…is up at InternetCases.com. Coverage includes our reparations posts.
Posts Tagged ‘reparations’
Banks and reparations, cont’d
Reader John Steele Gordon writes, concerning the Wachovia announcement: “The WSJ had a story on May 10th about the same thing, only then it was J.P. Morgan Chase’s turn to grovel and donate. I wrote the following, which they had the bad sense not to publish:
Regarding the article about J.P. Morgan Chase spending heaven knows how much money to uncover the fact that some remote corporate ancestor had held a mortgage on slaves:
Laws requiring corporations to do this are a historians’ relief act and, naturally, I’m all in favor of employing historians. But far more perniciously, these laws in effect work “corruption of the blood.” This medieval doctrine visited numerous legal disabilities upon the descendants of those attainted for treason, sometimes for generations. My distant ancestor Lt. Col. Daniel Axtell, for instance, was hanged, drawn, and quartered for the crime of regicide, having commanded the guard at the trial of King Charles I. His son, unable to practice law in England because of his father’s crime, emigrated to South Carolina.
The Founding Fathers, in their wisdom, forbade this grotesque inequity in Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution, and England abolished it in the reign of King William IV, 170 years ago.
Now it’s back, at least for corporations if not, yet, people. But in fact it’s even worse. Daniel Axtell at least committed a crime under the laws of the day and was savagely punished for it. The Citizens Bank of Louisiana, fully four generations ago, did nothing whatever that was illegal and suffered no retribution in its day. But its remote descendants — the stockholders of J. P. Morgan Chase — are being punished, ex post facto.
This is not progress.
More: Michelle Malkin, who was on the issue last week, generously links to our coverage in a post today.
“The slavery shakedown”
The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery in 1865. Wachovia Corp. was founded in 1879. But the corporation found it necessary to issue a public apology for its “role” in slavery: to wit, slaves owned by “the Bank of Charleston and the Georgia Railroad and Banking Co.—two of the approximately 400 financial institutions dating back to 1781 that over the centuries merged with or were acquired by other institutions that eventually became part of the conglomerate known today as Wachovia.” Jeff Jacoby is critical of the decision.
‘Forcing Wachovia to ransack old records for links to slavery is nothing but a prelude to a shakedown,” warns Peter Flaherty, president of the National Legal and Policy Center, which has published a detailed critique of the reparations campaign. ”By trying to appease these hustlers, Wachovia only encourages greater demands.”
(Boston Globe, Jun. 9; NLPC report) (via Volokh). Earlier coverage: Jan. 26, 2004.
Reparations: stirring up land claims
Some of us have been worried for years that the movement for black reparations, which henceforth has mostly concentrated on demands for money from large institutions, might develop in the direction of a movement to contest land titles in the South and elsewhere, with hugely destructive results. Now comes word of the “Reclamation Of Southern Assets, or ROSA, project“, funded in part by a Congressional Black Caucus initiative. Here’s a bulletin from Chicago:
From noon to 3 p.m. on June 11, six law students from DePaul and five from Southern universities will listen to stories from forgotten heirs. They will review documents and compile information needed to research claims. Over the next eight weeks, these future lawyers will arm themselves with deeds and titles….Besides helping Chicagoans sort through their land claims, the ROSA project allows law students to get a jump on their careers.
Ray Waters, an instructor at DePaul’s College of Law, “hopes the ROSA project will result in legislation that will make it easier for heirs in Chicago to bring suit in federal court against relatives in the South”. Wait a minute — suing relatives? Well, that’s a second and perhaps unexpected dimension to the story: although much of the political rhetoric concentrates on the misdeeds of white owners and businesses, it turns out that a large share of the land grudges that preoccupy displaced black Southerners are against their own kin. (Mary Mitchell, “Reclaiming land may be bigger than reparations”, Chicago Sun-Times, Jun. 5; “Shady down-South stuff”, Feb. 20).
Update: Ed Fagan
The embattled New Jersey attorney, best known for international reparations claims, is now responding to charges that he mishandled money he secured for Holocaust victims. (Kate Coscarelli, “Embattled Holocaust attorney blames state”, Newark Star-Ledger, Jun. 2). More: Mar. 18, Feb. 16, Feb. 5 and many others.
The resistible rise of Edward Fagan
Newark Star-Ledger’s Kate Coscarelli has a well-reported profile of the braggart impresario who, despite mounting ethical woes and a slew of client complaints, has been much lionized by a gullible press (especially overseas) through a series of international lawsuits from WWII reparations down through the tsunami-warning case. “Interviews and court documents paint a portrait of a colorful, erratic Essex County lawyer who cut his teeth on considerably less-ambitious personal-injury cases and whose troubles mounted over the years, even as he continued to file his ambitious string of international lawsuits.” The Star-Ledger tends to pull down its stories from free access fairly quickly, so don’t postpone reading this one (“How a world-renowned attorney wound up in handcuffs”, Mar. 13). We’ve been following Fagan for years: see Feb. 5, Feb. 16, and so on.
