Recent Development by Jeremy Ledger Ross
Maria Altmann immigrated to the United States from Austria in 1942, ultimately settling in California and becoming a United States citizen in 1945. She is the heir of the original owner of six Gustav Klimt paintings, which were allegedly expropriated by the Austrian government during World War II. Altmann filed suit against the Republic of Austria and the Austrian Art Gallery in an Austrian court to reclaim the paintings, but ultimately abandoned those claims due to prohibitive court costs. She then refiled her lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Central District of California, asserting jurisdiction under section 2 of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 (FSIA or Act). Petitioners Republic of Austria and the Austrian Gallery, an instrumentality of the Republic, moved to dismiss the complaint, contending that they would have had sovereign immunity in 1948, the year of the alleged expropriation, and that the FSIA does not apply retroactively to pre-1952 conduct.
The district court denied the motion to dismiss, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed, and the United States Supreme Court eventually granted certiorari. The Court limited its review to the question of whether the FSIA applies retroactively to conduct preceding its enactment and, additionally, to conduct preceding the adoption of the “restrictive theory” of sovereign immunity by the United States in 1952. In an opinion written by Justice Stevens, the Court held that the FSIA applies to conduct preceding both the 1952 adoption of the “restrictive theory” of sovereign immunity and the enactment of the FSIA itself. Republic of Austria v. Altmann, 124 S. Ct. 2240, 2254 (2004).
About the Author
Jeremy Ledger Ross. J.D. candidate 2006, Tulane University School of Law; B.A. 2001, University of Minnesota.
Citation
79 Tul. L. Rev. 1113 (2005)