Opinion ID: 1188554
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the international law aspect

Text: 6. The second contention of the petitioners is that the ten-year period of limitations in the escheat statute was suspended by war as a matter of common law and international law independently of OCLA, § 1-217, supra. This proposition presented issues of extreme delicacy which are entirely new to the jurisprudence of this and many other states. In the entire 189 volumes of the Oregon Reports, not a single case has been digested under the heading of International Law, yet, the rule is firmly established and uniformly recognized that International law is a part of our law and as such is the law of all States of the Union (The Habana, 175 US 677, 700, 44 L ed 320, 328, 20 S Ct 290), but it is a part of our law for the application of its own principles, and these are concerned with international rights and duties and not with domestic rights and duties. Skiriotes v. Florida, 313 US 69, 85 L ed 1193, 1198. And see Riddell v. Fuhrman, 233 Mass 69, 123 NE 237; Sears v. The Scotia, 14 Wallace 170, 20 L ed 822. The rule has been briefly stated as follows: Unless there is some treaty or statute to the contrary, the law of nations is to be treated as part of the law of the land. The courts of all nations judicially notice this law, and it must be ascertained and administered by the courts of appropriate jurisdiction as often as questions of right depending upon it are duly presented for their determination.    30 Am Jur, International Law 178, § 7. This brief statement is amplified by eminent authors in the field of international law: International law, as the local law of each State, is necessarily superior to any administrative regulation or statute or public act at variance with it. There can be no conflict on an equal plane. The precise relationship of a recognized rule of international law to a local statute in contravention thereof is oftentimes obscured by occurrences which take place before the superiority of the former is ultimately established. A local court may be obliged, on account of the nature and the limits of the powers conferred upon it, to enforce the statute; and even a domestic tribunal of last resort may be compelled to affirm such action. This merely signifies that no local forum is possessed of jurisdiction to pass upon the propriety of the conduct of the State in enacting the law; it does not imply that that conduct is internationally defensible, or that the judges approve of it. Moreover, the finality of the local adjudication does not indicate that the conflict has passed through more than a preliminary state. If the controversy be pressed further, through the diplomatic channel, the State whose enactment is denounced by another as at variance with international law may in fact deny the truth of the allegation. It cannot, however, admit the charge without acknowledging responsibility to make reparation. If disagreement as to the nature of the statute or the extent of the harm produced by it proves incapable of adjustment by negotiation, and the issue be referred to an international tribunal clothed with requisite jurisdiction, it will denounce the statute (if deemed to violate international law) and formulate its award accordingly. Observance of the award by the delinquent State (possibly entailing amendatory legislation) will terminate the conflict and establish the supremacy of the international obligation. 1 Hyde, International Law, 2d rev ed, 16, § 5. See also 1 Hackworth, Digest of International Law, pp 24 to 39. 7, 8. In essence, the rule appears to be that international law is a part of the law of every state which is enforced by its courts without any constitutional or statutory act of incorporation by reference, and while a court may be without jurisdiction to enforce international law in a given case by reason of some controlling statute, nevertheless, relevant provisions of the law of nations are legally paramount whenever international rights and duties are involved before a court having jurisdiction to enforce them. 9. This principle is the basis for the extraordinary rule which is applied by the courts in seeking to avoid any conflict between international and municipal statutory law. It is firmly established that courts, in construing a statute, will indulge a strong presumption that the legislature did not intend to violate international law and will read into a statute such qualification or exception as may be necessary to avoid apparent conflict. This they will do unless it unmistakably appears that a statute was intended to be in disregard of a principle of international law.    Accordingly, it has been held that an act of Congress ought never to be construed to violate the law of nations if any other possible construction remains. International law also forms a part of the law of the several states. 