230 F. 950 | 8th Cir. | 1916
Is a certificate of citizenship issued by a court after notice, evidence, and hearing, to an alien proved to be entitled in every other respect to receive it, “illegally procured” because he failed to attach to his petition for naturalization a certificate from the Department of Commerce and Labor stating the date, place, and manner of his arrival in the United States? This is the only question it is necessary to decide in prder to dispose of this case, although many others are discussed in the briefs of counsel. The question arises in this way: Section 4 of the Act of June 29,
Under this section the United .States brought this suit in equity and alleged in its complaint that on May 21, 1912, the district court of Palo Alto county, Iowa, rendered a decree admitting Ness to citizenship and issued to him a certificate of his admission, that the certificate was procured by fraud, and that it was illegally procured in that the certificate of arrival by the Department of Commerce and Dabor was not attached to the petition. In his answer to the complaint Ness denied the alleged fraud, admitted that the certificate of arrival was not filed with or attached to the petition, and alleged that the United States appeared and litigated the issue of the sufficiency of his petition and his right to admission to citizenship notwithstanding his failure to attach the certificate of entry, and the court of Palo-Alto county, after a hearing, adjudged both questions in his favor. At the hearing in the court below, the parties agreed that prior to the hearing on the petition for the naturalization of Ness in the district court of Palo Alto county, M. R. Bevington, Chief Naturalization-Examiner of the Department of Commerce and Dabor, for and on behalf of that department, and at its direction, filed a motion in which he stated that the petition should not be 'granted because it was not supported by a certificate of arrival, and cited authorities which • he contended supported his position, aind requested a dismissal of the petition, that the Io-wa court.considered that motion and the authorities quoted at the time the petition came on for hearing, and overruled it, that at that hearing Ness testified that he emigrated from Norway, arriving at Newcastle in Canada about June 11, 1906, that he did not know that the laws of the United States required him to submit to a medical examination, pay an alien head tax, or be registered on entering this country, that he took passage on the Grand Trunk Railway, arrived in Buffalo, where he first entered the United States, on August 21, 1906, remained on the train, passed through
An insufficient complaint at law, or a defective petition in bankruptcy, accompanied by proper service of process on the defendants, gives jurisdiction to the court to determine the questions involved in the suit, although it may not contain averments which entitle the complainant to any relief, or may not be accompanied by some copy or-certificate required by a statute or rule of court. Facts indispensable to a favorable adjudication or decree include all those requisite to state a good cause of action, and they comprehend many that are not essential to jurisdiction of the suit or proceeding. The only facts which conditioned the jurisdiction of the Iowa court to hear and determine the questions relative to the admission of Ness to citizenship were his preparation and filing of his petition in that court asking its issue of a certificate of citizenship to him, and this is equally true, although there was some technical or amendable defect in his petition or procedure, as long as the petition stated substantial cause for his admission to citizenship. In re Plymouth Cordage Co., 135 Fed. 1000, 1004, 68 C. C. A. 434, 438; In re First National Bank, 152 Fed. 64, 69, 81 C. C. A. 260, 265, 11 Ann. Cas. 355.
The result is that the absence of the certificate of entry did not condition the jurisdiction of the Iowa court to hear and determine-every material issue presented by Ness on his petition to be admitted, as a citizen. The provision of the act of Congress requiring the certificate to be filed and made a part of the petition is like the requirements of the statutes of Io-wa that evéry party on filing any petition shall file with it one plain copy thereof for the use of the adverse party (Code of Iowa 1897, § 3558); that every petition must contain after-
Moreover, the filing of the certificate of entry was not, like the declaration of'intention, the proof of moral character, the renunciation of allegiance, the residence of five years, an essential qualification of admission to citizenship. It was but a matter of mere form of procedure. He alleged in his petition for admission, and proved before the Iowa court, every fact required to be.stated in the certificate of entry. He pleaded and proved the date, place, and manner of his arrival in the United States. The certificate of entry, therefore, could have neither added to nor detracted from the right of the applicant to admission to citizenship. It never could have been the intention of Congress to deprive an applicant who had all the essential quálifica-tions for admission to citizenship of that privilege by a mere failure to comply with such a requirement of mere form of the petition or procedure. Even if the Iowa court had made a mistake in failing to require the certificate as a condition of its decree, that mistake would have been a mere irregularity, not an illegality; it would have been a mere mistake in the exercise of its lawful discretion as to the form of the petition and the procedure. There is a wide difference between a mistaken disregard of a provision with reference to the form of pleadings, or the manner of procedure, which are always largely in the discretion of the trial court, and a mistaken disregard of the requirement of an essential qualification of admission to citizenship, such as the declaration of intention, the residence in the United States for five years, the renunciation of allegiance to any foreign sovereignty. The former is a mere irregularity; the latter an illegality. Illegality signifies that which is contrary to the established principles of the law. There was nothing contrary to tire established principles of the law in the issue of his certificate of citizenship, to an applicant who had every essential qualification of citizenship, although the certificate of entry which was material only to the date, place, and manner of his arrival, all of which were truthfully pleaded and conclusively proved otherwise, was not attached to his petition. On the other hand, to have denied his petition on that ground would have been a travesty of justice. The power was conferred, and the duty was imposed on the Iowa court to adjudge whether or not this applicant should be
The decree which dismissed the complaint of the United States is affirmed.