266 U.S.

457
45 S.Ct. 165
69 L.Ed. 374

BEHN, MEYER & CO., Limited,

v.
MILLER, Alien Property Custodian, et al.
No. 343.
Argued Nov. 24, 1924.
Decided Jan. 5, 1925.

[Syllabus from pages 457-459 intentionally omitted]

Mr. Wm. D. Guthrie, of New York, City, for appellant.
Mr. Merrill E. Otis, of St. Joseph, Mo., for appellees.
[Argument of Counsel from pages 459-461 intentionally omitted]
Mr. Justice McREYNOLDS delivered the opinion of the Court.

Since December, 1905, the appellant, Behn, Meyer & Co., Limited, has been a
corporation organized under the laws of the Straits Settlements, a crown colony
of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It has never been a
resident of nor has it done business within the territory of any nation at war
with the United States since April 6, 1917, or an ally of such nation. Prior to
February, 1918, under the supervision of Menzi, a stockholder and citizen of
Switzerland, it carried on business in the Philippine Islands. During that month,
and while subjects of Germany held most of its stock, the Alien Property
Custodian, claiming authority under the Trading with the Enemy Act, seized
and converted into cash the corporation's assets found in those islands. The
proceeds are held by him or by the Treasurer of the United States.

Alleging that its property had been improperly seized and the proceeds were
being unjustly withheld, the company brought suit to recover them in the
Supreme Court, District of Columbia, July 28, 1922. Upon motion the trial
court dismissed the petition and the Court of Appeals affirmed the decree.

Following much consideration, Congress passed the original Trading with the
Enemy Act, approved October 6, 1917 (40 Stat. 411, c. 106 [Comp. St. 1918,
Comp. St. Ann. Supp. 1919, 3115 1/2 a-3115 1/2 ff, 3115 1/2 g-3115 1/2 j]).
It is long (19 sections), rather complicated, and evinces the purpose to clothe
the President with definitely restricted powers in respect of seizing property of
those designated as enemies. It has been amended several times but has always
contained the original provisions (section 9 [section 3115 1/2 e]) allowing
recovery of seized property which did not in fact belong to an enemy. 'By
section 9, as twice amended, any one, 'not an enemy or ally of enemy,' claiming
any interest, right or title in any money or other property so sequestered and
held may give notice of his claim and institute a suit in equity. * * * [The act]
distinctly reserves to any claimant who is neither an enemy nor an ally of an
enemy a right to assert and establish his claim by a suit in equity unembarrassed
by the precedent executive determination. Not only so, but pending the suit,
which the claimant may bring as promptly after the seizure as he chooses, the
property is to be retained by the Custodian to abide the result and, if the
claimant prevails, is to be forthwith returned to him. Thus there is provision for
the return of property mistakenly sequestered; and we have no hesitation in
pronouncing it adequate, for it enables the claimant, as of right, to obtain a full
hearing on his claim in a court having power to enforce it if found meritorious.'
Stoeher v. Wallace, 255 U. S. 239, 243, 246, 41 S. Ct. 293, 295, 296 (65 L. Ed.
604); Central Union Trust Co. v. Garvan, 254 U. S. 554, 41 S. Ct. 214, 65 L.
Ed. 403; Commercial Trust Co. v. Miller, 262 U. S. 51, 43 S. Ct. 486, 67 L. Ed.
858.

Section 2 (section 3115 1/2 aa), which has remained unchanged, declares that
'person' shall include corporation or body politic and the word 'enemy' shall be
deemed to mean:

'(a) Any individual, partnership, or other body of individuals, of any nationality,

resident within the territory (including that occupied by the military and naval
forces) of any nation with which the United States is at war, or resident outside
the United States and doing business within such territory, and any corporation
incorporated within such territory of any nation with which the United States is
at war or incorporated within any country other than the United States and
doing business within such territory.

'(b) The government of any nation with which the United States is at war, or
any political or municipal subdivision thereof, or any officer, official, agent, or
agency thereof.

