Austria Can Be Sued in U.S. Over Nazi-Seized Art

Mon Jun 7, 2004 11:35 AM ET
By James Vicini

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Austrian government and its national museum can be sued in the United States by an 88-year-old Los Angeles woman seeking to recover six valuable paintings she claimed the Nazis took from her uncle during World War II, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Monday

By a 6-3 vote, the justices upheld a ruling that rejected a request by Austria and its government-run gallery to dismiss the lawsuit involving the paintings valued at $135 million by the famous Austrian artist Gustav Klimt.

The case stemmed from a lawsuit filed in 2000 in federal court in California by Maria Altmann claiming the wrongful taking of the paintings that have been on display in the Austrian Gallery.

The paintings were owned by Altmann's uncle, Ferdinand Bloch, a Jewish Czech sugar magnate, and included two portraits of his wife. When she died in 1925, she left a will requesting him to leave the artwork to the Austrian Gallery upon his death.

The Nazis seized the paintings when they invaded Austria in 1938. Bloch, who had supported anti-Nazi efforts before Adolf Hitler annexed Austria, fled Vienna for Switzerland, where he died in 1945.

In his will, Bloch left everything to his nephew and nieces, including Altmann. But his family agreed in 1946 that the paintings belonged to the Austrian government, based on his wife's will.

Altmann, who fled to California to escape the Nazis and is Ferdinand Bloch's sole surviving heir, claimed the family was extorted into signing away its rights to the paintings in 1946 and had been lied to by the Austrian government.

A federal judge in California and then a U.S. appeals court refused to dismiss the lawsuit.

The Supreme Court agreed the case can go forward. Justice John Paul Stevens said in the majority opinion that there is an exception to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 for cases in which property has been taken in violation of international law.

He said the exception would apply to the alleged wrongdoing at issue in the case, even though it occurred before the law's adoption in 1976 and even before the State Department in 1952 adopted a new, restrictive theory on when a foreign state can claim sovereign immunity.

Stevens emphasized the holding in the case was very narrow, only concerning the reach of the 1976 law. He left open the possibility that Austria and the museum still could win when the case goes back to a lower court for more hearings.

The U.S. Justice Department supported Austria in its appeal, as did the Japanese and Mexican governments, while the Austrian Jewish Community, the American Jewish Congress and the American Jewish Committee all supported Altmann.

Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justices Anthony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas dissented.

"The court abruptly tells foreign nations this important principle of American law is unavailable to them in our courts," Kennedy wrote of the general rule against making U.S. laws apply retroactively.

"The court, in addition, injects great prospective uncertainty into our relations with foreign sovereigns," he added.