Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-12-55733/USCOURTS-ca9-12-55733-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Norton Simon Art Foundation
Appellee
Norton Simon Museum of Art at Pasadena
Appellee
State of California
Amicus Curiae
Marei Von Saher
Appellant

Document Text:

FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

MAREI VON SAHER,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

NORTON SIMON MUSEUM OF ART AT

PASADENA; NORTON SIMON ART

FOUNDATION,

Defendants-Appellees.

No. 12-55733

D.C. No.

2:07-CV-02866-

JFW-JTL

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Central District of California

John F. Walter, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted

August 22, 2013—Pasadena, California

Filed June 6, 2014

Before: Harry Pregerson, Dorothy W. Nelson,

and Kim McLane Wardlaw, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge D.W. Nelson;

Dissent by Judge Wardlaw

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2 VON SAHER V. NORTON SIMON MUSEUM

SUMMARY*

Federal Policy Conflict

The panel reversed the district court’s Fed. R. Civ. P.

12(b)(6) dismissal of Marei Von Saher’s action claiming that

she was the rightful owner of two panels painted by Lucas

Cranach, Adam and Eve, which hang in Pasadena’s Norton

Simon Museum of Art.

Relying on California state law, Von Saher alleged that

the Nazis forcibly purchased the panels from her deceased

husband’s family in the Netherlands during World War II. 

The district court held that Von Saher’s specific claims and

the remedies she sought conflicted with the United States’

express federal policy on recovered art, and the claims were

barred by conflict preemption.

The panel held that Von Saher’s claims did not conflict

with any federal policy because the Cranachs were never

subject to postwar internal restitution proceedings in the

Netherlands. The panel held that Von Saher’s claims against

the museum and the remedies she sought did not conflict with

foreign policy, and the dispute was one between private

parties. The panel remanded for further development on the

issue of whether the case implicated the act of state doctrine.

Dissenting, Judge Wardlaw would affirm the judgment of

the district court because Von Saher’s state law claims would

* This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has

been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

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VON SAHER V. NORTON SIMON MUSEUM 3

conflict with federal policy, which respects the finality of the

Netherlands’ restitution proceedings.

COUNSEL

Lawrence M. Kaye (argued), Herrick, Feinstein LLP, New

York, New York; Donald S. Burris, Burris, Schoenberg &

Walden, LLP, Los Angeles, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Fred A. Rowley, Jr. (argued), Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP,

Los Angeles, California, for Defendant-Appellee.

Catherine Z. Ysrael, Deputy Attorney General, for Amicus

Curiae State of California.

OPINION

D.W. NELSON, Senior Circuit Judge:

This case concerns the fate of two life-size panels painted

by Lucas Cranach the Elder in the sixteenth century. Adam

and Eve (collectively, “the Cranachs” or “the panels”) hang

today in Pasadena’s Norton Simon Museum of Art (“the

Museum”). Marei Von Saher claims she is the rightful owner

of the panels, which the Nazis forcibly purchased from her

deceased husband’s family during World War II. The district

court dismissed Von Saher’s complaint as insufficient to state

a claim upon which relief can be granted, and that dismissal

is before us on appeal. We have jurisdiction pursuant to

28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we reverse and remand.

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4 VON SAHER V. NORTON SIMON MUSEUM

I. Background

In reviewing the district court’s decision, we must “accept

factual allegations in the complaint as true and construe the

pleadings in the light most favorable to” Von Saher. 

Manzarek v. St. Paul Fire & Marine Ins. Co., 519 F.3d 1025,

1031 (9th Cir. 2008). We therefore hew closely to the

allegations in the complaint in describing the facts.

A. Jacques Goudstikker Acquires the Cranachs

For the 400 years following their creation in 1530, the

panels hung in the Church of the Holy Trinity in Kiev,

Ukraine. In 1927, Soviet authorities sent the panels to a stateowned museum at a monastery and in 1927 transferred them

to the Art Museum at the Ukrainian Academy of Science in

Kiev. Soviet authorities then began to arrange to sell stateowned artworks abroad and held an auction in Berlin in 1931

as part of that effort. This auction, titled “The Stroganoff

Collection,” included artworks previously owned by the

Stroganoff family. The collection also included the Cranachs,

though Von Saher disputes that the Stroganoffs ever owned

the panels. Jacques Goudstikker, who lived in the

Netherlands with his wife, Desi, and their only child, Edo,

purchased the Cranachs at the 1931 auction.

