James Alger Fee

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. There he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1910 and was a member of the Gamma Zeta Chapter of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity. He then moved to New York City and earned a master's degree at Columbia University. After this Fee went on to law school at Columbia’s law school, graduating in 1914 with a Bachelor of Laws degree.

Legal career

Fee returned to Oregon where he passed the bar in 1914, and entered private practice in his hometown of Pendleton. In 1916, he began serving as that city’s attorney, staying until 1917 when he joined the U.S. Army's Air Service as a lieutenant. Fee remained with the army until 1919, when moved to the War Department as a member of the legal staff. In 1920, he left the War Department and returned to Pendleton and private practice.

In 1927, Fee left private practice to start a judicial career, serving as on the Oregon Circuit Court from 1927 to 1931. On March 18, 1931, President Herbert Hoover appointed Fee to Oregon’s federal district court to replace Robert S. Bean, who had died in office. This was a recess appointment, with Fee starting immediately, but he was later confirmed by the U.S. Senate on December 22, 1931, and received his commission the following day. Beginning in 1948 through April 30, 1954, he served as the court’s chief judge, leaving that position when he left the court.

During his over twenty years on the district court he ruled on a variety of topics. In United States v. Earnest F. Cramer and E. R. Cramer, Fee ruled that Native Americans through treaties they signed in the 19th century had superior fishing rights over non-Native Americans at places such as Celilo Falls. 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.

On April 6, 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower nominated Fee to serve on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The Senate confirmed him on April 23, and he received his commission on April 30, replacing Clifton Mathews on the court. Fee moved to San Francisco, California where the court’s main office is located, where he served until his death. In 1957, he wrote the opinion in Bartholomae Corp. v. United States, 253 F.2d 716 (9th Cir. 1957), that refused to hold the federal government liable for damages related to nuclear bomb testing in 1951.

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. The curfew only applied to those of Japanese heritage, with Yasui being the first person to be arrested for violating the curfew. This case would make it all the way to the United States Supreme Court. The decision to take this trial to the Supreme Court made national news.

Yasui was an attorney who was a U.S. 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. However, he also ruled that because Yasui had worked for the Japanese government that he had forfeited his citizenship so that the curfew did apply to him. 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.

Family and later life

Fee’s father was also a judge in Oregon. He was a partner in Fee & Slater. On December 22, 1943, James Fee married Alice Emma Tomkins. She was born in Cascade Locks, Oregon on September 11, 1897, and died on September 21, 1995. They did not have any children. James Alger Fee died on August 25, 1959, and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia.