Navarro

Plaintiff seeks a declaratory judgment and an injunction to prevent the defendant, who is District Director of Immigration and Naturalization, from deporting him under an order of deportation issued by the Commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization.

The defendant moved for dismissal on the ground of failure to join an indispensable party, viz. the Commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization.

The determination of when a superior officer is an indispensable party to a suit instituted against his subordinate has been a vexing problem which has long plagued the courts. In 1941, Mr. Justice Roberts remarked, “it is not ‘an easy matter to reconcile all the decisions of the court in this class of cases.’ ” and that, since the case then before the court could be disposed of on other grounds, “we are unwilling to base our judgment upon a resolution of asserted conflict touching issues of- so grave consequence”. 1 In 1947 in the case of Williams v. Fanning, 332 U.S. 490 , 68 S.Ct. 188, 189 , 92 L.Ed. 95 , the Supreme Court resolved the conflict and Mr. Justice Douglas observed, “the distinction we have noted between these' two lines of cases apparently was not as clear to others as…