James Alger Fee

James Alger Fee (September 24, 1888 – August 25, 1959) was a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and previously was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Oregon. A veteran of the United States Army, his first judicial position was with the Oregon Circuit Court. While a federal judge he made national news for his decision during World War II regarding the application of the exclusion orders that had forced those of Japanese heritage from the West Coast.

Early life

James Alger was born in Eastern Oregon in the city of Pendleton on September 24, 1888. He went to college in Walla Walla, Washington, at Whitman College. He then moved to New York City, New York and earned a master's degree at Columbia University. After this Fee went on to law school at Columbia Law School, graduating in 1914 with a Bachelor of Laws. In 1952, Fee decided two cases concerning the 1948 flood of Vanport, Oregon. He ruled that the government was not liable for the damage caused to the residents’ property.

Some other cases included a labor dispute involving Montgomery Ward, holding the Methodist Episcopal Church legally obligated to pay bondholders on defaulted bonds they issued to build a hospital, and even refused to appoint a commissioner for Crater Lake National Park. He also ruled on the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, presided over a case in Pennsylvania, and signed off on the condemnation of the water company serving Salem, Oregon, as that city took over the water supply.

Court of Appeals service

Fee was nominated by President Dwight D. Eisenhower on April 6, 1954, to a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit vacated by Judge Clifton Mathews. He was confirmed by the Senate on April 23, 1954, and received his commission on April 30, 1954, moving his chambers from Oregon to San Francisco, California after he began service. His service terminated on August 25, 1959, due to his death.

Japanese internment

On June 12, 1942, as district court judge Fee began presiding over the trial of Minoru Yasui, a native Oregonian of Japanese descent who was on trial for breaking curfew. The curfew had been imposed by the United States Army's General John L. DeWitt under the authority of President Franklin Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066 that began the Japanese American internment after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

Yasui was an attorney who was a United States Army reservist and, until the start of the war, worked for the Japanese consulate in Chicago, Illinois. The trial was held at the Federal Courthouse in downtown Portland where Yasui had broken the curfew. Fee determined in his ruling for the case that the curfew could only apply to aliens, as martial law had not been declared. Fee sentenced Yasui to 1 year in jail, served at the Multnomah County Jail. Meanwhile, his case went on appeal until reaching the Supreme Court of the United States as Yasui v. United States, (320 U.S. 115) with that court determining the opposite of Fee, that Yasui was a citizen, but the curfew did apply to citizens. After the Supreme Court returned the case to Fee for re-evaluation, he affirmed the conviction on the grounds the Supreme Court had determined. He was a partner in Fee & Slater. On February 9, 1916, James Fee married Frances Waldo. She was born in Berkshire, New York, in 1886, and died on September 20, 1935. She was born in Cascade Locks, Oregon on September 11, 1897, and died on September 21, 1995. They did not have any children. Fee died on August 25, 1959, and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington County, Virginia.