Royal Mail Steam Packet Co. v. Elting

L. HAND, Circuit Judge.

This is an action to recover fines collected by the collector of the port of New York from the plaintiff, a steamship carrier, for the importation of aliens who were excluded upon their arrival. These were in two groups, twenty-five in all, one group of sixteen, arriving on July 2, .1923, and the other of nine, on August fifth of the same year, both on the same ship. They were excluded because the quota was full in each case, and the plaintiff seeks to recover, because the action of the Secretary of Labor in failing to admit them as quota exempt was either unlawful, or…