B. The Nazis Confiscate the Cranachs

Nearly a decade hence in May 1940, the Nazis invaded

the Netherlands. The Goudstikkers, a Jewish family, fled. 

They left behind their gallery, which contained more than

1,200 artworks—the Cranachs among them. The family

boarded the SS Bodegraven, a ship bound for South America. 

Days into their journey, Jacques accidentally fell to his death

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VON SAHER V. NORTON SIMON MUSEUM 5

through an uncovered hatch in the ship’s deck. When he

died, Jacques had with him a black notebook, which

contained entries describing the artworks in the Goudstikker

Collection and which is known by art historians and experts

as “the Blackbook.” Desi retrieved the Blackbook when

Jacques died. It lists the Cranachs as part of the Goudstikker

Collection.

Meanwhile, back in the Netherlands, high-level Nazi

Reichsmarschall Herman Göring divested the Goudstikker

Collection of its assets, including the Cranachs. Jacques’

mother, Emilie, had remained in the Netherlands when her

son fled to South America with his wife and child. Göring’s

agent warned Emilie that he intended to confiscate the

Goudstikker assets, but if she cooperated in that process, the

Nazis would protect her from harm. Thus, Emilie was

persuaded to vote her minority block of shares in the

Goudstikker Gallery to effectuate a “sale” of the gallery’s

assets for a fraction of their value.

Employees of the Goudstikker Gallery contacted Desi to

obtain her consent to a sale of the majority of the outstanding

shares in the gallery, which she had inherited upon Jacques’

death. She refused. Nevertheless, the sale went through

when two gallery employees, unauthorized to sell its assets, 

subsequently entered into two illegal contracts. In the first,

the “Göring transaction,” Göring “purchased” 800 of the most

valuable artworks in the Goudstikker collection. Göring then

took those pieces, including the Cranachs, from the

Netherlands to Germany. He displayed Adam and Eve in

Carinhall, his country estate near Berlin. 

In the second illegal contract, the “Miedl transaction,”

Nazi Alois Miedl took over the Goudstikker business and

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6 VON SAHER V. NORTON SIMON MUSEUM

properties. Miedl began operating an art dealership out of

Jacques’s gallery with the artwork that Göring left behind. 

Miedl employed Jacques’s former employees as his own and

traded on the goodwill of the Goudstikker name in the art

world.

C. The Allies Recover Nazi-Looted Art, Including the

Cranachs

In the summer of 1943, the United States, the Netherlands

and other nations signed the London Declaration, which

“served as a formal warning to all concerned, and in

particular persons in neutral countries, that the Allies

intended to do their utmost to defeat the methods of

dispossession practiced by the governments with which they

[were] at war.” Von Saher v. Norton Simon Museum of Art at

Pasadena (“Von Saher I”), 592 F.3d 954, 962 (9th Cir. 2010)

(internal quotation marks and citation omitted). The Allies

“reserved the right to invalidate wartime transfers of property,

regardless of whether” those transfers took the form of open

looting, plunder or forced sales. Id.

When American forces arrived on German soil in the

winter of 1944 and 1945, they discovered large caches of

Nazi-looted and stolen art hidden in castles, banks, salt mines

and caves. Von Saher I, 592 F.3d R 962. The United States

established collection points for gathering, cataloging and

caring for the recovered pieces. Id. At a collection point in

Munich, Allied forces identified the Cranachs and other items

from the Goudstikker Collection.

In order to reunite stolen works of art with their rightful

owners, President Truman approved a policy statement

setting forth the procedures governing looted artwork found

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VON SAHER V. NORTON SIMON MUSEUM 7

in areas under U.S. control. Von Saher I, 592 F.3d at 962. 

These procedures had two components—external restitution

and internal restitution. Under external restitution, nations

formerly occupied by the Germans would present to U.S.

authorities “consolidated lists of items taken [from their

citizens] by the Germans.” Id. These lists would include

“information about the location and circumstances of the

theft.” Id. American authorities would identify the listed

artworks and return them to their country of origin. Id. The

United States stopped accepting claims for externalrestitution

on September 15, 1948. Id. at 963. Under internal

restitution, each nation had the responsibility for restoring the

externally restituted artworks to their rightful owners. Id.

