Kaneko v. United States

36 Fed. Cl. 101, 1996 U.S. Claims LEXIS 124, 1996 WL 399043
CourtUnited States Court of Federal Claims
DecidedJuly 16, 1996
DocketNo. 94-1017C
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 36 Fed. Cl. 101 (Kaneko v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Court of Federal Claims primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Kaneko v. United States, 36 Fed. Cl. 101, 1996 U.S. Claims LEXIS 124, 1996 WL 399043 (uscfc 1996).

Opinion

OPINION

YOCK, Judge.

This claim for restitution under the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 (“Civil Liberties Act”), 50 U.S.CApp. § 1989b, et seq. (1994), comes before the Court on the parties’ cross-motions for summary judgment. The plaintiff, Mrs. Emiko Kaneko, challenges the decision of the United States Department of Justice, Office of Redress Administration (“ORA”), denying her claim for restitution under the CM Liberties Act as a result of losses experienced by her husband, Mr. Satoro Kaneko, as a Japanese resident alien during World War II. The defendant counters that the losses experienced by Mr. Kaneko during World War II were either the result of actions by purely private entities or are otherwise not cognizable under the Civil Liberties Act, and, as a result, Mr. Kaneko was not an “eligible individual” for restitution under the Act.

For the reasons stated herein, the defendant’s cross-motion for summary judgment is granted, the plaintiffs motion for summary judgment is denied, and the plaintiffs Complaint is to be dismissed.

Statement of Facts

Mr. Kaneko emigrated to the United States from Japan in the early 20th century. Subsequently, on April 27, 1915, he found employment with the Southern Pacific Railroad in Beppo, Utah. In March of 1917, Mr. Kaneko was transferred to Southern Pacific Railroad’s Salt Lake Division/Ogden District. In April of 1937, Mr. Kaneko married the plaintiff, Mrs. Emiko Kaneko, a native-born [103]*103citizen of the United States. Eventually, Southern Pacific promoted Mr. Kaneko to the position of Track Foreman, a position in which he earned approximately $150 per month. Southern Pacific also provided the Kanekos with housing in Ogden, Utah, as part of Mr. Kaneko’s employment.

At the start of World War II, by order of the President, the bank accounts and other properties held by Italian, German, and Japanese nationals residing in this country were seized under the authority of the Trading With the Enemy Act (“TWEA”), 50 U.S.CApp. § 5(b)(1) (1994), which allows the President to regulate any property in which a foreign national has an interest.1 Pursuant to the TWEA, Mr. Kaneko’s bank account with the Commercial Bank of Ogden was frozen by order of the Federal Government.

Moreover, after the commencement of World War II in December of 1941, the mood of the country towards aliens from Italy, Germany, and particularly Japan became increasingly malevolent. As a result, many employers, especially those in defense-related industries, became wary of continuing to employ persons with ancestry from enemy countries. Certain departments of the Federal Government attempted to quell this tide of suspicion in the weeks after the war began. For instance, a memorandum dated December 8,1941, addressed to the office of the president of Burlington Railroad, memorialized a conversation between an official with the Railroad and an agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigations (“FBI”) by the name of Mr. Norton. The memorandum notes that the Burlington official requested Government instruction regarding Burlington’s Japanese employees. The memorandum recounts that Agent Norton replied: “the only instructions that I could give you would be to watch them to see that the Japanese employees do not leave the vicinity of their employment and do not get into any bombings or other sabotage.” Administra-five Record (“AR”) at 19. Subsequently, on December 10, 1941, the Headquarters Seventh Corps Area, Office of Assistant Chief of Staff for Military Intelligence, advised the president of another railroad, Union Pacific, to “not dismiss Japanese, but place [them] under careful observation on work where opportunity for sabotage is small or negligible * * AR at 20. Finally, on December 28, 1941, Attorney General Biddle publicly urged employers not to dismiss their Japanese employees:

[I]t is the stated policy of the Federal Government that there shall be no discrimination in the employment of workers in defense industries because of race, creed, color or national origin. * * * There is no reason in the world why loyal persons, either aliens or immigrants of foreign birth, should not be employed by American industry; and there is no possible justification for discharging such employes [sic]. The Federal Government condemns such discrimination and urges all employers not to adopt such a policy.

AR at 21-22.

Despite these pronouncements by high-level Federal Government officials, many private employers began to dismiss large numbers of Japanese workers. On February 18, 1942, the Southern Pacific Railroad terminated Mr. Kaneko and 38 other Japanese employees from their employment. One of Southern Pacific’s documents, created after the decision to terminate the 39 Japanese employees, indicates that the decision to dismiss the employees was possibly the result of a directive from the Federal Government. A memorandum authored by a Southern Pacific official named Mr. Sines, relating to the dismissal of Mr. Chohachi Fujita, a Japanese worker dismissed with Mr. Kaneko, states that Mr. Fujita was “[r]emoved from service by Govt. Order account being a Japanese [104]*104Alien.” Pi’s App. at 12 (the “Sines memo”). A second recently-created document also could be seen as corroborating the information in the Sines memo. On December 14, 1990, in response to the ORA’s request to Southern Pacific for information concerning the dismissal of Mr. Inouye, another Japanese employee dismissed at the same time as Mr. Kaneko, Mr. Kenneth Wood of Southern Pacific recounted that indeed Mr. Inouye had been dismissed from Southern Pacific, and his dismissal was “evidently in accordance with instructions rendered by the federal government.” Pi’s App. at 2. Later, however, upon being questioned by the ORA, Mr. Wood admitted that in fact he did not know the reason for Southern Pacific’s decision to terminate its Japanese employees in 1942, and that he had only speculated that it was the result of direction by the Federal Government. AR at 2.

On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order No. 9066. Executive Order No. 9066 directed the Secretary of War and his designated military commanders to prescribe military areas “with respect to which, the right of any person to enter, remain in, or leave subject to whatsoever the Secretary of War or the appropriate Military Commander may impose in his discretion.” 7 Fed.Reg. 1407 (1942). Pursuant to Executive Order No. 9066, Lt. Gen. John DeWitt issued a series of Public Proclamations effectively creating two sets of regimes for the Western States — one, for the states directly on the west coast — California, Oregon, and Washington — and a second for states such as Arizona, Nevada, and Utah. On March 2, 1942, General DeWitt issued Public Proclamation No. 1, which designated much of the states comprising the west coast as military areas and mandating the exclusion of persons of Japanese ancestry from this region. Subsequently, General DeWitt issued Public Proclamation No. 4, “whereby persons of Japanese ancestry were prohibited from leaving parts of the West Coast because the Government was preparing to forcibly relocate them later.” 54 Fed.Reg. 34,157, 34,159 (Aug. 18, 1989). These Public Proclamations and other orders embodied and implemented the evacuation, relocation, and internment program for those individuals of Japanese ancestry located on the west coast. However, only individuals of Japanese ancestry residing in the states directly on the west coast were subject to these orders.

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Related

Murakami v. United States
52 Fed. Cl. 232 (Federal Claims, 2002)
Emiko Kaneko v. United States
122 F.3d 1048 (Federal Circuit, 1997)

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Bluebook (online)
36 Fed. Cl. 101, 1996 U.S. Claims LEXIS 124, 1996 WL 399043, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/kaneko-v-united-states-uscfc-1996.