Matsuda v. Luond

MARKS, J.

This is an appeal from a judgment awarding each plaintiff, separately, damages for injuries suffered in an automobile accident which happened at about 9 o’clock on the morning of June 29, 1940, on Highway 101, a little less than a mile north of Encinitas in San Diego County.

Buntaro Matsuda is a foreign-born Japanese subject who was, and had been, a resident of San Diego County. Toshi Matsuda, 17 years of age, and Satoshi Matsuda, 15 years of age, his sons, were both born in this country and are citizens of the United States. On July 25, 1940, Buntaro Matsuda was appointed guardian ad litem of his sons and as such brought this action for them.

After a state of war was declared between Japan and the United States, Koichi Nakamura, an American citizen of Japanese ancestry, was appointed general guardian of the minors and has been substituted in the action in the place of the guardian ad litem.

The first question to be considered is the right of Buntaro Matsuda, a subject of a country with which we are at war, to appear in this action.

It may be stated that, historically, as a general rule, an enemy has been denied access to the courts of this country during a time of war.

(Caperton

v.

Bowyer,

14 Wall. (U. S.) 216 [20 L. Ed. 882].) However, the former rigorous rule has been much relaxed by the definition of an enemy.

Section 2 of the Trading With the Enemy Act, passed October 6, 1917, (Appendix, 50 U. S. C. A., p. 191) defines the word “enemy.” Buntaro Matsuda belongs to the class

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dealt with in subdivision c of that section which provides as follows:

“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’.”