Wilcox

General DeWitt appeals from a summary judgment of the district court awarding damages against him to appellee Wilcox in the stipulated sum of $100 for the 'removal of Wilcox on September 6, 1943, to Las Vegas, Nevada, from the latter’s residence in San Diego, California, in the area of General DeWitt’s Western Defense Command. The removal, by a captain and detail of soldiers under General DeWitt’s orders, was pursuant to a prior order of General DeWitt of date December 28, 1942, ordering Wilcox to be excluded from the area of his Western Defense Command, 1 which order Wilcox had refused to obey.

The ground of the district court’s decision is that, though the facts concerning Wilcox’s' subversive and dangerous activities warranted making him the subject of an, individual exclusion order, General DeWitt’s action making the order effective by taking Wilcox out of the Western Defense Command area exceeded any war-waging powers given him by Congress or the President as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. The district court, in effect, held that there was no power in anyone so to renfove Wilcox and that the sole remedy for Wilcox’s refusal to remove himself from the prohibited area…