MR. JUSTICE HARLAN delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioners are 4,100 United States citizens or residents of Japanese descent seeking to recover funds vested under
Both as the case was treated by the lower courts and as it was largely argued here, the limitations issue has been thought to turn on whether the Government is estopped from asserting the 60-day time bar provided for actions of this kind by § 34 (f) of the Trading with the Enemy Act. We conclude, however, that "estoppel" is not the controlling issue, but that for reasons discussed in this opinion the period of limitations was tolled, requiring reversal of the judgment below.
I.
Upon the outbreak of hostilities with Japan, the United States, on December 7, 1941, acting under the Trading with the Enemy Act, seized the American assets of businesses owned by Japanese nationals, among such property being the assets of the Yokohama Specie Bank, Ltd. The assets of the bank were liquidated, and in 1943 were vested in the Alien Property Custodian; see Paramount Pictures, Inc. v. Sparling, 93 Cal.App.2d 768, 770-771, 209 P.2d 968, 969-970. Petitioners were among the approximately 7,500 depositors of the bank
Section 34 of the Act was enacted in 1946 as a legislative response to this Court's decision in Markham v. Cabell, 326 U.S. 404, which allowed nonenemy creditors of former owners of vested property to bring suit under a World War I statute,
Approximately 7,500 yen certificate holders, including petitioners, immediately complied with this provision and submitted photostatic copies of their respective certificates. In the course of processing the claims pursuant to § 34 (f) a question arose as to the redemption value of the certificates both for depositors of the Yokohama Specie Bank and for those of another bank, the Sumitomo Bank, holding similar certificates. An administrative determination was sought in a proceeding brought in the name of one of the Yokohama Bank depositors, Kunio Abe, Claim No. 55507. Abe, acting for all yen certificate holders, took the view that since these deposits had been made in American dollars, and the certificates were allegedly redeemable in dollars at any time upon demand at American branches of the bank, they should be treated as dollar debts at the amount of their value when seized in 1941, at a rate of about 4.3 yen to the dollar. The Attorney General,
At the conclusion of the administrative process, in 1958-1959, the Chief of the Claims Section wrote to each
Petitioners characterize this letter as "confusing" and "insulting." We think the opprobrium which is sought to be fastened on the letter is undeserved and consider it more accurate and fairer to say that although its instructions were complex, the letter was written in a manner designed reasonably to apprise a layman of the choices before him. However, on the particular facts of this case and given the empirical evidence available, it is quite understandable that of the 7,500 initial claimants, only 1,817 responded affirmatively by sending in their certificates, and less than 1,600 canceled their claims and sought immediate recovery in Japan. The remainder, a majority of all who had claims, petitioners in this case, did nothing.
In affidavits submitted to the District Court, and not contradicted on the motion to dismiss the complaint, various other reasons were asserted for the failure of these petitioners to respond. Petitioner Jiro Kai asserted:
Other affidavits gave similar reasons. These are summarized best in an affidavit of Mr. Katsuma Mukaeda, president of the Japanese Chamber of Commerce of Southern California:
The claims of these 4,100 claimants were dismissed when they did not respond within the 45-day administrative limit, pursuant to 8 CFR § 502.25 (g), 21 Fed. Reg. 1582.
Such a suit was brought to challenge the proper rate of exchange. It was brought by Mr. Kunio Abe, the same person who had challenged the administrative ruling and whose case was cited by the Government in its letters to petitioners as dispositive of their cases. Abe v. Kennedy, C. A. No. 2529-61, D. D. C., was held in abeyance
II.
Quite apart from any question of governmental estoppel respecting assertion of the statute of limitations, a contention that is sought to be predicated on the foregoing train of events and circumstances, we consider that the limitations period was in any event tolled during the
The statutory system embodied in § 34 was intended to provide a method for the fair and equitable distribution of vested enemy assets to American residents. The basic model for the statute was the Federal Bankruptcy Act, a concept revealed in the legislative record by expressions of the Custodian and of those members of Congress principally responsible for the legislation.
