Stoehr v. Wallace, 255 U.S. 239 (1921)
Stoehr v. Wallace
No. 546
Argued January 4, 5, 1921
Decided February 28, 1921
255 U.S. 239
APPEAL FROM THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK
1. The Trading With the Enemy Act, originally and as amended, is strictly a war measure, and finds its sanction in the provision empowering Congress "to declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water." Const. Art. I, § 8, cl. 11. P. 241.
2. Under § 7c of the act, as qualified by § 5, the power vested in the President to determine enemy ownership, precedent to a seizure of property, may be delegated by him to the Alien Property Custodian, whose determination then becomes in effect the act of the President. P. 244.
3. The provision made for ex parte executive seizure, without prior judicial determination of enemy ownership, does not violate the rights of the owner, if a citizen, under the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment, since ample provision is also made whereby any claimant who is neither an enemy nor an ally of an enemy may establish his right in a court of equity and compel a return of the property if wrongly sequestered. P. 245.
4. A transfer of shares upon the books of the corporation to the name of the Custodian is a proper incident to their effective seizure by him. P. 246.
5. A contract between a German corporation and a New York corporation, made in anticipation of this country’s entry into the World War, whereby certain corporate shares in another domestic corporation, owned by the German corporation, were in purport sold to the New York corporation and were transferred to the latter on the books of the third company not as a genuine business transaction but as a mere cover to avoid inconveniences of a state of war and with no intent to change the beneficial ownership, held not to have passed any interest entitling the New York corporation, or a stockholder asserting its rights, to demand release of such shares from seizure by the Alien Property Custodian. Pp. 246-251.
6. The provisions of the Treaty with Prussia of July 11, 1799, Arts. 23, 24, 8 Stat. 174, granting right to the merchant of either country "residing in the other" when war arise, held inapplicable. P. 251.
7. Objection to a proposed sale by the Alien Property Custodian cannot be heard from one who has no interest in the property. Id.
269 F. 827 affirmed.
The case is stated in the opinion.