In 1946, the Allied Forces returned the pieces from the

Goudstikker Collection to the Dutch government so that the

artworks could be held in trust for their lawful owners: Desi,

Edo and Emilie.

D. Desi’s Postwar Attempt to Recover the Cranachs

In 1944, the Dutch government issued the Restitution of

Legal Rights Decree, which established internal restitution

procedures for the Netherlands. As a condition of restitution,

people whose artworks were returned to them had to pay back

any compensation received in a forced sale.

In 1946, Desi returned to the Netherlands intending to

seek internal restitution of her property. Upon her return but

before she made an official claim, the Dutch government

characterized the Göring and Miedl transactions as voluntary

sales undertaken without coercion. Thus, the government

determined that it had no obligation to restore the looted

property to the Goudstikker family. The government also

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8 VON SAHER V. NORTON SIMON MUSEUM

took the position that if Desi wanted her property returned,

she would have to pay for it, and she would not receive

compensation for missing property, the loss of goodwill

associated with the Goudstikker gallery’s name or the profits

Miedl made off the gallery during the war.

Desi decided to file a restitution claim for the property

sold in the Miedl transaction, so that she could recover her

home and some of her personal possessions. In 1952, she

entered into a settlement agreement with the Dutch

government, under protest, regarding only the Miedl

transaction. As part of that settlement, Desi repurchased the

property Miedl took from her for an amount she could afford. 

The agreement stated that Desi acquiesced to the settlement

in order to avoid years of expensive litigation and due to her

dissatisfaction with the Dutch government’s refusal to

compensate her for the extraordinary losses the Goudstikker

family suffered at the hands of the Nazis during the war.

Given the government’s position that the Nazi-era sales

were voluntary and because of its refusal to compensate the

Goudstikkers for their losses, Desi believed that she would

not be successful in a restitution proceeding to recover the

artworks Göring had looted. She therefore opted not to file

a restitution claim related to the Göring transaction. The

Netherlands kept the Göring-looted artworks in the Dutch

National Collection. Von Saher alleges that title in these

pieces did not pass to the Dutch Government.

In the 1950s, the Dutch government auctioned off at least

63 of the Goudstikker paintings recovered from Göring. 

These pieces did not include the Cranachs.

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VON SAHER V. NORTON SIMON MUSEUM 9

E. Von Saher Recovers Artwork from the Dutch

Government

In the meantime, Desi and her son Edo became American

citizens, and Desi marriedAugust Edward Dimitri Von Saher. 

When Emilie died in 1954, she left all of her assets, including

her share in the Goudstikker Gallery, to her daughter-in-law,

Desi, and her grandson, Edo. Desi then died in February

1996, leaving all of her assets to Edo. Just months later, in

July 1996, Edo died and left his entire estate to his wife,

Marei Von Saher, the plaintiff-appellant. Thus, Marei is the

sole living heir to Jacques Goudstikker.

In 1997, the State Secretary of the Dutch Government’s

Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (the “State

Secretary”) announced that the Dutch government had

undertaken an investigation into the provenance of artworks

recovered in Germany and returned to the Netherlands

following Word War II. Related to that investigation, the

government began accepting claims for recovered artworks

in its custody that had not been restituted after the war.

Around the same time, a Dutch journalist contacted Von

Saher and explained to her the circumstances regarding

Göring’s looting of the Goudstikker gallery, Desi’s efforts to

obtain restitution and the Dutch government’s continued

possession of some Goudstikker pieces in its national

collection. This conversation was the first time Von Saher

learned about these events.

In 1998, Von Saher wrote to the Dutch State Secretary

requesting the surrender of all of the property from the

Goudstikker collection in the custody of the Dutch

government. The State Secretary rejected this request,

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10 VON SAHER V. NORTON SIMON MUSEUM

concluding that the postwar restitution proceedings were

conducted carefully and declining to waive the statute of

limitations so that Von Saher could submit a claim. Von

Saher made various attempts to appeal this decision without

success.

