The Supreme Court on Thursday issued a unanimous ruling for the heirs of a Holocaust survivor seeking to retrieve a painting by French impressionist Camille Pissarro that was stolen by Nazis during World War II and later put on display in a Spanish museum.
The high court’s nine justices were presented with the question of what law federal courts should use when hearing claims brought under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. Justice Elena Kagan wrote the 9-0 ruling, arguing that state law should be followed in accordance with the decision rather than federal.
“The path of our decision has been as short as the hunt for Rue Saint-Honoré was long,” Kagan said, referring to the painting sought by the heirs of a German Jewish art dealer.
NAZI-STOLEN VAN GOGH PAINTING EXPECTED TO SELL FOR MORE THAN $30 MILLION
The high court’s ruling does not end the dispute over the painting because the case was remanded to lower courts, overturning a previous 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that said the painting was lawfully obtained under Spanish law.
Lilly Cassirer inherited the painting and displayed it in her Berlin home prior to the war, before it was taken after the Nazis came to power in 1933. In 1939, she surrendered the painting to the Nazis in an effort to obtain an exit visa to England, according to court records.
Rue Saint-Honore was brought to the United States illegally following the war and was sold by a Beverly Hills gallery in 1951. A New York gallery later arranged for its sale in 1976 to Swiss art collector Baron Hans Heinrich von Thyssen-Bornemisza, who was also the heir to a German steel empire.
Museum officials had sought to have the case tossed out over the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, a measure that protects foreign governments from lawsuits. However, the law includes an exception for items confiscated in violation of international law.
The German Federal Republic offered Cassirer roughly $250,000 in today’s dollars back in 1958 as a form of compensation, though the painting is “thought to be worth tens of millions,” according to the case files.
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Thursday’s high court ruling marks a procedural win for David Boies, head of Boies Schiller Flexner, who argued the case Cassirer v. Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Foundation in January.
