Supreme Court of the United States · Official docket →
Laurel Zuckerman, as Ancillary Administratrix of the Estate of Alice Leffmann v. The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Paid petition · United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, No. 18-634 · judgment June 26, 2019
Before the decision, well below the 4.1% base rate, with no standout signals pointing toward a grant.
Questions presented
The Actor, a masterwork by Pablo Picasso currently held by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, once belonged to Paul and Alice Leffmann, German Jews who fled from Germany to Italy in 1937 to escape the Nazis. Paul was forced to sell the painting in 1938 for a price far below its actual value to finance his and Alice’s safe passage out of Nazi-allied Italy, which had adopted and implemented the Nazi pattern of rampant anti-Semitic policies and outright physical persecution of Jews. Laurel Zuckerman, the Leffmanns’ great-grandniece, in her role as ancillary administratrix of the estate of Alice Leffmann, sought to recover The Actor. The District Court dismissed the action. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal on a ground not reached by the District Court: it found laches, even though the action was brought within the time required by Section 5 of the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act of 2016, Pub. L. No. 114-308. The questions presented are:
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Whether the nonstatutory defense of laches may bar an action to recover artwork lost because of Nazi persecution, where that action has been brought within the statute of limitations prescribed by Congress in the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act of 2016?
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Whether an action may be dismissed for laches at the Rule 12(b)(6) stage without discovery or exploration of factual disputes about the laches defense?
Counsel of record
For petitioner
Mary-Christine Sungaila
Complex Appellate Litigation Group LLP
For respondent
David William Bowker
Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP
Proceedings
- Mar 02 2020Petition DENIED.
- Feb 27 2020Brief amicus curiae of Byrne Goldenberg & Hamilton, PLLC filed.
- Feb 25 2020Brief amici curiae of Law Professors filed.
- Feb 25 2020Brief amicus curiae of James D. Bindenagel filed. (Distributed)
- Feb 24 2020Brief amici curiae of B'nai B'rith International, Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, Simon Wiesenthal Center, et al. filed. (Distributed)
- Feb 24 2020Brief amici curiae of Armenian Bar Association and Armenian Legal Center for Justice and Human Rights filed. (Distributed)
- Feb 21 2020Brief amici curiae of Current and Former Members of Congress filed. (Distributed)
- Feb 20 2020Brief amici curiae of The 1939 Society, Bet Tzedek, and The Holocaust Education Center in the Desert, Inc. d/b/a Tolerance Education Center filed. (Distributed)
- Feb 14 2020Blanket Consent filed by Petitioner, Laurel Zuckerman, as Ancillary Administratrix of the Estate of Alice Leffmann
- Feb 12 2020DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 2/28/2020.
- Feb 11 2020Consent to the filing of amicus briefs received from counsel for Laurel Zuckerman, as Ancillary Administratrix of the Estate of Alice Leffmann not accepted for filing. (February 12, 2020 - petitioner has not granted blanket consent)
- Feb 07 2020Waiver of right of respondent The Metropolitan Museum of Art to respond filed.
- Jan 24 2020Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due February 27, 2020)
- Nov 19 2019Application (19A562) granted by Justice Ginsburg extending the time to file until January 24, 2020.
- Nov 14 2019Application (19A562) to extend the time to file a petition for a writ of certiorari from November 27, 2019 to January 24, 2020, submitted to Justice Ginsburg.