While Von Saher pursued various legal challenges, the

Dutch government created the Ekkart Committee to

investigate the provenance of art in the custody of the

Netherlands. The committee described the handling of

restitution in the immediate postwar period as “legalistic,

bureaucratic, cold and often even callous.” It also criticized

many aspects of the internal restitution process, among them

employing a narrow definition of “involuntary loss” and

requiring owners to return proceeds from forced sales as a

condition of restitution.

Upon the recommendation of the Ekkart Committee, the

Dutch government created the Origins Unknown project to

trace the original owners of the artwork in its custody. The

Dutch government also set up the AdvisoryCommittee on the

Assessment of Restitution Applications for Items of Cultural

Value and the Second World War (“the Restitutions

Committee”) to evaluate restitution claims and to provide

guidance to the Ministry for Education, Culture and Science

on those claims. Between 2002 and 2007, the Restitution

Committee received 90 claims.

In 2004, Von Saher made a restitution claim for all of the

Goudstikker artwork in the possession of the Netherlands. 

The Committee recommended that the government grant the

application with respect to all of the artworks plundered in the

Göring transaction, which the Committee deemed

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VON SAHER V. NORTON SIMON MUSEUM 11

involuntary. The State Secretary adopted the Committee’s

recommendation.

Unfortunately, the Dutch government no longer had

custody of the Cranachs. In 1961, George Stroganoff

Scherbatoff (“Stroganoff”) claimed that the Soviet Union had

wrongly seized the Cranachs from his family and unlawfully

sold the paintings to Jacques Goudstikker thirty years earlier

at the “Stroganoff Collection” auction in Berlin. Thus,

Stroganoff claimed that the Dutch government had no right,

title or interest in the panels. In 1966, the Dutch government

transferred the Cranachs and a third painting to Stroganoff in

exchange for a monetary payment. The terms of this

transaction, including the amount Stroganoff paid for the

artworks, are not in the record before us. The Dutch

government did not notify Desi or Edo that Stroganoff made

a claim to the panels or that the panels were being transferred

to him. In 1971, New York art dealer Spencer Samuels

acquired the Cranachs from Stroganoff, either as an agent or

as a purchaser. Later that year, the Museum acquired the

Cranachs and has possessed them ever since.

F. Von Saher Seeks Recovery From The Museum

In 2000, a Ukranian art historian researching the

deaccession of artworks from state-owned museums in Kiev

contacted Von Saher. He explained to Von Saher that he

happened upon Adam and Eve when he visited the Museum,

and once he researched the origin of the panels, he felt

compelled to contact her. Because Cranach the Elder painted

30 similar depictions of Adam and Eve, Von Saher could not

be certain whether the diptychs in the Museum were the ones

missing from the Goudstikker collection. She contacted the

Museum about the panels, and the parties engaged in a six-

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12 VON SAHER V. NORTON SIMON MUSEUM

year effort to resolve this matter informally, which proved

unsuccessful.

In May 2007, Von Saher sued the Museum, relying on

California Code of Civil Procedure Section 354.3. That

statute allowed the rightful owners of confiscated Holocaustera artwork to recover their items from museums or galleries

and set a filing deadline of December 31, 2010. Cal. Civ.

Proc. Code § 354.3(b), (c).

The district court dismissed the action, finding Section

354.3 facially unconstitutional on the basis of field

preemption. The court also found Von Saher’s claims

untimely.

We affirmed, over Judge Pregerson’s dissent, holding

Section 354.3 unconstitutional on the basis of field

preemption. Von Saher I, 592 F.3d at 957. Because it was

unclear whether Von Saher could amend her complaint to

show lack of reasonable notice to establish compliance with

California Code of Civil Procedure Section 338(c), we

unanimously remanded. Id. at 968–70.

Six weeks after this court issued Von Saher I, the

California legislature amended Section 338(c) to extend the

statute of limitations from three to six years for claims

concerning the recovery of fine art from a museum, gallery,

auctioneer or dealer. Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 338(c)(3)(A). In

addition, the amendments provided that a claim for the

recovery of fine art does not accrue until the actual discovery

of both the identity and the whereabouts of the artwork. Id.

The legislature made these changes explicitly retroactive. Id.

§ 338(c)(3)(B).

