TREATIES-EFFECT OF WAR ON COMMERCIAL TREATIES

Authors

Abstract

The Sophie Rickmers, a German merchant vessel registered at Hamburg and owned by a German corporation with principal place of business there, entered New York Sept. 27, 1921. Upon its entry a tonnage duty of fifty cents per ton was collected under U. S. Rev. Stat. sec. 4219 as amended by 19 Stat. 250 (46 U. S. C. A. 121), and sec. ,4225 (46 U. S. C. A. 128), in addition to the six-cent tonnage duty under 36 Stat. 111 (46 U. S. C. A. 121). The treaty of the United States made in 1827 with the Hanseatic Republics, 1 Malloy 901, and the treaty of 1828 with Prussia, 2 Malloy 1496, provided that their vessels should not be subjected to higher tonnage duties than American vessels. U. S. Rev. Stat. sec. 4229-30 (46 U. S. C. A. ch. 5 note) provided that no higher tonnage duty should be charged vessels of Prussia than those of America, so long as Prussia gave reciprocal treatment to American vessels. The Hanseatic states and Prussia had been absorbed in the federation of the German Empire. At the time of the entry into port hostilities with Germany had ceased and trade relations begun, but no treaty of peace had as yet been concluded between the United States and Germany. The owners of the Sophie Rickmers sued to recover the fifty-cent tonnage duties, contending that there was a misconstruction of the revenue statutes; that even if these had been correctly interpreted, the vessel came within the exemption of U. S. Rev. Stat. sec. ,4229-30; and that in any event the treaties mentioned freed it from these duties. The government moved to dismiss the petition for failure to state a cause of action. The federal district court for the southern district of New York overruled this motion to dismiss, stating that though the statutes had been correctly interpreted and the vessel was not exempted by U. S. Rev. Stat. sec. ,4229-30, it held that these treaties survived both the formation of the German Empire and the war between the United States and Germany, and were in full force when the duties were collected. The Sophie Rickmers (July 7, 1930), 45 F.(2d) 413; see 44 Harv. L. Rev. 299.

Recommended Citation

TREATIES-EFFECT OF WAR ON COMMERCIAL TREATIES, 29 Mich. L. Rev. 947 (1931).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol29/iss7/36