US Supreme Court blocks Holocaust victims from suing Hungary in American courts

CNN

21-02-2025

A group of Holocaust victims may not sue Hungary in American courts to recover property stolen during World War II because their funds were comingled with other funds, the Supreme Court ruled Friday in a long-running case about how much reach US courts should have to settle disputes abroad.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote the opinion for a unanimous court.
More than a dozen Holocaust victims and their families have been fighting the Republic of Hungary and its national railway for nearly 15 years over whether they may continue their lawsuit in federal court. Such lawsuits aimed at foreign governments are generally prohibited, but the victims wanted the Supreme Court to apply an exception to the rule in their case.
That exception allows such lawsuits to proceed when expropriated property is present in the United States. In this case, the survivors claimed that the artwork, jewelry and other possessions stripped from Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust was sold and that the proceeds wound up within the United States through the course of its trade with Hungary.
Throughout the oral arguments in December, several justices said they were concerned about the potential international fallout from allowing the case to proceed – specifically, that foreign nationals in other countries could bring lawsuits against the United States in foreign courts. That was precisely the concern raised by the Biden administration, which sided with Hungary in the dispute. The Justice Department warned that a ruling for the survivors would 'invite reciprocal actions against the United States in foreign courts.'
The 1939 Society, an organization of Holocaust survivors, described that argument as a 'surprising abdication of America's historic leadership role in obtaining redress for Holocaust victims.'
American courts, the group said, are the 'the only viable venue' to bring such claims.
That argument found some purchase on the Supreme Court in December, particularly from Justice Samuel Alito, who suggested that any reciprocal claims against the United States in foreign courts would be limited. Others feared that blocking the lawsuit would provide a roadmap to a foreign government attempting to expropriate property and avoid accountability in US courts: Quickly sell the property and comingle the proceeds with other government funding.
The victims filed their lawsuit in 2010, and the case has been bouncing around federal courts for so long that it previously reached the Supreme Court four years ago. In that instance, the justices ultimately sent the matter back to lower courts for additional review – tossing out a federal appeals court ruling for the families in the process.
A federal appeals court in Washington, DC, sided with the victims last year, and Hungary appealed to the Supreme Court.