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VON SAHER V. NORTON SIMON MUSEUM 13

Von Saher filed a First Amended Complaint. The

Museum moved to dismiss, arguing that Von Saher’s specific

claims and the remedies she sought—not the amended

Section 338 itself—conflicted with the United States’ express

federal policy on recovered art. The district court agreed. It

held that the Solicitor General’s (“SG”) brief filed in the

Supreme Court in connection with Von Saher’s petition for

writ of certiorari from Von Saher I, “clarified the United

States’ foreign policy as it specifically relates to Plaintiff’s

claims in this litigation.” The district court held “that the

United States’ policy of external restitution and respect for

the outcome and finality of the Netherlands’ bona fide

restitution proceedings, as clearlyexpressed and explained by

the SG in his amicus curiae brief, directly conflicts with the

relief sought in Plaintiff’s action.” The court dismissed the

complaint with prejudice. Von Saher timely appeals.

II. Standard of Review

We review de novo the district court’s dismissal of Von

Saher’s complaint. Manzarek, 519 F.3d at 1030. As

discussed, we must accept the factual allegations in the

complaint as true, and we construe the complaint in the light

most favorable to Von Saher. Id. at 1031.

III. Discussion

We first must decide whether the district court erred in

finding Von Saher’s claims barred by conflict preemption. It

did.

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14 VON SAHER V. NORTON SIMON MUSEUM

A. Applicable Law

“[T]he Constitution allocates the power over foreign

affairs to the federal government exclusively, and the power

to make and resolve war, including the authority to resolve

war claims, is central to the foreign affairs power in the

constitutional design.” Deutsch v. Turner Corp., 324 F.3d

692, 713–14 (9th Cir. 2003). “In the absence of some

specific action that constitutes authorization on the part of the

federal government, states are prohibited from exercising

foreign affairs powers, including modifying the federal

government’s resolution of war-related disputes.” Id. at 714.

“Foreign affairs preemption encompasses two related, but

distinct, doctrines: conflict preemption and field preemption.” 

Movsesian v. Victoria Versicherung AG, 670 F.3d 1067, 1071

(9th Cir. 2012) (en banc). In Von Saher I, we found Section

354.3 unconstitutional on the basis of field preemption. 

592 F.3d at 965, 968. Here, however, the Museum’s

argument focuses exclusively on conflict preemption. 

Specifically, the Museum contends that Von Saher’s claims,

and the remedies she seeks, are in conflict with federal policy

on the restitution of Nazi-stolen art.

“There is, of course, no question that at some point an

exercise of state power that touches on foreign relations must

yield to the National Government’s policy, given the ‘concern

for uniformity in this country’s dealings with foreign nations’

that animated the Constitution’s allocation of the foreign

relations power to the National Government in the first

place.” Am. Ins. Ass’n v. Garamendi, 539 U.S. 396, 413

(2003) (quoting Banco Nacional de Cuba v. Sabbatino,

376 U.S. 398, 427 n.25 (1964)). “The exercise of the federal

executive authoritymeans that state law must give waywhere

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VON SAHER V. NORTON SIMON MUSEUM 15

. . . there is evidence of a clear conflict between the policies

adopted by the two.” Id. at 421. “[T]he likelihood that state

legislation will produce somethingmore than incidental effect

in conflict with express foreign policy of the National

Government would require preemption of the state law.” Id.

at 420. Similarly, a state law is preempted “where under the

circumstances of [a] particular case, [the challenged state

law] stands as an obstacle to the accomplishment and

execution of the full purposes and objectives of” federal

policy. Crosby v. Nat’l Foreign Trade Council, 530 U.S.

363, 373 (2000) (internal quotations marks and citations

omitted).

Courts have found individual claims, or even entire

lawsuits, preempted where a plaintiff relies on a statute of

general applicability, as Von Saher does here. See, e.g., In

re: Assicurazioni Generali S.P.A. Holocaust Ins. Litig.,

340 F. Supp. 2d 494, 501 (S.D.N.Y 2004) (holding

Garamendi “requires dismissal . . . of the benefits claims

arising under generally applicable state statutes and common

law” because “[l]itigation of Holocaust-era insurance claims,

no matter the particular source of law under which the claims

arise, necessarily conflicts with the executive policy favoring

voluntary resolution of claims through [the International

Commission on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims]”), aff’d,

592 F.3d 113 (2d. Cir. 2010); see also Mujica v. Occidental

Petrol. Corp., 381 F. Supp. 2d 1164, 1187–88 (C.D. Cal.