'(c) Such other individuals, or body or class of individuals, as may be natives,

citizens, or subjects of any nation with which the United States is at war, other
than citizens of the United States, wherever resident or wherever doing
business, as the President, if he shall find the safety of the United States or the
successful prosecution of the war shall so require, may, by proclamation,
include within the term 'enemy."
8

Also, the words 'ally of enemy' shall be deemed to mean:

'(a) Any individual, partnership, or other body of individuals, of any nationality,

resident within the territory (including that occupied by the military and naval
forces) of any nation which is an ally of a nation with which the United States
is a war, or resident outside the United States and doing business within such
territory, and any corporation incorporated within such territory of such ally
nation, or incorporated within any country other than the United States and
doing business within such territory.

10

'(b) The government of any nation which is an ally of a nation with which the
United States is at war, or any political or municipal subdivision of such ally
nation, or any officer, official, agent, or agency thereof.

11

'(c) Such other individuals, or body or class of individuals, as may be natives,

citizens, or subjects of any nation which is an ally of a nation with which the
United States is at war, other than citizens of the United States, wherever
resident or wherever doing business, as the President, if he shall find the safety
of the United States or the successful prosecution of the war shall so require,
may, by proclamation, include within the term 'ally of enemy."

12

After prohibiting trade with, for or on account of any enemy or ally of enemy,
and making sundry provisions for licenses, appointment of an Alien Property
Custodian, reports to him, etc., etc., the original act provided:

13

'Sec. 7(c). If the President shall so require, any money or other property owing
or belonging to or held for, by, on account of, or on behalf of, or for the benefit
of an enemy or ally of enemy not holding a license granted by the President
hereunder, which the President after investigation shall determine is so owing
or so belongs or is so held, shall be conveyed, transferred, assigned, delivered,
or paid over to the Alien Property Custodian.'1 Section 3115 1/2 d.

14

'Sec. 9. That any person, not an enemy, or ally of enemy claiming any interest,
right, or title in any money or other property which may have been conveyed,
transferred, assigned, delivered, or paid to the Alien Property Custodian

hereunder, and held by him or by the Treasurer of the United States * * * may
file with the said Custodian a notice of his claim under oath and in such form
and containing such particulars as the said Custodian shall require; and the
President, if application is made therefor by the claimant, may, with the assent
of the owner of said property and of all persons claiming any right, title, or
interest therein, order the payment, conveyance, transfer, assignment or
delivery to said claimant of the money or other property so held by the Alien
Property Custodian or by the Treasurer of the United States or of the interest
therein to which the President shall determine said claimant is entitled. * * * If
the President shall not so order within sixty days after the filing of such
application, or if the claimant shall have filed the notice as above required and
shall have made no application to the President, said claimant may, at any time
before the expiration of six months [enlarged to eighteen months by Act Dec.
21, 1921, c. 13, 42 Stat. 351 (Comp. St. Ann. Supp. 1923, 3115 1/2 e)] after
the end of the war, institute a suit in equity in the Supreme Court of the District
of Columbia [Act July 11, 1919, c. 6, 41 Stat. 35] or in the District Court of the
United States for the district in which such claimant resides, or, if a corporation,
where it has its principal place of business (to which suit the Alien Property
Custodian or the Treasurer of the United States, as the case may be, shall be
made a party defendant), to establish the interest, right, title, or debt so claimed.
* * *' Section 31151/2 e.
15

Section 9 was materially amended by the Act of June 5, 1920, c. 241, 41 Stat.
977. The original section, quoted above, was reenacted as subsection (a). It
provides for recovery when the seized property belonged to one not an 'enemy
or ally of enemy,' where the taking was in fact without warrant of law. Six
subsections(b), (c), (d), (e), (f), and (g)were added. Subsection (b) permits
recovery by some within the definition of 'enemy' whose properly had been
lawfully seized. Each of its eight numbered paragraphs include such persons.
Subsection (c) and those parts of subsection (b) here specially important
follow. All of subsection (b) is printed below.2

