Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Posts Tagged ‘reparations’

Reparations: the British must pay

Three new reparations campaigns are aimed at perfidious Albion; if they succeed, we propose going after them for their burning of American towns during the Revolutionary War and War of 1812:

* In Buenos Aires, Argentina, Carlos Traboulsi, who is president of the local Christian Democrats, has filed a $67 billion (U.S.) claim against Britain in a local court, citing the unlawful occupation/exploitation of the Falklands/Malvinas islands since 1833 as well as “the theft of the River Plate Viceroy treasury in 1806”. What, didn’t any lawyers advise him to file in a U.S. court? (“67 billion dollars claim for ‘Malvinas usurpation'”, MercoPress, Mar. 10.)

* Ten plaintiffs are suing Lloyd’s of London in New York, demanding that it pay reparations for having written insurance on slave ships hundreds of years ago (“Slave descendants to sue Lloyd’s”, BBC, Mar. 29). Some in the British press are taking at face value the image attorney Edward Fagan would like to present of himself as the “feared New York lawyer who extracted huge Nazi gold settlements from German and Swiss companies” (“Slave descendants sue Lloyd’s for billions”, The Observer, Mar. 28); they should have read our Jun. 24-25, 2002 report (see also Aug. 8, 2003; Jan. 17-19, 2003; Nov. 17-19, 2001).

* “A half forgotten colonial expedition to subjugate a querulous African kingdom more than a century ago could bankrupt Britain if a Ugandan king succeeds in bringing a ?3.7 trillion suit against the Crown.” During a five-year war in the 1890s the British deposed King Kabalega II of the Bunyoro kingdom, and his descendant, named King Solomon, has now retained lawyers in both Uganda and London and plans a legal action in the latter city. “But the king’s compensation claims do not appear to enjoy much support from his subjects. ‘This is very wrong,’ said Aisha Kungozo, 24, a teacher who runs a tiny school for 16 children in the village of Mparo outside Bunyoro’s capital, Hoima, where the royal palace is situated. ‘The British built schools and houses for us. They gave us medicine. They did more to help us than any omukama [king] ever did.'” (Adrian Blomfield, “African king aims to bankrupt Britain”, Daily Telegraph, Mar. 13).

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Next stop for reparations

Despite a federal judge’s recent dismissal of one slavery-era suit (see Jan. 30), reparations advocates are hoping to score a comeback with a lawsuit demanding damages 82 years after the fact for a lethal rampage by white rioters against black residents of Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1921. They’ll have to overcome both sovereign immunity and the statute of limitations, though. (Scott Gold, “Reparations Sought Decades After Race Riot”, Los Angeles Times, Feb. 13). And New York Life has agreed to hand over $20 million to settle claims arising under policies sold to ethnic Armenians in the former Ottoman Empire, many of whom were murdered during the rise of modern Turkey in “a deliberate, systematic and government-controlled genocide that began in April 1915,” according to a statement by California insurance commissioner John Garamendi, who announced the settlement (Armenian-Americans are a potent ethnic lobby in California.) Of the $20 million, $11 million will be set aside for heirs and $3 million for Armenian civic organizations, leaving somewhere around $6 million for lawyers who include Mark Geragos, William Shernoff and Brian Kabateck. According to the last-named of these, the settlement “is the result of a very personal campaign to bring attention to the history of the Armenian Genocide.” The news accounts do not reveal what if any role the court system and insurance law of present-day Turkey — the government of which rejects the genocide charge — might have been allowed to play in the disposition of the claims (“Calif. Commissioner Announces Settlement on Behalf of Survivors of Victims of Armenian Holocaust”, Insurance Journal, Jan. 28; AP/CBS News, Jan. 29; CNN, Feb. 17)(via Law.com)

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Reparations suit dismissal, cont’d

The pseudonymous “Mindles H. Dreck” at Asymmetrical Information has some comments (Jan. 28) on Judge Norgle’s dismissal of the slavery reparations lawsuit (see Jan. 26)(documents at site of defendant Aetna). What criteria, he wonders, dictated the selection of banks, railroads, tobacco and insurance companies to be sued in the case? “1. A continuous history — who ever thought avoiding the M&A craze would be a liability? 2. Availability of records — one Historical Society officer noted to me that corporations have reconsidered or requested the return of donated archives since the suit.” Deep pockets, of course. And finally: “Defendants have to be vulnerable to PR damage.” This last point suggests why reparations advocates may not unreasonably imagine there is potential money to be made in pursuing more rounds of suits even if courts never rule in their favor.

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One reparations suit down

…with many more, we fear, yet to come: “A federal judge today dismissed a lawsuit brought by descendants of slaves from across the country seeking reparations from corporations they say profited from the forced labor of their ancestors before the Civil War.” U.S. District Judge Charles Norgle cited the political-question doctrine, said the plaintiffs had failed to overcome statute of limitation questions, and “said the suit alleged no specific connection between the plaintiffs and the banks, tobacco companies, railroads and other companies named as defendants.” (Mike Robinson, “Judge dismisses slave reparations suit”, AP/Chicago Tribune, Jan. 26) FrontPage has a timely article on the suit (Curtis Lawrence, “The Reparations Lobby Sues Again”, Jan. 25). Plus: Prof. Bainbridge, much quoted here of late, has more (Jan. 27)

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Haiti to France: pay us $21,685,135,571.48