2005) (finding plaintiffs’ state law tort claims preempted by

the foreign policy interest in the United States’ “bilateral

relationship with the Columbian government”).

The question we must answer is whether Von Saher’s

claims for replevin and conversion, as well as the remedies

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she seeks, conflict with federal policy. We conclude that they

do not.

B. Federal Policy on Nazi-Looted Art

We start by looking to federal policy on the restitution of

Nazi-looted art. As discussed, the United States signed the

London Declaration and subsequently adopted a policy of

external restitution based on the principles in that declaration. 

In Von Saher I, we noted that the United States stopped

accepting claims for external restitution on September 15,

1948, and accordingly concluded that the United States’

policy of external restitution ended that year. 592 F.3d at

963. Thus, we held that California Civil Procedure Code

Section 354.3 could not “conflict with or stand as an obstacle

to a policy that is no longer in effect.” Id.

It seems that we misunderstood federal policy. In a 2011

brief filed in the Supreme Court recommending the denial of

a petition for writ of certiorari in Von Saher I, the United

States, via the Solicitor General (“SG”), reaffirmed our

nation’s continuing and ongoing commitment to external

restitution. The SG explained that external restitution did not

end in 1948 with the deadline for submitting restitution

claims, as we had concluded in Von Saher I. Instead, “[t]he

United States established a deadline to ensure prompt

submission of claims and achieve finality in the wartime

restitution process,” and the United States has a “continuing

interest in that finality when appropriate actions have been

taken by a foreign government concerning the internal

restitution of art.”

Federal policy also includes the Washington Conference

Principles on Nazi Confiscated Art (“the Principles”),

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produced at the Washington Conference on Holocaust-Era

Art Assets in 1998. Though non-binding, the Principles

reflect a consensus reached by the representatives of 13

nongovernmental organizations and 44 governments,

including both the United States and the Netherlands, to

resolve issues related to Nazi-looted art. The Principles

provided first that “Art that has been confiscated by the Nazis

and not subsequently restituted should be identified” and that

“[e]very effort should be made to publicize” this art “in order

to locate pre-War owners and their heirs.” The signatories

agreed that “[p]re-war owners and their heirs should be

encouraged to come forward and make known their claims to

art that was confiscated by the Nazis and not subsequently

restituted.” The Principles also provided that when such heirs

are located, “steps should be taken expeditiously to achieve

a just and fair solution, recognizing this may vary according

to facts and circumstances surrounding a specific case.” 

Finally, the Principles encouraged nations “to develop

national processes to implement these principles,” including

alternative dispute resolution.

Additionally, in 2009, the UnitedStates participated in the

Prague Holocaust Era Assets Conference,which produced the

“legally non-binding” Terezin Declaration on Holocaust Era

Assets and Related Issues, to which the United States and the

Netherlands agreed. The signatories reaffirmed their support

for the Washington Conference Principles and “encourage[d]

all parties[,] including public and private institutions and

individuals to apply them as well.” (emphasis added). “The

Participating States urge[d] that every effort be made to

rectify the consequences of wrongful property seizures, such

as confiscations, forced sales and sales under duress[.]” In

addition, the signatories “urge[d] all stakeholders to ensure

that their legal systems or alternative processes . . . facilitate

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just and fair solutions with regard to Nazi-confiscated and

looted art and to make certain that claims to recover such art

are resolved expeditiously and based on the facts and merits

of the claims and all the relevant documents submitted by the

parties.”

In sum, U.S. policy on the restitution of Nazi-looted art

includes the following tenets: (1) a commitment to respect the

finality of “appropriate actions” taken by foreign nations to

facilitate the internal restitution of plundered art; (2) a pledge

to identify Nazi-looted art that has not been restituted and to

publicize those artworks in order to facilitate the

identification of prewar owners and their heirs; (3) the

encouragement of prewar owners and their heirs to come

forward and claim art that has not been restituted;

(4) concerted efforts to achieve expeditious, just and fair

outcomes when heirs claim ownership to looted art; (5) the

encouragement of everyone, including public and private

institutions, to follow the Washington Principles; and (6) a

recommendation that every effort be made to remedy the

consequences of forced sales.