16

'Sec. 9, subsec. (b) In respect of all money or other property conveyed,

transferred, assigned, delivered, or paid to the Alien Property Custodian or
seized by him hereunder and held by him or by the Treasurer of the United
States, if the President shall determine that the owner thereof at the time such
money or other property was required to be so conveyed, transferred, assigned,
delivered, or paid to the Alien Property Custodian or at the time when it was
voluntarily delivered to him or was seized by him was* * *

17

'Par. (6) A partnership, association, or other unincorporated body of individuals

outside the United States, or a corporation incorporated within any country

other than the United States, and was entirely owned at such time by subjects
or citizens of nations, states, or free cities other than Germany or Austria or
Hungary or Austria-Hungary and is so owned at the time of the return of its
money or other property hereunder; * * * Then the President, without any
application being made therefor, may order the payment, conveyance, transfer,
assignment, or delivery of such money or other property held by the Alien
Property Custodian or by the Treasurer of the United States, or of the interest
therein to which the President shall determine such person entitled, either to the
said owner or to the person by whom said property was conveyed, transferred,
assigned, delivered, or paid over to the Alien Property Custodian. * * *
18

'Subsec. (c) Any person whose property the President is authorized to return
under the provisions of subsection (b) hereof may file notice of claim for the
return of such property, as provided in subsection (a) hereof, and thereafter may
make application to the President for allowance of such claim and/or may
institute suit in equity to recover such property, as provided in said subsection,
and with like effect. The President or the court, as the case may be, may make
the same determinations with respect to citizenship and other relevant facts that
the President is authorized to make under the provisions of subsection (b)
hereof.'

19

Section 9 was further amended by the Act of March 4, 1923, c. 285, 42 Stat.
1511, 1512, 1513, by adding to subsection (b) three new paragraphs9, 10,
and 11. Each of these empowers certain persons to recover property or funds
held by the Alien Property Custodian and is broad enough to include some
always within the general definition of 'enemy.' Paragraph 11 follows:

20

'Subsec. (b), par. (11) A partnership, association, or other unincorporated body

of individuals, having its principal place of business within any country other
than Germany, Austria, Hungary, or Austria-Hungary, or a corporation,
organized or incorporated within any country other than Germany, Austria,
Hungary, or Austria-Hungary, and that the control of, or more than 50
percentum of the interests or voting power in, any such partnership, association,
other unincorporated body of individuals, or corporation, was at such time, and
is at the time of the return of any money or other property, vested in citizens or
subjects of nations, States, or free cities other than Germany, Austria, Hungary,
or Austria-Hungary: Provided, however, that this subsection shall not affect any
rights which any citizen or subject may have under paragraph (1) of this
subsection.'

21

Appellant maintains that it was never an enemy or ally of enemy within the
statutory definitions; that only property of persons so described was properly

subject to seizure; and, as it was neither enemy nor ally of enemy, the
provisions of section 9, subsection (a) (always part of the act) in plain terms
permit it to recover unlawfully seized property or the proceeds.
22

On the other side the insistence is that subsection (c) of section 7 permitted
seizure of appellant's property because held 'on account of, or on behalf of, or
for the benefit of' stockholders, the majority of whom were enemy subjects of
Germany. Further, that although appellant's property may have been taken
originally without authority, return of it is now impliedly prohibited by
subsection (b) of section 9, as amended (acts of 1920 and 1923), since this
subsection applies in terms to 'all money or other property conveyed
transferred, assigned, delivered, or paid to the Alien Property Custodian or
seized by him hereunder and held by him or by the Treasurer of the United
States,' whether taken lawfully or no. Paragraphs 6 and 11 are specially relied
upon, and it is said that they specify the only classes of corporations now
permitted to recover and do not include appellant.

23

We think subsection (a) of section 9 gives now, as the same words gave from
the first, the right of recovery to any person never 'an enemy or ally of enemy,'
within the statutory definitions. Stoehr v. Wallace, supra. The contrary view,
urged by appellees, would greatly qualify, perhaps delete, this subsection, and
would place the United States in the unenviable position of positively refusing,
after hostilities had ended, to give up property which had been taken contrary to
their own laws. It would require very clear words to convince us that Congress
intended any such thing.

