Justices to Consider Japanese-American Suits on Internment : Will Hear U.S. Appeal of Ruling by D.C. Circuit

The Supreme Court said today that it will decide whether Japanese-Americans--herded into detention camps with the court’s blessing during World War II--can sue the government for billions of dollars in damages.

The justices will hear arguments this term in the Administration’s appeal of a lower court ruling that enabled internment camp survivors--numbering about 60,000--to seek compensation for violation of their constitutional rights.

In January, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia reinstated a class-action lawsuit by 19 Japanese-Americans seeking money damages stemming from the mass roundup sparked by fears of subversion after the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese Imperial Navy.

A trial judge ruled in 1984 that the suit was barred by a six-year statute of limitations.

But the appeals court said the deadline period for filing claims did not begin until 1980, when a congressional report concluded that the detention of Japanese-Americans was based “on their ethnic origins alone” rather than military necessity.

‘National Misjudgment’

Justice Department lawyers argued in a brief to the Supreme Court that “our national misjudgment under pressures of war in the 1940s” should not be second-guessed now, and asserted, “If the approach of the Court of Appeals is to be taken seriously, then there is really no such thing as a statute of limitations.”

In 1944, the Supreme Court cited military necessity in upholding President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s executive order requiring the removal of Japanese-Americans from the West Coast.

Roosevelt’s directive resulted in the forced removal of 120,000 Japanese-Americans from their homes on the West Coast. They were placed in camps in Arkansas, Arizona and other states where they lived for up to three years surrounded by barbed wire and military police.

Families were allowed to take to the camps only what they could carry. By the time they were released, they had lost homes, farms and businesses.

About 60,000 of the 120,000 internees are believed alive today. About 26,000 filed claims under the American-Japanese Evacuation Claims Act, enacted by Congress in 1948 to compensate survivors for lost property.

Other Court Action

In other action before taking a two-week recess, the court:

--Limited the rights of workers to win paid leaves of absence for religious holidays. The justices, by an 8-1 vote, said in a Connecticut case that, although employers must try to accommodate the religious demands of an employee, they need not grant all the worker asks.

--Gave the government broader powers to deport illegal aliens. The justices, in a 7-2 ruling, said officials need not consider the possible hardship of a deportation on relatives, other than the immediate family of the deportee.

--Left intact a ruling barring officials in St. Charles, Ill., from stringing Christmas lights in the shape of a cross atop the city’s fire department building.

--Said federal grand jury material may be used in the state criminal trials of former Labor Secretary Raymond J. Donovan and his business partners at Schiavone Construction Co.