C. Von Saher’s Claims Do Not Conflict with Federal

Policy

Von Saher’s claims do not conflict with any federal

policy because the Cranachs were never subject to postwar

internal restitution proceedings in the Netherlands, as noted

in the complaint, the district court’s order and the opinion of

the Court of Appeals of The Hague.

Desi could have brought a claim for restitution as to all of

the artworks Göring looted in the immediate postwar period,

but she understandably chose not to do so prior to the July 1,

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1951 deadline. Per Von Saher, the “[h]istorical literature

makes clear that the post-War Dutch Government was

concerned that the immediate and automatic return of Jewish

property to its original owners would have created chaos in

the legal system and damaged the economic recovery of [t]he

Netherlands,” and “[t]his attitude was reflected in the

restitution process.” Desi was “met with hostility by the postWar Dutch Government” and “confronted a ‘restitution’

regime that made it difficult for Jews like [her] to recover

their property.” In fact, the Dutch government went so far as

to take the “astonishing position” that the transaction between

Göring and the Goudstikker Gallery was voluntary and taken

without coercion. Not surprisingly, Desi decided that she

could not achieve a successful result in a sham restitution

proceeding to recover the artworks Göring had looted. The

Dutch government later admitted as much when the Ekkart

Committee described the immediate postwar restitution

process as “legalistic, bureaucratic, cold and often even

callous.”

Moreover, the Dutch government transferred the

Cranachs to Stroganoff fourteen years after Desi settled her

claim against Miedl. The Museum contends that this

conveyance satisfied a restitution claim Stroganoff made as

the rightful heir to the Cranachs, but the record casts doubt on

that characterization. As noted, the deadline for filing an

internal restitution claim in the Netherlands expired July 1,

1951, and Stroganoff did not assert his claim to the Cranachs

until a decade later. In addition, the Restitution of Legal

Rights Decree, which governed the Dutch internal restitution

process, was established to create “special rules regarding

restitution of legal rights and restoration of rights in

connection with the liberalization of the [Netherlands]”

following World War II. The Decree included provisions

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20 VON SAHER V. NORTON SIMON MUSEUM

addressing the restitution of wrongful acts committed in

enemy territory during the war. To the extent that Stroganoff

made a claim of restitution, however, it was based on the

allegedly wrongful seizure of the paintings by the Soviet

Union before the Soviets sold the Cranachs to Jacques

Goudstikker in 1931—events which predated the war and any

wartime seizure of property. Thus, it seems dubious at best

to cast Stroganoff’s claim as one of internal restitution.

By the time Von Saher requested in 1998 that the Dutch

government surrender all of the Goudstikker artworks within

state control, the Cranachs had been in the Museum’s

possession for twenty-seven years. Even if Desi’s 1998

request for surrender could be construed as a claim for

restitution—made nearly 50 years after the deadline for filing

such a claim lapsed—the Cranachs were no longer in

possession of the Dutch government and necessarily fell

outside that claim.1

Though we recognize that the United States has a

continuing interest in respecting the finality of “appropriate

actions” taken in a foreign nation to restitute Nazi-confiscated

art, the Dutch government itself has acknowledged the

“legalistic, bureaucratic, cold and often even callous” nature

1 The dissent concludes that “the Cranachs were in fact subject to bona

fide internal restitution proceedings in the Netherlands in 1998–99 and

2004–06.” Dissent at 37; see also Dissent at 39 (“Von Saher did seek

‘restitution’ of the Cranachs, and her filing of the claims and the official

disposition ofthose claims do constitute proceedings.”). We cannot agree. 

In both 1998 and 2004, Von Saher sought the return of all the Goudstikker

artworks the Dutch government had in its possession. This necessarily

excludes the Cranachs because the Netherlands had divested itself of the

panels many decades earlier. We therefore cannot conclude that Von

Saher’s 1998 and 2004 claims included the Cranachs.

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VON SAHER V. NORTON SIMON MUSEUM 21

of the initial postwar restitution system. And the Dutch State

Secretary eventually ordered the return of all the Göringlooted artworks possessed by the Netherlands—the very

artwork Desi chose not to seek in the postwar restitution

process immediately following the war—to Von Saher. 

