Vapeur v. Elting

These appeals are from judgments for the plaintiff in five actions to recover for fines imposed on the plaintiff by the Secretary of Labor under section 6 of the Quota Act of 1921 (42 Stat. 5, as added by 42 Stat. 540), for bringing in forty-nine excludable aliens to the port of New York during the first six months of 1924 (one arrived in December, 1923). The cases were all tried under agreed statements of fact as to each alien. Each had been in residence in the United States and had gone upon a temporary visit abroad. Each came back more than six months after he had left; the period of absence ranging from seven monghs to four and a half years. The stipulated facts do not show that any of them offered any evidence to rebut the presumption that he retained his domicile in the United States, assuming that he had acquired one when he left, or that, when he left, he meant to return within six months. The judge gave judgment on the agreed facts, relying on our opinion in Compagnie Francaise de Navigation a Vapeur v. Elting (C.C.A.) 19 F.2d 773, and the collector appealed.