The Holocaust, The Return of Looted Art, and the Statute of Limitations
As some readers of this blog may be aware, the concept of a statute of limitations may be best described as a maximum time-period by which certain legal proceedings must be initiated or the potential plaintiff may lost his or her right to sue (subject to certain exceptions -- of course!). One of the most troubling and profound issues that arises with statutes of limitation is whether claims made for the return of stolen or “looted” art can be, or should be, barred when decades or more have passed without anyone making a claim for the return of the subject art. This question is perhaps at its most pressing point when the subject art was stolen from victims during a genocide such as the Holocaust.
Recently, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco struck down on constitutional grounds a 2002 California law giving owners and heirs to artworks looted by the Nazis additional time -- until the end of 2010 -- to sue for their return. The appeals court agreed with the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles who dismissed a lawsuit in October 2007 that California officials overstepped their authority when they passed the state's Holocaust art-restitution law, because they intruded on what is strictly a federal government prerogative to shape policies on war and foreign affairs.
The appeals court did, however, allow the plaintiff, Marei Von Saher, the daughter-in-law of a Jewish art dealer who fled Germany in 1940, to amend her complaint against Pasadena’s Norton Simon Art Museum and its supporting foundation to allege facts that might make the suit timely under the three-year statute of limitations generally applicable to actions for recovery of stolen property.
Von Saher sued two years ago following the collapse of mediation over her claim that she and her family are the rightful owners of “Adam and Eve,” a diptych painted by famed German artist Lucas Cranach the Elder in the 16th century. The German artist painted them around 1530, and they were valued at $24 million in 2006, when the museum had them appraised for insurance purposes.
In her 2007 suit against the museum, Saher said that she learned in late 2000 that the Cranachs were at the Norton Simon Museum; the museum contended that she first came forward with her claim in 2001. Mediation sessions in 2005 and March 2007 failed to resolve the dispute, according to the Norton Simon Foundation. In its written opinion, the Ninth Circuit’s panel of judges noted that Norton Simon attorneys already have submitted news clippings and other published items to show that the Adam and Eve paintings were famous attractions at the museum decades before Von Saher came forward with her claim -- evidence that the museum can use to argue that Von Saher came forward far too late to satisfy the standard, three-year statute of limitations that she must now meet.
Information used for this entry was obtained from the Los Angeles Times and the Metropolitan News Enterprise.