Edward Fagan’s tsunami lawsuit
Nineteen German and Austrian tourists are filing a lawsuit against the government of Thailand and the French hotel chain Accor over the Indian Ocean tsunami. Naturally, the lawsuit has been filed in New York. Another defendant is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; plaintiffs complain that NOAA’s Pacific Tsunami Warning System failed to issue a warning for a tsunami in a completely different ocean. (Aside from the fact that NOAA owes no duty to vacationing Germans in Thailand, NOAA did try to notify other countries of the tsunami potential of the earthquake.) The suits against NOAA and Thailand in a US court are frivolous in the narrowest sense of the word, and will likely be quickly dismissed; Accor will probably have to spend some time and money if it can’t get out on jurisdictional grounds. Edward Fagan (Feb. 5, Aug. 13, Apr. 2, Aug. 8, 2003 and links therein) is the attorney; press coverage uncritically repeats the claim that he is “best known for filing lawsuits seeking reparations for Holocaust victims,” a self-promotion others disagree with. (Jean-Michel Stoullig, AFP/Wash. Times, Feb. 15; cf. also AP, Feb. 13; hat tip to reader D.C.). I’m curious: does Fagan sue his local news weather department if he gets wet because of an unanticipated rainstorm?
At least Fagan isn’t claiming that his lawsuit will stop tsunamis. This site does make that claim for its “lawsuit”; it’s possible that it’s a tongue-in-cheek art project, but the smart money is betting that it’s the work of a full-fledged self-parodying moonbat. It’s not clear if there’s an actual lawsuit; lawsuits by the deranged tend to be more entertaining than socially problematic, except for district court judges unfortunate enough to be in the Ninth Circuit.
Update: judge dismisses apartheid suits
Updating our Aug. 8, 2003 post (and links from there): “Lawsuits seeking more than $400 billion in damages from US corporations for victims of apartheid in South Africa were tossed out [Nov. 30] by a federal judge who said the claims bordered on the frivolous.” (Boston.com/AMABoston, Dec. 1; David Teather, “Apartheid court case dismissed”, Guardian (UK), Nov. 30; Mark Hamblett, “Businesses Win End to Multiple Apartheid Suits”, New York Law Journal, Dec. 1). The South African government, along with former South African president Nelson Mandela, had strongly opposed the suits. (Jonathan Ancer, “Activists hit out at ‘reactionary’ government”, Independent Online (South Africa), Dec. 7). The U.S. Council for International Business was of course pleased. Brandon Hamber has a weblog and site supporting the apartheid reparations claims.
Client neglect: Fagan ordered to pay $3.4 million
Attorney Edward Fagan, much publicized for his role in Holocaust and other reparations controversies, “is facing a $3.2 million legal malpractice judgment for suing the wrong party in a personal injury case and failing to oppose its dismissal.” Former client Allen C. Tavel sued Fagan, saying he had neglected a product liability case against Honda Motor Corp. and the manufacturer of a seat belt that allegedly failed over an accident in which Tavel was seriously injured. “Fagan did not contest Tavel’s malpractice suit, which resulted in a default judgment. In May, Justice Shirley Kornreich of Manhattan Supreme Court awarded Tavel $1.2 million for his economic losses and $2 million for pain and suffering.” (Anthony Lin, “Personal Injury Client Wins Malpractice Award Against Holocaust Victims’ Lawyer”, New York Law Journal, Aug. 12). Fagan has been the subject of extensive coverage on this site, including Jun. 24-25, 2002; Apr. 2 of this year and links from there. More: Feb. 5, 2005.
Kerry: no to reparations, yes to “environmental justice”
Giving him due credit: “John Kerry yesterday told students at Howard University that he doesn’t support financial reparations for blacks, saying it would only divide the nation and ‘not heal the wounds.’ … His answer received marked applause from the audience in the reading room of the historically black university’s Armour J. Blackburn Center in Northwest.”
On the other hand: the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee “also committed to the creation of a post for an assistant attorney general for environmental justice” and opined “that nearly 25 percent of children in Harlem have asthma partly because ‘all of the trucks’ traveling through New York City are routed through the neighborhood,” a sentiment open to doubt not only because of the high share of trucks that use other routes into and out of the city, but also because truck emissions, like air pollution generally, have sharply declined over the same decades in which urban childhood asthma rates have increased. (Brian DeBose, “Kerry opposes slavery reparations”, Washington Times, Apr. 16).