Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/251/317/
Timestamp: 2019-04-18 14:23:37+00:00

Document:
A judgment for an alien enemy is objectionable only in so far as it may give aid and comfort to the other side in the war. P. 251 U. S. 323.
A judgment recovered in the district court by an alien enemy before he became such, the satisfaction of which was delayed by the other party's appeal until the intervention of war, may properly be reviewed during the war and affirmed with direction that the money be paid to the clerk of the trial court to be turned over to the Alien Property Custodian, and a motion to dismiss or suspend the action is correctly denied. Id.
had then paid, and, having paid the remainder, sued again to recover that also, held that the former judgment was conclusive in the second action as to the validity of the awards, it appearing not only from the petition and judgment, but from other parts of the record of the former case, including the answer, the judge's charge and the opinion of the circuit court of appeals, that the validity of all the awards alike was there in issue and was sustained. P. 251 U. S. 323.
In determining whether a former judgment, given upon a directed verdict, involved the same issues of fact as are presented in a second action before the same judge in which both parties submit the point by requests for a peremptory instruction, especial weight attaches to the judge's decision. P. 251 U. S. 324.
The objection that the deposition of a plaintiff in the district court cannot be taken on his own behalf is waived by a stipulation waiving time and notice and allowing the officer to proceed to take and return it on interrogatories. Id.
That, in the return of foreign depositions, the officer commissioned did not put them into the mail and certify to the fact on the envelopes, as required by a state law, is immaterial where the war made compliance impossible and where the officer transmitted them in the only practicable way, though an American consul to the State Department, and thence by mail to the clerk. Id.
The six months' limitation of the German Civil Code § 477 on claims for defect of quality in goods sold does not apply to awards of arbitration based on such claims. P. 251 U. S. 325.
In an action to recover amounts paid on defendant's account in Germany, it is not error to take the value of the German mark at par in the absence of evidence that it had depreciated when the plaintiff made the payments. Id.
taken to the circuit court of appeals, a motion was made to dismiss or suspend the suit on the ground that Heye had become an alien enemy by reason of the declaration of war between Germany and the United States. The circuit court of appeals, however, affirmed the judgment with the modification that it should be paid to the clerk of the trial court and by him turned over to the Alien Property Custodian, with further details not material here.
Upon the last-mentioned question, although it seemed proper that it should be set at rest, we can feel no doubt. The plaintiff had got his judgment before war was declared, and the defendant, the petitioner, had delayed the collection of it by taking the case up. Such a case was disposed of without discussion by Chief Justice Marshall speaking for the Court in Owens v. Hanney, 9 Cranch 180; Kershaw v. Kelsey, 100 Mass. 561, 564. There is nothing "mysteriously noxious" (Coolidge v. Inglee, 13 Mass. 26, 37) in a judgment for an alien enemy. Objection to it in these days goes only so far as it would give aid and comfort to the other side. Hanger v. Abbott, 6 Wall. 532, 73 U. S. 536. Such aid and comfort were prevented by the provision that the sum recovered should be paid over to the Alien Property Custodian, and the judgment in this respect was correct. When the alien enemy is defendant, justice to him may require the suspension of the case. Watts, Watts & Co. v. Unione Austriaca di Navigazione, 248 U. S. 9, 248 U. S. 22.
whole obligation found to exist. But we have before us the fact that the Court directed a verdict and the charge. From the latter, as also from the answer, apart from a general denial, it appears that the awards were dealt with as a whole, and that the objections to them were general. The objections were overruled, and the Court assumed that the awards were obligatory, but cut down the amount to be recovered to the sum that had been paid. The case went to the circuit court of appeals, and the same things appear in the report of the case there. 212 F. 112. (Certiorari denied, 234 U.S. 759.) In the present case, both parties moved the Court to direct a verdict. Beuttell v. Magone, 157 U. S. 154, 157 U. S. 157; Empire state Cattle Co. v. Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Ry. Co., 210 U. S. 1, 210 U. S. 8. Taking that and the fact that the same judge seems to have presided in both suits into account, we should be slow to disturb his decision that the issue was determined in the former one if we felt more doubt than we do. But we are satisfied the decision of the two courts below was right.
"the officer may proceed to take and return the depositions of the witness on the original direct and cross interrogatories, but commission is not waived."
statute, because the officer to whom the commission was directed did not put the depositions into the mail and certify on the envelopes that he had done so, a sufficient answer is that that course was impossible owing to the war, and that the officer did transmit the depositions in the only practicable way. He gave them to an American consul and had them transmitted to the Department of State, and then through the mail to the clerk. The integrity of the depositions is not questioned, the statute was complied with in substance, and justice is not to be defeated now by a matter of the barest form.
We see no error in the finding that § 477 of the German Civil Code did not bar the claim. Assuming the question to be open, the court was warranted in finding that a six months' limitation to claims for defect of quality did not apply where the claims had been submitted to arbitration and passed upon. The same is true with regard to the taking the value of the German mark at par in the absence of evidence that it had depreciated at the time of the plaintiff's payments. On the whole case, our conclusion is that the judgment should be affirmed.

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