Docket No. 639: Josephine Brandell

Docket No. 639.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
on behalf of
Josephine Lawson-Johnston,
Claimant,

v.

GERMANY.

PARKER, Umpire, rendered the decision of the Commission.

This case is before the Umpire for decision on a certificate of the two National Commissioners[a] certifying their disagreement.

Josephine Brandeis (generally known by her stage name, Josephine Brandell), 22 years of age, suffered personal injuries and loss of property in the sinking of the Lusitania, on which she was a passenger. She is the sole claimant herein. Her father was a Roumanian, and she was born in Roumania and lived there until 1900, when she took up residence in the United States. On February 15, 1907, she married Dr. Bernard Black Brandeis, a native Roumanian who had through naturalization become an American citizen on June 27, 1904. The claimant was divorced from Brandeis in September, 1910.

On May 19, 1920, the claimant married her present husband, John Ormiston Lawson-Johnston, a subject of Great Britain. By reason of this marriage the claimant relinquished her American citizenship and became and has since remained a British subject.

For the reasons fully set forth by this Commission in its Administrative Decision No. V (Decisions and Opinions, pages 175 – 194 inclusive) this claim does not fall within the terms of the Treaty of Berlin inasmuch as it was not impressed with American nationality on November 11, 1921, when that Treaty became effective (see also the decision of the Commission in Docket No. 2262, United States of America on behalf of Maud Thompson de Gennes, Decisions and Opinions, pages 215 – 219).

Applying the rules announced in Administrative Decision No. V and in the other decisions of this Commission to the facts as disclosed by the record herein, the Commission decrees that under the Treaty of Berlin of August 25, 1921, and in accordance with its terms the Government of Germany is not obligated to pay to the Government of the United States any amount on behalf of the claimant herein.

Done at Washington March 19, 1925.

EDWIN B. PARKER,
Umpire.

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[a] Dated March 14, 1925.