Poo Shong Hing v Consolidated Steel Corporation

• Jurisdiction: China
• Docket Number: 283
• Court: Obsolete Court (China)
• Date: 19 November 1920

United States Court for China.

Case No. 283

Poo Shong Hing et Al.

and

Consolidated Steel Corporation.

Effects of Outbreak of War on Enemy Subjects — Persona standi in judicio — In Extraterritorial Court.

The Facts.—This was a suit brought in the United States Court for China, by a firm consisting of two Chinese nationals and a German residing in China, before the termination of the war between China and the United States on the one side and Germany on the other. The defendant demurred on the ground that the German plaintiff could not sue in a United States court.

Held: That the demurrer must be overruled. To the general rule forbidding an alien enemy to sue in time of war there was an exception in favour of alien enemies allowed to remain after the outbreak of war. Wells v. WilliamsENR, 1 Ld. Raym. 282; Daubigny v. DavallonENR, 2 Anstr. 462; Porter v. FreudenbergELR, [1915] 1 K.B. 857; Schaffenius v. GoldbergELR, [1916] 1 K.B. 284; Parkinson v. WentworthUNK, 11 Mass. 26; The OropaUNK, 255 Fed. 132; and other cases. “Thus it has come about in “both countries [Great Britain and the United States] that the “test of the right to sue in such cases is not nationality but the “place of carrying on business.” (2 Extraterritorial Cases 39, 43.) Had the German plaintiff resided in the United States, there could be little doubt of...