Cassirer v. Thyssen-Bornemisza

Cassirer on Remand: Considering the Laws of Other Interested States

Claude Cassirer brought suit in federal court in California eighteen years ago against the Thyssen Bornemisza Museum of Madrid, Spain, to recover a painting by Camille Pissarro that was stolen from his grandmother by the Nazis during World War II.  After a reversal and remand from the U.S. Supreme Court last summer, the case is…

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Thoughts on the Respondent’s Brief in Great Lakes

In a prior post, I surveyed the facts, procedural history, and potential significance of Great Lakes Insurance SE v. Raiders Retreat Realty Co., LLC, an upcoming Supreme Court case about the enforceability of choice-of-law clauses in maritime insurance contracts. In a subsequent post, I shared some thoughts about the brief filed by the petitioner, Great Lakes Insurance SE (GLI). In this…

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Update on Cassirer

Last year, the Supreme Court decided Cassirer v. Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Foundation, a case about choice of law under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA). This post gives a quick update on what has happened since, and where things are going next. Cassirer is a lawsuit about the ownership of a Camille Pissarro painting, surrendered by…

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New Scholarship on the FSIA

Vivian Grosswald Curran (University of Pittsburgh) has a draft article up on SSRN entitled Nazi Stolen Art: Uses and Misuses of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act.  Many important FSIA cases have involved great works of art stolen by the Nazis including the Supreme Court’s 2003 decision in Altmann v. Republic of Austria concerning the ownership…

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Supreme Court Round-Up, OT 2021

Transnational litigation has been a persistent, if small, part of the Supreme Court’s docket in the Roberts Court. With the Supreme Court now on its summer break, here is a summary of TLB’s coverage of October Term 2021 cases, which included important decisions on choice of law and federalism and on discovery for use in…

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When Should Federal Common Law Govern Transnational Litigation?

The conventional wisdom is that transnational litigation “can trigger foreign relations concerns.” Because the federal government has primary responsibility for the United States’ relations with other nations, the question naturally arises whether federal law should govern such litigation even when neither a federal statute, nor the U.S. Constitution, nor a treaty is applicable. Currently, as…

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Foreign Sovereign Immunity and Choice of Law—State, not Federal

In Cassirer v. Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Foundation, the Supreme Court unanimously held that, in adjudicating state-law claims against a foreign state or instrumentality under one of the exceptions to the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act (FSIA), 28 U.S.C. § 1602, et seq., a federal court must apply the choice-of-law rules of the forum state rather than federal…

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What Should Happen Next in Cassirer?

Most of the procedural questions that arise in domestic litigation have a counterpart in transnational litigation. In Cassirer v. Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Foundation, the Supreme Court confronted the transnational counterpart to Klaxon v. Stentor Electric Manufacturing Co., a much-debated choice-of-law case decided in 1941. As Justice Kagan noted in her opinion for a unanimous Court, “[a]lthough…

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Cassirer and FSIA Choice of Law

Today the Supreme Court unanimously resolved an important case about choice of law under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA). Cassirer v. Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Foundation is a lawsuit about the ownership of a Camille Pissarro painting, surrendered by Lilly Cassirer to the Nazis and now held by a foundation created and controlled by the Government…

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Supreme Court decides Cassirer v. Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Foundation

The Supreme Court today unanimously held in Cassirer v. Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Foundation that state choice-of-law rules apply in cases brought against foreign sovereigns alleging non-federal claims.

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Ingrid (Wuerth) Brunk

Vanderbilt Law School
ingrid.wuerth@vanderbilt.eduEmail

William Dodge

UC Davis School of Law
wsdodge@ucdavis.eduEmail

Maggie Gardner

Cornell Law School
mgardner@cornell.eduEmail

John F. Coyle

University of North Carolina School of Law
jfcoyle@email.unc.eduEmail

Zachary D. Clopton

Northwestern Pritzker School of Law
zclopton@law.northwestern.eduEmail

Cara Maines

NYU School of Law
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Zachary Orr

Vanderbilt Law School
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Carlos M. Vázquez

Georgetown University Law Center
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Maggie Lee

The Human Trafficking Legal Center
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Martina E. Vandenberg

The Human Trafficking Legal Center
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Timothy R. Holbrook

Emory University School of Law
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Anshu Garg

Emory University School of Law
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Linda J. Silberman

New York University School of Law
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Paul B. Stephan

University of Virginia School of Law
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Rochelle C. Dreyfuss

NYU School of Law
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