30 Am Jur, International Law, 179, § 7. If, however, the court has no option to refuse the enforcement of legislation in contravention of principles of international law, it does not follow that in construing the terms and provisions of a statute it may not assume that such principles were on the national conscience and that the congressional act did not deliberately intend to infringe them. In other words, unless it unmistakably appears that a congressional act was intended to be in disregard of a principle of international comity, the presumption is that it was intended to be in conformity with it. It is with such a principle in mind that we now proceed to an examination of the legislation upon which the government relies. The Over The Top, 5 F2d 838, 842. It is important to observe, however, that States are not commonly disposed to defy by local statute recognized obligations imposed by international law, and that they are instinctively reluctant to admit that domestic enactments manifest such a design.    Normally, it is taken for granted that international law prevails throughout the domain of a State and will be respected in the course of all the activities of its several agencies. This is true in the case of the United States. Its tribunals, and in particular the Supreme Court, are reluctant to impute to the Congress or the Executive an intention to violate the law of nations. Moreover those tribunals, when unrestricted by statutory limitations, apply and enforce the principles of international law as a part of the law of the land. 1 Hyde, International Law, 2d rev ed 17, § 5. The statute should be construed in the light of the purpose of the Government to act within the limitation of the principles of international law, the observance of which is so essential to the peace and harmony of nations, and it should not be assumed that Congress proposed to violate the obligations of this country to other nations, which it was the manifest purpose of the President to scrupulously observe and which were founded upon the principles of international law. MacLeod v. United States, 229 US 416, 434, supra. In the light of the principles above stated, we will now consider the proposition that the ten-year limitation in the escheat statute was suspended by war as a matter of international law. We will approach the problem by degrees, and first, by the consideration of analogous rules. The first question for consideration is whether, in a proper case, ordinary statutes of limitation which merely bar the remedy, may be tolled by war in the absence of any statutory provision to that effect. The leading case is Hanger v. Abbott, 6 Wallace 532, 18 L ed 939. In that case the plaintiff, a resident of New Hampshire, sued the defendant, a resident of Arkansas. The cause of action accrued in 1861 and before the outbreak of the Civil War. There was a three-year statute of limitations. The suit was brought in 1865 after the end of the war. Defendant pleaded the statute of limitations. The plaintiff replied that during the entire period from 6 May 1861 until 1 January 1865 all lawful courts of the state of Arkansas were closed as a result of the war, and that such period should not be taken as any part of the three-year limitation, and therefore plaintiffs alleged that they did commence their suit within three years. The court held first that: War, when duly declared or recognized as such by the war-making power, imports a prohibition to the subjects, or citizens, of all commercial intercourse and correspondence with citizens or persons domiciled in the enemy country.    Hanger v. Abbott, supra. The court held further that rights of suit are only suspended during the war and are revived upon the restoration of peace. The court pointed out that statutes of limitation are statutes of repose.    They proceed also upon the presumption that claims are extinguished whenever they are not litigated in the proper forum within the prescribed period, and they take away all solid ground of complaint, because they rest on the negligence or laches of the party himself.    Hanger v. Abbott, supra. After referring to the usual statutory provisions whereby the period of limitation is tolled, in the case of insanity and the like, the court conceded that Cases where the courts of justice are closed in consequence of insurrection or rebellion, are not within the express terms of any such exception   . The court then said: Total inability on the part of an enemy creditor to sustain any contract in the tribunals of the other belligerent exists during war, but the restoration of peace removes the disability, and opens the doors of the courts. Absolute suspension of the right, and prohibition to exercise it, exist during war by the law of nations, and if so, then it is clear that peace cannot bring with it the remedy if the war is of much duration, unless it also be held that the operation of the statute of limitations is also suspended during the period the creditor is prohibited, by the existence of the war and the law of nations, from enforcing his claim. Neither laches nor fraud can be imputed in such a case, and none of the reasons on which the statute is founded can possibly apply, as the disability to sue becomes absolute by the declaration of war, and is a conclusion of law. 2 Wildm. Int. Law, 17. Ability to sue was the status of the creditor when the contract was made, but the effect of war is to suspend the right, not only without any fault on his part, but under circumstances which make it his duty to abstain from any such attempt. His remedy is suspended by the acts of the two governments and by the law of nations, not applicable at the date of the contract, but which comes into operation in consequence of an event over which he has no control.       