Hitaka Suda v. John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State of the United States

Suda, alleging he is an American bom citizen of the United States, appeals from a decision dismissing his amended complaint seeking under 8 U.S.C., § 903 , to establish that he is such a citizen.

The amended complaint was filed after the Immigration and Nationality Act, 66 Stat. 280 , 8 U.S.C.A. § 1101 et seq., became effective on December 24, 1952. Of this we have held in Fujii v. Dulles, 9 Cir., 224 F.2d 906 , that the amended complaint shall be deemed as filed as of the date of filing of the original complaint.

The pertinent portion of the amended complaint is as follows:

It will be noted that, unlike in the Fujii case, the State Department had approved the certificate that Suda had lost his United States citizenship on December 18, 1952, six days before the Act became effective. The district court held that the decision of the Department of State that Suda had lost his citizenship was of no avail to him because the department had not advised him it was so decided. Here, as in the Fujii case, the district court failed to apply the principle of liberal construction of the Schneiderman case in which the Supreme Court stated of such loss of citizenship, that:

Nowhere in the…