressing Co ... v. Bergin (C. C.) 84 F. 140. If a certificate is procured when the prescribed ... ...
  • United States v. Kusche
    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — Southern District of California
    • June 13, 1944
    ...was brought. The law was equally unsettled as to who was the proper party plaintiff in a suit to cancel. In Pintsch Compressing Co. v. Bergin, C.C.D.Mass. 1897, 84 F. 140; In re McCarren, 8 Misc. 482, 29 N.Y.S. 582, 23 L.R.A. 835; and Commonwealth of Pa. v. Moses Paper, 1868, 1 Brews., Pa.,......
  • Simons v. United States
    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York
    • May 24, 1971
    ...deceived." B. There are more cases which hold that the Government alone may attack a naturalization decree. See Pintsch Compressing Co. v. Bergin, 84 F. 140 (C.C., D. Mass.1897), McCarran v. Cooper, 16 App. Div. 311, 44 N.Y.S. 695, 696 (1st Dept. 1897), and Commonwealth v. Paper, 1 Brewst. ......
  • United States v. Mulvey
    • United States
    • U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit
    • April 18, 1916
    ...176, 3 L.Ed. 190; Ex parte Cregg, 2 Curtis, 98 Fed.Cas.No. 3,380; In re Coleman, 15 Blatch. 406, Fed. Cas. No. 2,980; Pintsch, etc., Co. v. Bergin (C.C.) 84 F. 140; McCarthy v. Marsh, 5 N.Y. 279; People v. Snyder, 41 N.Y. State v. Hoeflinger, 35 Wis. 400; State v. Macdonald, 24 Minn. 58. An......
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