California is as soon as once more preventing in federal courtroom for a Jewish household’s proper to have a treasured Impressionist portray returned to them by a Spanish museum almost 90 years after it was looted by the Nazis.
The state can also be defending its personal authority to legally require artwork and different stolen treasures to be returned to different victims with ties to the state, even in disputes that stretch far past its borders.
The state has repeatedly weighed in on the case because the Cassirer household first filed it whereas residing in San Diego in 2005. Final yr, it handed a brand new legislation designed to bolster the authorized rights of the Cassirers and different households in California to get well invaluable property stolen from them in acts of genocide or political persecution.
On Monday, California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta’s workplace filed a movement to intervene within the Cassirer case immediately with a purpose to defend that legislation. The Thyssen-Bornemisza Assortment Basis — which is owned by Spain and holds the Camille Pissarro masterpiece — has claimed that the legislation is unconstitutional and may due to this fact be ignored.
Bonta, in a press release to The Instances, mentioned the legislation is “about equity, ethical — and authorized — accountability, and doing what’s proper,” and the state will defend it in courtroom.
“There may be nothing that may undo the horrors and loss skilled by people throughout the Holocaust. However there’s something we will do — that California has completed — to return what was stolen again to survivors and their households and convey them some measure of justice and therapeutic,” Bonta mentioned. “As Legal professional Common, my job is to defend the legal guidelines of California, and I intend to take action right here.”
Bonta mentioned his workplace “has supported the Cassirers’ quest for justice for twenty years,” and “will proceed to battle with them for the rightful return of this invaluable household heirloom.”
Thaddeus J. Stauber, an lawyer for the museum, didn’t reply questions from The Instances. Bonta’s workplace mentioned Stauber didn’t oppose its intervening within the case.
Sam Dubbin, the Cassirers’ longtime lawyer, thanked Bonta’s workplace for “intervening on this case once more to defend California’s pursuits in defending the integrity of the artwork market and the rights of stolen property victims.”
“California legislation has at all times supplied robust protections for the victims of stolen property and stolen artwork specifically, which the Legislature has persistently strengthened,” Dubbin mentioned.
The state bucked the highly effective U.S. ninth Circuit Courtroom of Appeals by passing the legislation final yr. The appellate courtroom present in a ruling in January 2024 that the portray was lawfully owned by the Spanish museum.
Bonta’s newest transfer ratchets up the intrigue surrounding the 20-year-old case, which is being watched across the globe for its potential implications within the high-stakes world of looted artwork litigation.
The portray in query — Pissarro’s “Rue Saint-Honoré within the Afternoon. Impact of Rain” — is estimated to be value tens of tens of millions of {dollars}. Each side acknowledge it was stolen from Lilly Cassirer Neubauer by the Nazis in 1939, after she agreed in desperation to give up it to a Nazi appraiser in change for a visa to flee Germany on the daybreak of World Warfare II.
The eye surrounding the case, and its potential to set new precedent in worldwide legislation, possible makes the portray much more invaluable.
After World Warfare II, Lilly obtained compensation for the portray from the German authorities, however the household by no means relinquished its proper to the masterpiece — which on the time was thought of misplaced. What she was paid was a fraction of the present estimated value.
Within the many years that adopted, Lilly’s grandson Claude Cassirer — who had additionally survived the Holocaust — moved along with his household to San Diego.
In 2000, Claude made the stunning discovery that the portray was not misplaced to time in spite of everything, however a part of an unlimited artwork assortment that Spain had acquired from the late Baron Hans Heinrich von Thyssen-Bornemisza, the scion of a German industrialist household with ties to Hitler’s regime. Spain restored an early Nineteenth-century palace close to the Prado Museum in Madrid with a purpose to home the gathering because the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza.
Claude requested the museum to return the portray to his household. It refused. He sued in U.S. federal courtroom in 2005. The case has been transferring via the courts ever since.
California handed its new legislation in response to the ninth Circuit ruling final yr, which held that state legislation on the time required it to use an archaic Spanish legislation. That measure dictates that the title to stolen items passes legitimately to a brand new proprietor over time, if that proprietor wasn’t conscious the products had been stolen after they acquired them — which the Thyssen-Bornemisza Assortment has argued makes its possession of the portray legally sound.
In September 2024, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the brand new legislation throughout a small gathering with the households of Holocaust survivors on the Holocaust Museum LA. Lilly’s great-grandson and Claude’s son David Cassirer, who now lives in Colorado, was there, praising the state’s lawmakers for “taking a definitive stand in favor of the true homeowners of stolen artwork.”
In March, the Supreme Courtroom in a quick order dominated that the ninth Circuit should rethink its ruling in mild of California’s new legislation.
In September, the Thyssen-Bournemisza Assortment filed a movement asking the appellate courtroom to rule in its favor as soon as extra. It put ahead a number of arguments, however amongst them was that California’s new legislation was “constitutionally indefensible” and disadvantaged the museum of its due course of rights.
“Beneath binding Supreme Courtroom precedent, a State could not, by legislative fiat, reopen time-barred claims and switch property whose possession is already vested,” the museum argued.
It mentioned the U.S., underneath federal legislation, “doesn’t search to impose its property legal guidelines or the property legal guidelines of its personal states on different international sovereigns, however fairly expressly acknowledges that completely different authorized traditions and programs should be taken into consideration to facilitate simply and truthful options with regard to Nazi-looted artwork instances.”
It mentioned California’s legislation takes an “aggressive method” that “disrupts the federal authorities’s efforts to take care of uniformity and amicable relations with international nations,” and “stands as an impediment to the accomplishment and execution of federal coverage.”
David Cassirer, the lead plaintiff within the case since Claude’s loss of life in 2010, argued the alternative in his personal submitting to the courtroom.
Cassirer argued that California’s new legislation requires an consequence in his favor — which he mentioned would additionally occur to be according to “ethical commitments made by america and governments worldwide, together with Spain, to Nazi victims and their households.”
“It’s undisputed that California substantive legislation mandates the award of title right here to the Cassirer household, as Lilly’s heirs, of which Plaintiff David Cassirer is the final surviving member,” Cassirer’s attorneys wrote.
They wrote that California legislation holds that “a thief can not convey good title to stolen artworks,” and due to this fact requires the return of the portray to Cassirer.
Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel (D-Encino), who sponsored the invoice within the legislature, praised Bonta for stepping in to defend the legislation — which he known as “a part of a many years lengthy quest for justice and is rooted within the perception that California should stand on the precise aspect of historical past.”