The Bankruptcy Act, the pattern for this legislation, presents a compelling analogy, pointing the way to the decision which we make in this case. Section 57n, 11 U. S. C. § 93 (n), requires notification of claims within six months after the first date set for the first meeting of creditors. Those who fail to file timely claims do not, however, lose all their rights; rather after all duly allowed and properly filed claims have been paid in full, "claims not filed within the time hereinabove prescribed may nevertheless be filed within such time as the court may fix or for cause shown extend and, if duly proved, shall be allowed against any surplus remaining in such case."
It is true that this equitable principle of the Bankruptcy Act was specifically authorized by a 1938 amendment which was "designed to remedy the inequity of returning property to the bankrupt as long as there are creditors, however tardy, whose claims have not been satisfied even in part." 3 Collier, Bankruptcy ¶ 57.33, at 398. But it is noteworthy that bankruptcy courts in the exercise of their general equity power had already reached this result long before the principle was enacted into law. As one nisi prius bankruptcy court stated in In re Lenox, 2 F.2d 92, in 1924, "This [the statute of limitations] is a provision for the benefit of creditors, not for the benefit of the bankrupt. . . . In the present case, the provisions of the Bankruptcy Act have been complied with, and those who complied with all its provisions have been paid in full. But the fact remains that the petitioner who had reduced his claim to judgment, the existence and validity of which the bankrupt recognized in his schedules and does not now deny, has received nothing. A fund remains in the hands of the trustee." Id., at 93. The equitable solution, the court held, was to allow the
Another, though less precise, analogy in the bankruptcy area can be drawn from Nassau Works v. Brightwood Co., 265 U.S. 269. The issue there was whether a creditor whose claim was not proved within the statutory period established for creditors in bankruptcy could nevertheless participate in a composition in bankruptcy. Mr. Justice Brandeis, writing for a unanimous Court, analyzed the statute in terms of its purpose and the various interests involved. From the viewpoint of the other creditors, he found, "neither the amount which a creditor receives, nor the time when he receives it, can be affected by the amount of others' claims, or by the time of proof, or by their failure to prove. . . . Nor can the time of proof of claims, as distinguished from their allowance, be of legitimate interest to the bankrupt. . . . No reason is suggested why Congress should have wished to bar creditors from participation in the benefits of a composition merely because their claims were not proved within a year of the adjudication. Failure to prove within the year does not harm the bankrupt. Why should he gain thereby? And why should
These factors can be applied to the present case with equal force. What purpose does the strict 60-day limitation serve, except as a method of expediting the distribution of vested assets to creditors? But no other creditors are here objecting, for none exist: they have all compromised their claims and yet a surplus remains in the account. The Government itself has no real interest in this fund, for it neither comes out of the common weal nor will any surplus inure to the Treasury. The Attorney General is a mere stakeholder, a custodian in the true sense of the word.
III.
The foregoing considerations are especially persuasive here when the reason for petitioners' delay in bringing suit is recalled. It was generally known in the Japanese community that a class suit, the Abe case, had been filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. The complaint in that suit outlined the history of the controversy over the proper rate of exchange and it specifically noted that this question was "[t]he sole issue on this complaint for review . . . ." An examination of the complaint, on file at the District Court but presumably not readily available to petitioners who lived on the West Coast, reveals that the plaintiffs included in the class action were defined as those listed on the final schedule rather than all those who filed valid claims. But from a practical standpoint, this definition, which legally excluded these petitioners, made no differentiation between the total group of certificate holders in any material respect. The legal issue raised in the complaint dealt only with the exchange rate; the administrative record filed with the District Court was that of the Abe claim which did apply—at the administrative level—to petitioners; the named plaintiff was also Kunio Abe whose case was cited by the Government as dispositive of petitioners' claims; no action was in any event taken on the complaint which was held in suspense pending determination of the same legal issue in the Aratani case and then dismissed upon settlement with the Abe suit claimants. Since petitioners filed their claim immediately upon settlement of the Abe case, there can be no claim that the course of action they took in any
The only arguable difference it might have made had petitioners filed their action immediately upon publication of the schedule is that the Government's willingness to settle the case might have been dampened because the larger number of plaintiffs would have made settlement more costly to the total fund. Upon examination, however, even this possibility should be discounted when it is recalled that these are not in any real sense government funds, but rather vested assets of an enemy debtor which will be distributed to another class of war victims if petitioners' claims are barred. The Government has no interest in the fund except to enforce the primary congressional mandate that bona fide creditors recover their due. Since the amount in the fund adequately covers a full settlement with all these claimants at the Abe rate, exhausting the surplus should not have played a part in the Government's decision to settle with the Abe claimants.