24

Subsection (b) adds to those allowed to recover from the first a considerable
number always within the definition of 'enemy' and affords to them the measure
of relief which Congress deemed proper long after peace had been actually
restored. And this accords with the spirit of the provision in section 12 (Comp.
St. 1918, Comp. St. Ann. Supp. 1919, 3115 1/2 ff):

25

'After the end of the war any claim of any enemy or of an ally of enemy to any
money or other property received and held by the Alien Property Custodian or
deposited in the United States Treasury, shall be settled as Congress shall
direct.'

26

Before its passage the original Trading with the Enemy Act was considered in
the light of difficulties certain to follow disregard of corporate identity and
efforts to fix the status of corporations as enemy or not according to the
nationality of stockholders. These had been plainly indicated by the diverse

opinions in Daimler Company, Limited, v. Continental Tyre & Rubber

Company, etc., 2 A. C. (1916) 307, decided June 30, 1916.
27

Section 7, subsection (c), was never intended, we think, to empower the

President to seize corporate property merely because of enemy stockholders'
interests therein. Corporations are brought within the carefully framed
definitions (section 2) of 'enemy' and 'ally of enemy' by the words: Any
corporation incorporated within such territory of any nation with which the
United States is at war [or any nation which is an ally of such nation] or
incorporated within any country other than the United States and doing
business within such territory. And we find no adequate support for the
suggestion that Congress authorized the taking of property of other corporations
because one or more stockholders were enemies. Logically carried out this view
would have permitted the seizure of all property of companies incorporated by
any associated powere. g., Great Britainsolely because some German held
one share of the many thousands. The result indicates that the premise is bad.
What the President might do was plainly set down in well-considered words.

28

The challenged decree must be reversed and the cause will be remanded to the
Supreme Court of the District of Columbia for further proceedings in
conformity with this opinion.

'Whether the objection would be good if it turned entirely on the words of

section 7c, on which the plaintiff relies, we need not consider; for they
obviously are qualified and explained by section 5, which very plainly enables
the President to exercise his power under section 7c 'through such officer or
officers as he shall direct.' By the orders already noticed the President directed
that this power be exercised through the Alien Property Custodian. It therefore
is as if the words relied on had been 'which the President, acting through the
Alien Property Custodian, shall determine after investigation' is enemy-owned,
etc. In short, a personal determination by the President is not required; he may
act through the Custodian, and a determination by the latter is in effect the act
of the President.' Stoehr v. Wallace, 255 U. S. 239, 244, 245, 41 S. Ct. 293, 296
(65 L. Ed. 604).

Subsec. (b) In respect of all money or other property conveyed, transferred,

assigned, delivered, or paid to the Alien Property Custodian or seized by him
hereunder and held by him or by the Treasurer of the United States, if the
President shall determine that the owner thereof at the time such money or
other property was required to be so conveyed, transferred, assigned, delivered,
or paid to the Alien Property Custodian or at the time when it was voluntarily

