Petitioners, Z. & F. Assets Realization Corporation and American-Hawaiian Steamship Company, are holders of awards of the Mixed Claims Commission, United States and Germany. These awards have been certified by the Secretary of State and are thus payable out of the fund established by the Settlement of War Claims Act of 1928. Petitioners seek a judgment declaring that later awards purporting to be made by the Mixed Claims Commission in favor of the Lehigh Valley Railroad Company, the Agency of Canadian Car and Foundry Company, Limited, the Bethlehem Steel Company and others, are null and void, and restraining the certification of these awards by the Secretary of State and their payment by the Secretary of the Treasury. The Lehigh Valley Railroad Company intervened as a defendant.
Defendants, the Secretary of State and the Secretary of the Treasury, moved to dismiss petitioners' bills for want of jurisdiction and for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. The intervener defendant filed an answer and moved for summary judgment. The District Court dismissed the bills (31 F.Supp. 371) and its judgment was affirmed by the Court of Appeals. App.D.C., 114 F.2d 464. We granted certiorari. October 14, 1940, 311 U.S. 632, 61 S.Ct. 51, 85 L.Ed. --.
The Mixed Claims Commission, United States and Germany, was set up pursuant to an agreement of August 10, 1922, to determine the amount to be paid by Germany in satisfaction of her financial obligations under the Treaty of Berlin of August 25, 1921. The Commission consisted of three members, one appointed by the United States, another by Germany, and an Umpire selected by the two Governments. The Umpire was 'to decide upon any cases concerning which the Commissioners may disagree, or upon any points of difference that may arise in the course of their proceedings'. It was further provided that should the Umpire or any of the Commissioners die or retire, or be unable for any reason to discharge his functions, the vacancy should be filled in the same manner as the original appointment. It was agreed that the decisions of the Commission and those of the Umpire should be accepted as final and binding upon the two Governments.
The Settlement of War Claims Act of 1928 created in the Treasury a 'German special deposit account'. Section 2 provided that the Secretary of State should certify from time to time to the Secretary of the Treasury the awards of the Mixed Claims Commission, and the Secretary of the Treasury was directed to pay out of the amounts placed in the account the principal of each award so certified, with interest as stated.
The claims covered by the awards attacked by petitioners arose out of the destruction of property caused by explosions at Black Tom and Kingsland, New Jersey, in 1916 and 1917. These claims were dismissed by the Commission in 1930, and petitions for rehearing were denied in 1931 and 1932. In the following year the American agent sought to reopen the cases upon the ground that in its decision of 1930 the Commission had been misled by 'fraudulent, incomplete, collusive and false evidence' on the part of witnesses for Germany. The German Government denied the power of the Commission to reopen and the Umpire, Mr. Justice Roberts, finding that there was a disagreement upon the question between the Commissioners, decided, in December, 1933, that the Commission was competent to determine its own jurisdiction by the interpretation of the Agreement creating it. The Umpire further decided that, while the Commission was without power to reopen a case merely for the presentation of after-discovered evidence, the Commission was still sitting as a court and did have power to consider the charge that it had been misled by fraud and collusion, and for that purpose to reopen the cases in order that it might consider the further evidence tendered by the American agent, and that offered in reply on behalf of Germany, and either confirm the decisions theretofore made or alter them as justice and right might demand.
Thereafter, the German agent filed an answer denying the allegations of fraud and evidence was presented. After argument, the Commission, in June, 1936, rendered a decision, the German Commissioner concurring, by which the ruling of 1932 denying a rehearing was set aside, and the question whether there should be a rehearing was reserved for a hearing which should be separate and distinct from an argument on the merits unless Germany should consent to a different course.