For these reasons we think the statutory purpose is best served by invoking the equitable doctrine of tolling to preserve petitioners' action in which they seek payment on the same basis as that accorded the claimants in Abe.
IV.
In light of these circumstances we find the Attorney General's arguments unpersuasive. He argues primarily that the doctrine of estoppel does not apply in this case to prevent assertion of the statute of limitations. We do not reach the estoppel issue, because we hold that the statutory scheme itself requires tolling the limitation period during the pendency of the Abe litigation. In this respect, the Government contends that because this suit is, at least formally, one against the sovereign, see
This case is, however, wholly different from those cases on which the Government primarily relies, where the public treasury was directly affected. Here Congress established a method for returning seized enemy assets to United States creditors, assets that were never contemplated as finding their way permanently into the public fisc. As the House and Senate Reports on this statute declare, "The Custodian has emphasized to the committee that he is anxious to satisfy the proper claims of creditors and the committee concur in the view that there exists a strong moral obligation to satisfy them inasmuch as, but for the vesting of their debtors' property, they would presumably have been able to pursue ordinary remedies against the debtors." H. R. Rep. No. 2398, 79th Cong., 2d Sess., 10 (1946); S. Rep. No. 1839, 79th Cong., 2d Sess., 3-4 (1946). We consider it much more consistent with the overall congressional purpose to apply a traditional equitable tolling principle, aptly suited to the particular facts of this case and nowhere eschewed by Congress, to preserve petitioners' cause of action. Burnett v. New York Central R. Co., 380 U.S. 424; cf. Midstate
The judgment of the Court of Appeals upholding the dismissal of this action is therefore reversed, and the case is remanded to that court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
MR. JUSTICE CLARK took no part in the decision of this case.
FootNotes
"This is to certify that the sum of yen ______ has been submitted to our Head Office, Yokohama, to be placed in Fixed Deposit there in your name at — percent, per annum for — months, maturing ______, subject to the conditions on the back hereof.
"Both principal and interest are payable, when due, at our aforesaid Head Office, Yokohama, upon surrender of this Certificate, properly endorsed and/or sealed."
"The average claim among the 1,120 retainer claimants in Honda is for about $2,000 [at the Abe rate], and the mean considerably lower; the average among all 4,100 petitioners is necessarily more modest still, because it includes the 2,980 claimants who have not even sought representation by counsel in this suit, presumably because of the very small amounts of their claims . . . ."
"Mr. MARKHAM. . . . We propose that the law be changed so that the man could file his claim, but he would be paid on a ratable basis, if there is not enough money for everybody, and that we should have a marshaling of assets and a marshaling of debts, so that everybody would be treated alike and would not depend upon the time when they brought the suit or the order in which the suits were brought.
.....
"Mr. CELLER. But you want to be sure that you don't get into a situation where one creditor can fritter away all the assets of an enterprise, and you want to apply them under the principle now applied in the Bankruptcy Act, give each creditor an equitable share in the assets?
"Mr. MARKHAM. That is the way I want it to be done. That is what I want to do." Hearings before Subcommittee No. 1 of the House Committee on the Judiciary on H. R. 5089, 79th Cong., 2d Sess., 17 (1946). See also, id., at 7, 11-13, 113-114.
Congressman Celler used the same reference when he introduced the bill to the House: "The bill before us provides that the Alien Property Custodian takes the property and sells it and divides the proceeds equitably among all creditors as pari passu, in bankruptcy." 92 Cong. Rec. 10217 (1946). And see H. R. Rep. No. 2398, 79th Cong., 2d Sess., 10, 14 (1946); S. Rep. No. 1839, 79th Cong., 2d Sess., 4, 8 (1946).
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