Reparations madness, cont’d: almost 200 years after a slave revolt won Haiti’s independence, President Jean-Bertrand Aristide “has launched a controversial campaign to get France to repay its former colony billions of dollars in restitution. And he has already sent Paris a bill, down to the very last cent: $21,685,135,571.48.” A legal adviser to the Aristide administration is considering taking the case to international court (Jacqueline Charles, “Aristide pushes for restitution from France”, Miami Herald, Dec. 18; Henry Samuel, “You owe us $21,685,135,571.48”, Daily Telegraph (UK), Oct. 8; “The sad bicentennial of a once fabulous sugar colony”, The Economist, Dec. 18). No word yet on whether any reparations will be offered in the opposite direction for the 1804 massacres during which newly emergent strongman Jean-Jacques Dessalines ordered the slaughter of almost the entire French population resident in Haiti, an estimated 20,000 persons. (Update: another side of the story from Tunku Varadarajan, who argues that the government of France really was “first a brutal colonizer, and then a usurious bully”.)

In other news, the highly popular videogame “Vice City”, part of the Grand Theft Auto series, has drawn fire from New York and Florida officials “and from the government of Haiti, which has threatened to sue the game’s manufacturer, New York-based Rockstar Games, its parent company, Take 2 Interactive Software Inc., and the game’s distributors. A Miami lawyer representing the Haitian government said the game violates the hate crime laws of Florida and other states. ‘It’s the kind of thing that has no business being sold because it’s not just a game,’ attorney Ira Kurzban told the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel. ‘It’s a teaching device for young kids and high school students. What is it teaching them? Violence, hatred and racism.'” (“Haitian, Cuban Leaders Denounce ‘Grand Theft Auto'”, WTVJ South Florida, Dec. 16). More on videogame lawsuits: Sept. 26 and links from there.

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Suing incompetent peacekeepers

Blessed are those who just don’t get involved in the first place dept.: “Relatives of victims of Europe’s bloodiest post-war massacre are to sue the United Nations and the Dutch government for ?370 million.” Since no adequate recovery is to be had from Bosnian Serb war criminals for the Srebrenica massacre, reparations lawyers now wish to extract money from the well-meaning neutrals and noncombatants whose bungling efforts failed to prevent it. That should provide a good incentive for anyone to volunteer as peacekeepers in future, no? U.S. lawyers are said to be involved. (“Srebrenica relatives sue UN and Dutch for ?370m”, Daily Telegraph, Nov. 10).

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Update: easing the way for Mexican-American reparations

The California legislature, probably the nation’s busiest when it comes to stoking the fires of reparations litigation, has now passed and sent to Gov. Gray Davis a bill reopening the statute of limitations so as to allow state residents of Mexican descent to sue over forced deportations of their ancestors (or in a few long-lived cases themselves) during the 1930s. The intended targets of such litigation (see Jul. 28) include local governments and business groups that are said to have collaborated in the deportation campaigns. The legislature has already employed the tactic of reopening statutes of limitation in order to promote “claims for Holocaust victims insurance claims, Armenian Genocide victims, World War II slave labor and braceros”. (“Bill gives 1930s deportees until 2007 to seek damages”, San Francisco Chronicle, Sept. 12).

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He led them out with silver and gold

Since the latest bizarre reparations-suit project seems to be a favorite among our readers, we suppose we can’t pass it by: “Nabil Hilmi, dean of the law school at Egypt’s University of Al-Zaqaziq, is suing ‘all the Jews of the world’ for stealing ‘from the Pharaonic Egyptians gold, jewelry, cooking utensils, silver ornaments, clothing, and more, leaving Egypt in the middle of the night with all this wealth, which today is priceless,’ according to the Cairo newspaper Al-Ahram Al-Arabi (translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute).” (Ted Olsen, “The World’s Most Outrageous Biblical Lawsuit”, Christianity Today weblog, Sept. 2; MEMRI Special Dispatch #556). More commentary: Judith Weiss, Kesher Talk, Aug. 22; Mona Charen, “Sue the Jews”, TownHall, Sept. 2; Rabbi Avi Shafran, “A truly historic lawsuit”, Jewish World Review, Sept. 3.

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“S. Africa asks U.S. to dismiss suits”

Reparations watch: “The South African government has asked a U.S. court to dismiss a series of controversial multibillion dollar apartheid lawsuits against major multinational corporations, saying they could destabilize the economy. In a motion filed with the U.S. District Court in New York yesterday, Justice Minister Penuell Maduna argued the lawsuits undermine South Africa’s sovereignty and its efforts to redress nearly 50 years of white minority rule under apartheid.” (Wambui Chege, Reuters/Boston Globe, Jul. 30, no longer online; “Government Asks US to Dismiss Apartheid Cases”, SAPA/AllAfrica.com, Jul. 29). For more on the background of plaintiff’s attorney Ed Fagan, impresario of this group of suits, see Jun. 24-25, 2002, Jan. 17-19, 2003, and Nov. 17-19, 2000. Update Jan. 2, 2005: judge dismisses claims.

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Reparations demanded over deportation of Mexicans in 1930s

Latest on the reparations bandwagon: A suit was filed earlier this month in Los Angeles Superior Court on behalf of an estimated 400,000 people of Mexican descent, seeking damages for the “irreparable loss” suffered during deportation campaigns in the 1930s. Representing the plaintiffs, and seeking class action status, are the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the Beverly Hills law firm of Kiesel, Boucher & Larson. (“Lawsuit seeks reparations for 1930s-era expulsion from California”, CNN, Jul. 16). Update Sept. 14: legislature passes bill to facilitate suits.

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