delivered to him or was seized by him was

(1) A citizen or subject of any nation or State or free city other than Germany
or Austria or Hungary, or Austria-Hungary, and is at the time of the return of
such money or other property hereunder a citizen or subject of any such nation
or State or free city; or
(2) A woman who at the time of her marriage was a subject or citizen of a
nation which has remained neutral in the war, or of a nation which was
associated with the United States in the prosecution of said war, and who prior
to April 6, 1917, intermarried with a subject or citizen of Germany or AustriaHungary and that the money or other property concerned was not acquired by
such woman either directly or indirectly from any subject or citizen of Germany
or Austria-Hungary; or
(3) A woman who at the time of her marriage was a citizen of the United States
(said citizenship having been acquired by birth in the United States), and who
prior to April 6, 1917, intermarried with a subject or citizen of Germany or
Austria-Hungary, and that the money or other property concerned was not
acquired by such woman either directly or indirectly from any subject or citizen
of Germany or Austria-Hungary; or
(4) A citizen or subject of Germany or Austria or Hungary or Austria-Hungary
and was, at the time of the severance of diplomatic relations between the
United States and such nations, respectively, accredited to the United States as
a diplomatic or consular officer of any such nation, or the wife or minor child of
such officer, and that the money or other property concerned was within the
territory of the United States by reason of the service of such officer in such
capacity; or
(5) A citizen or subject of Germany or Austria-Hungary, who by virtue of the
provisions of sections 4067, 4068, 4069, and 4070 of the Revised Statutes, and
of the proclamations and regulations thereunder, was transferred, after arrest,
into the custody of the War Department of the United States for detention
during the war and is at the time of the return of his money or other property
hereunder living within the United States; or
(6) A partnership, association, or other unincorporated body of individuals
outside the United States, or a corporation incorporated within any country
other than the United States, and was entirely owned at such time by subjects
or citizens of nations, States, or free cities other than Germany or Austria or
Hungary or Austria-Hungary and is so owned at the time of the return of its
money or other property hereunder; or

(7) The government of Buglaria or Turkey, or any political or municipal

subdivision thereof; or
(8) The government of Germany or Austria or Hungary or Austria-Hungary,
and that the money or other property concerned was the diplomatic or consular
property of such government; or
(9) [Added by Act March 4, 1923.] An individual who was at such time a
citizen or subject of Germany, Austria, Hungary, or Austria-Hungary, or who is
not a citizen or subject of any nation, State, or free city, and that such money or
other property, or the proceeds thereof, if the same has been converted, does not
exceed in value the sum of $10,000, or although exceeding in value the sum of
$10,000 is nevertheless susceptible of division, and the part thereof to be
returned hereunder does not exceed in value the sum of $10,000: Provided, that
an individual shall not be entitled, under
this paragraph, to the return of any money or other property owned by a
partnership, association, unincorporated body of individuals, or corporation at
the time it was conveyed, transferred, assigned, delivered, or paid to the Alien
Property Custodian, or seized by him hereunder: or
(10) [Added by Act March 4, 1923.] A partnership, association, other
unincorporated body of individuals, or corporation, and that it is not otherwise
entitled to the return of its money or other property, or any part thereof, under
this section, and that such money or other property, or the proceeds thereof, if
the same has been converted, does not exceed in value the sum of $10,000 or
although exceeding in value the sum of $10,000 is nevertheless susceptible of
division, and the part thereof to be returned hereunder does not exceed in value
the sum of $10,000: Provided, that no insurance partnership, association, or
corporation, against which any claim or claims may be filed by any citizen of
the United States with the Alien Property Custodian within sixty days after the
time this paragraph takes effect, whether such claim appears to be barred by the
statute of limitations or not, shall be entitled to avail itself of the provisions of
this paragraph until such claim or claims are satisfied; or
(11) [Added by Act March 4, 1923.] A partnership, association, or other
unincorporated body of individuals, having its principal place of business
within any country other than Germany, Austria, Hungary, or Austria-Hungary,
or a corporation, organized or incorporated within any country other than
Germany, Austria, Hungary, or Austria-Hungary, and that the control of, or
more than 50 per centum of the interests or voting power in, any such
partnership,
association, other unincorporated body of individuals, or corporation, was at

such time, and is at the time of the return of any money or other property,
vested in citizens or subjects of nations, States, or free cities other than
Germany, Austria, Hungary, or Austria-Hungary: Provided, however, that this
subsection shall not affect any rights which any citizen or subject may have
under paragraph (1) of this subsection,
Then the President, without any application being made therefor, may order the
payment, conveyance, transfer, assignment, or delivery of such money or other
property held by the Alien Property Custodian or by the Treasurer of the
United States, or of the interest therein to which the President shall determine
such person entitled, either to the said owned or to the person by whom said
property was conveyed, transferred, assigned, delivered, or paid over to the
Alien Property Custodian: * * * Provided further, however, that except as
herein provided no such action by the President shall bar any person from the
prosecution of any suit at law or in equity to establish any right, title, or interest
which he may have therein.