Unless the rule be so, then the citizens of a state may pay their debts by entering into an insurrection or rebellion against the government of the union, if they are able to close the courts, and to successfully resist the laws, until the bar of the statute becomes complete, which cannot for a moment be admitted. Peace restores the right and the remedy, and as that cannot be if the limitation continues to run during the period the creditor is rendered incapable to sue, it necessarily follows that the operation of the statute is also suspended during the same period. Hanger v. Abbott, supra. In Brown v. Hiatts, 15 Wallace 177, the plaintiff, a citizen and resident of Virginia, loaned money to the defendant, a resident of Kansas, in 1860. The defendant gave a mortgage on Kansas land, due on 29 May 1861. The war broke out on 27 April 1861. It was held that the period of the war must be excluded in the compilation of the time during which the statute of limitations ran against the action. The court said: Statutes of limitation, in fixing a period within which rights of action must be asserted, proceed upon the principle that the courts of the country where the person to be prosecuted resides, or the property to be reached is situated, are open during the prescribed period to the suitor. The principle of public law which closes the courts of a country to a public enemy during war, renders compliance by him with such a statute impossible. As is well said in the recent case of Semmes v. Hartford Insurance Company, `The law imposes the limitation and the law imposes the disability. It is nothing, therefore, but a necessary legal logic that the one period should be taken from the other.' The case of Metropolitan National Bank of New York City v. Gordan, 28 Ark 115 (1872) is of special interest. The plaintiff brought suit in the Arkansas court on a contract dated 16 April 1860 and payable in the city of New Orleans ten months after date. Suit was brought on 6 March 1872. The defendant pleaded the statute of limitations. The plaintiff replied that she was a citizen of the state of New York and that the courts of Arkansas were closed from 1861 to 1865 by reason of the war. Judgment in the lower court was for the defendant. Upon appeal the Arkansas Supreme Court referred to the case of Bennett v. Worthington, 24 Ark 487 which had held that when a statute of limitations once begins to run no subsequent disability will stop it and that the court could make no exception which was not provided for in the statute and that since the closing of the courts in time of war was not covered by a statutory exception the statute of limitations continued to run during the war. This case was expressly overruled on the authority of Hanger v. Abbott, supra. After reviewing other cases by the United States Supreme Court, the Arkansas court said that the United States Supreme Court seemed:    with entire unanimity, to have fully settled the law that, under modern international law and commercial custom, upon the breaking out of a war, all contracts and rights between belligerents are suspended, and upon the restoration of peace the parties are restored to their rights and remedies as they existed at the commencement of hostilities. The judgment of the lower court was reversed. 10, 11. The foregoing decisions and many others have firmly established the principle of international law that war suspends the statute of limitations as to alien enemies residing in enemy territory and that the rule suspending the running of limitations during the war is one of international law which the courts attach to or read into statutes of limitations though it is not expressed in them. The rule as stated is fully set forth by the annotator in 137 ALR at page 1454, and that text is supported by a great mass of federal and state decisions. Among other cases, see: Ex parte Colonna, 314 US 510, 86 L ed 379; Freeborn v. The Ship Protector, 9 Wallace 687, 19 L ed 812; Levy v. Stewart, 11 Wallace 244, 20 L ed 86; Ross v. Jones, 22 Wallace 576, 22 L ed 730; Arnold v. Ellison et al, 96 Pa Superior Ct (1929) 118; Amy v. Watertown, 130 US 320, 32 L ed 953; H.P. Drewry, S.A.R.L. v. Onassis, 42 NYS2d 74, 266 App Div 292; Industrial Commission of Ohio v. Rotar, 124 Ohio St 418, 179 NE 135; Inland Steel Co. v. Jelenovic, 84 Ind App 373, 150 NE 391; Wall v. Robson, 2 Nott & M'Cord 498 (SC 1820); Porter v. Freudenberg, 1 KB 857, 34 Am Jur, Limitation of Action, §§ 243, 244, pp 199 to 201; Rothbarth v. Herzfeld, 167 NYS 199, 179 App Div 865. And see Salvoni v. Pilson, 181 F2d 615.