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SAN FRANCISCO (Combined
Sources)—A federal appeals court Thursday rejected a California
law that allowed heirs to Genocide victims to seek payment on
life insurance policies of victims’ relatives.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court
of Appeals said the law amounted to unconstitutional meddling in
US foreign policy.
It based its 2-1 ruling on
a 2003 U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down another
California law designed to help Holocaust survivors collect on
Nazi-era insurance policies.
“The decision by the U.S.
Court of Appeals is an affront to the Armenian American
community and, if allowed to stand, sets a dangerous precedent
by rewarding the Turkish Government’s efforts on the federal
level to deny and cover-up the Armenian Genocide,” said Armenian
National Committee-Western Region board chairman Vicken
Sonentz-Papazian.
“The message this decision
sends is that if you can threaten, cajole and stonewall the U.S.
government into inaction on a ‘foreign policy’ issue, you can
eliminate a valid and righteous claim of an American citizen in
a U.S. court of law,” added Papazian.
The Los Angeles Times
reported Friday that Judge Harry Pregerson dissented from the
majority opinion by Judges David R. Thompson and Dorothy W.
Nelson. Pregerson wrote that the District Court had correctly
judged the California statute as “within the state’s traditional
area of competence” in regulating the insurance industry,
according to the LA Times.
Lawyer Brian Kabateck, who
represents Armenian-American heirs, plans to appeal.
“The ruling is wrong. It’s
a disaster,” Kabateck told the Associated Press. “The one
million Armenians that live in California today have been told
by the court that even the use of the word ‘genocide’ by a
government is illegal.”
Vartkes Yeghiayan, the
lawyer for lead plaintiff Father Vazken Movsesian of St. Peter
Armenian Church, described the ruling as “devastating,” reported
the Los Angeles Times.
The California Legislature
passed the law giving heirs of Armenians who died or fled to
avoid persecution until the end of next year to file claims for
old bank accounts and life insurance policies. European banks
and insurers are said to have retained assets valued in 1915 at
about $15 million, a sum worth substantially more at today’s
value.
Class-action lawsuits
brought by Armenian descendants in California and other states
led to a $20 million settlement with New York Life Insurance Co.
in 2005 and a $17 million settlement the same year with French
life insurer AXA.
William Werfelman, a
spokesman for New York Life, said the company had no intention
of trying to get back any of the money it paid out under the
2005 settlement, the Associated Press reported.
“By acting honorably, and
in keeping with our company values of humanity and integrity,
New York Life made many friends in the Armenian community and we
cherish these friends,” Werfelman told the Associated Press.
Thursday’s ruling reversed
a lower court judge who refused to dismiss another class-action
suit against the German life insurance companies.
U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff,
D-Pasadena, who as a state assemblyman co-wrote the law that was
overturned by the 9th Circuit, was perplexed by the court’s
reasoning, according to the Associated Press.
“You have a group of
people that has a government that hasn’t had the will to
recognize the genocide and as a result of that failing, are
being told they don’t have valid insurance claims,” he told the
AP.
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