Murakami v. United States

52 Fed. Cl. 232, 2002 U.S. Claims LEXIS 78, 2002 WL 519807
CourtUnited States Court of Federal Claims
DecidedApril 4, 2002
DocketNo. 99-55C
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 52 Fed. Cl. 232 (Murakami 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
Murakami v. United States, 52 Fed. Cl. 232, 2002 U.S. Claims LEXIS 78, 2002 WL 519807 (uscfc 2002).

Opinion

OPINION

ALLEGRA, Judge.

This case is before the court on cross-motions on the administrative record. Plaintiff seeks review of the Attorney General’s denial of his claim for redress under the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 (the Act), 50 U.S.C. app. § 1989b, et seq. (1988 & Supp. V 1993). Congress passed the Act in recognition of “the fundamental injustice of the evacuation, relocation, and internment of United States citizens and permanent resident aliens of Japanese ancestry during [World War II].” 50 U.S.C. app. § 1989(1). The Act establishes a comprehensive program for paying restitution to individuals of Japanese ancestry who were interned, relocated or otherwise deprived of their liberties. See 50 U.S.C. app. § 1989b-4(a) & (b). For the reasons discussed below, defendant’s motion on the administrative record is DENIED and plaintiffs cross-motion on the administrative record is GRANTED, in part.

I. Background

A. Historical Background

On February 19, 1942, ten weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which authorized military commanders to establish “military areas” in the United States and exclude therefrom any and all persons whenever deemed militarily necessary. Under the authority of this Order, the military commander of the Western Defense Command issued a series of Public Proclamations which designated vast areas of the western United States “military areas” and prohibited all individuals of Japanese descent, U.S. citizens and otherwise, from living, working or [234]*234traveling in these areas. Congress sanctioned the prohibitions by imposing criminal penalties for violations of the restrictions established. Individuals of Japanese descent living in the military areas at the time the restrictions came into effect were initially ordered to evacuate the areas and, later, were forcibly removed by the Army to militarily guarded “relocation” centers.

On December 17, 1944, the Commanding General of the Western Defense Command Headquarters issued Public Proclamation No. 21, 10 Fed.Reg. 53 (1945), which became fully effective on January 2, 1945, and modified “the system of mass exclusion of persons of Japanese ancestry” to “a system of individual determination and exclusions of those individuals whose presence within sensitive areas of the Western Defense Command deemed a source of potential danger to the military security thereof.” Id. The recision of the mass exclusion order was based on an individualized vetting process which resulted in the development of lists of individuals who would remain subject to the exclusion orders and the development of a “white list” of individuals who would no longer be excluded after the effective dates. Individual exclusion orders remaining after January 2 were rescinded on a case-by-case basis, but by September 4, 1945, all remaining individual exclusion orders were lifted, and there was no exclusion for any person after that date. See Public Proclamation No. 24, 10 Fed.Reg. 11760 (1945).

In 1980, Congress established the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (the Commission) to investigate and document the impact of Executive Order 9066 on Japanese American citizens and permanent resident aliens. See Pub.L. No. 96-317, 94 Stat. 964, § 2 (1980). In 1982 and 1983, the Commission issued a report and recommendations. See Personal Justice Denied: Report of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (The Civil Liberties Public Education Fund and the University of Washington Press 1997). The Act essentially adopts the recommendations of the Commission, which include a formal statement of apology to individuals excluded from their homes under Executive Order 9066 because of their Japanese ancestry and a one-time payment of $20,000 to each “eligible” individual.

B. Factual Background and Case Procedural History

Plaintiffs parents, Arthur and Aiko Mura-kami, were forced to move from their homes in the Los Angeles area to the Manzanar Relocation Center in 1942, pursuant to the Public Proclamations issued under the authority of Executive Order No. 9066.1 In the summer of 1944, plaintiffs mother and father left Manzanar and moved to Chicago, Illinois. Later in that year, plaintiffs mother, Aiko, became pregnant with plaintiff. As confirmed by a letter dated February 10, 1945, plaintiffs father, Arthur, was the subject of one of the individual exclusion orders that remained after the lifting of the mass exclusion orders on January 2, 1945, and as such was prohibited from being in, remaining in, or entering the “West Coast Exclusion Zone,” which included “California and other West Coast locations.” On July 21, 1945, Arthur Murakami’s individual exclusion order was rescinded and he was “authorized to travel and reside within the West Coast Exclusion Zone of the Western Defense Command.” Thirty three days later, on August 23, 1945, plaintiff was born in Chicago, Illinois.

On October 29, 1996, plaintiff filed a claim with the Office of Redress Administration (ORA) for a redress payment under the Act. On June 23, 1997, the ORA determined that plaintiff was not eligible to receive compensation under the Act. The decision from the ORA indicated that plaintiffs case “was reviewed pursuant to the new standards in Ishida [v. United States, 59 F.3d 1224 (Fed.Cir.1995)]...” and that the ORA had determined that plaintiff was “ineligible for redress pursuant to the Act and its regulations.” The ORA found that plaintiff did not indicate that he was evacuated, relocated, or [235]*235interned pursuant to any federal government orders due to his Japanese ancestry. The ORA also found that plaintiff was not deprived of liberty under the standard established in Ishida, because he was not “excluded by law” from his parents’ original place of residence, having been born after the rescission of the mass exclusion orders on January 2, 1945. The ORA accordingly held that, “pursuant to the restrictive language of the Act and the regulations implementing the Act, we must conclude that you are not eligible to receive compensation.”

On July 28, 1997, plaintiff appealed the ORA’s decision to the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, asserting that he was deprived of liberty because his father’s individual exclusion order was not rescinded until July 21, 1945, “far too late for [his] parents to return to the West Coast as [he] was born on August 23, 1945.” By letter dated March 25,1998, the Chief of the Appellate Section of the Civil Rights Division, pursuant to the authority delegated him by the Assistant Attorney General, notified plaintiff that he had declined to set aside ORA’s decision. The letter further explained that the “ORA reviewed [Mr. Murakami’s] claim under the new standard set forth by the U.S. Court of Appeals in [Ishida],” and it went on to review again Mr. Murakami’s claim under that same standard. The letter noted that the deprivation of liberty for internee’s children acknowledged in Ishida was based on a legal restriction on return to the exclusion zones, and concluded that “[b]ecause you were never subject to legal exclusion from you home on the West Coast, you are not eligible for redress under the Ishida standard.

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Bluebook (online)
52 Fed. Cl. 232, 2002 U.S. Claims LEXIS 78, 2002 WL 519807, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/murakami-v-united-states-uscfc-2002.