These events raise serious questions about whether the initial

postwar internal restitution process constitutes an appropriate

action taken by the Netherlands.

Nevertheless, we do not even need to go so far as

answering that query, nor should we on a motion to dismiss. 

Based on Von Saher’s allegations that (1) Desi chose not to

participate in the initial postwar restitution process, (2) the

Dutch government transferred the Cranachs to Stroganoff

before Desi or her heirs could make another claim and

(3) Stroganoff’s claim likely was not one of internal

restitution, the diptych was never subject to a postwar internal

restitution proceeding in the Netherlands. Thus, allowing

Von Saher’s claim to go forward would not disturb the

finality of any internal restitution proceedings—appropriate

or not—in the Netherlands.

Not only do we find an absence of conflict between Von

Saher’s claims and federal policy, but we believe her claims

are in concert with that policy. Von Saher is just the sort of

heir that the Washington Principles and Terezin Declaration

encouraged to come forward to make claims, again, because

the Cranachs were never subject to internal restitution

proceedings. Moreover, allowing her lawsuit to proceed

would encourage the Museum, a private entity, to follow the

Washington Principles, as the Terezin Declaration urged. 

Perhaps most importantly, this litigation may provide Von

Saher an opportunity to achieve a just and fair outcome to

rectify the consequences of the forced transaction with

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22 VON SAHER V. NORTON SIMON MUSEUM

Göring during the war, even if such a result is no longer

capable of being expeditiously obtained.

Nor is this dispute of the sort found to involve the

international problems evident in American Insurance

Association v. Garamendi. In that case, California passed

legislation that deemed the confiscation or frustration of

World War II insurance policies for Jewish policy holders an

unfair business practice. 539 U.S. at 408–11. California’s

insurance commissionerthen issued administrative subpoenas

against several subsidiaries of European insurance

companies. Id. at 411. Those insurance companies filed suit

seeing injunctive relief against the insurance commissioner of

California and challenging California’s Holocaust-era

insurance legislation as unconstitutional. Id. at 412. The

Supreme Court held the law preempted due to the “clear

conflict” between the policies adopted by the federal

government and the state of California. Id. at 419–21. As

part of that holding, the Court noted that “[v]indicating

victims injured by acts and omissions of enemy corporations

in wartime is thus within the traditional subject matter of

foreign policy in which national, not state, interests are

overriding, and which the National Government has

addressed.” Id. at 421.

Here, however, there is no Holocaust-specific legislation

at issue. Instead, Von Saher brings claims pursuant to a state

statute of general applicability. Also unlike Garamendi, Von

Saher seeks relief from an American museum that had no

connection to the wartime injustices committed against the

Goudstikkers. Nor does Von Saher seek relief from the

Dutch government itself. In fact, the record contains a 2006

letter from the Dutch Minister for Education, Culture and

Science, who confirmed that “the State of the Netherlands is

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VON SAHER V. NORTON SIMON MUSEUM 23

not involved in this dispute” between Von Saher and the

Museum. The Minister also opined that this case “concerns

a dispute between two private parties.”

We are not at all persuaded, as is the dissent, that the

Solicitor General’s brief requires a different outcome. 

Certainly, “there is a strong argument that federal courts

should give serious weight to the Executive Branch’s view of

[a] case’s impact on foreign policy.” Sosa v. AlvarezMachain, 542 U.S. 692, 733 n.21 (2004). But there are many

reasons why we find that weight unwarranted here.

First, the SG’s brief, which urged denying the petition for

writ of certiorari in Von Saher I, focused on California Code

of Civil Procedure Section 354.3. The SG argued that we had

correctly invalidated Section 354.3 as “impermissibly

intrud[ing] upon the foreign affairs authorities of the federal

government.” The SG noted that Von Saher I did not involve

the application of a state statute of general applicability but “a

state statute that is specifically and purposefully directed at

claims arising out of transactions and events that occurred in

Europe during the Nazi era, that in many cases were

addressed in the post-War period by the United States and

European Governments[.]” That is an altogether different

issue from the one we now decide, which is whether Von

Saher’s specific claims against the Museum—in just this one

case—conflict with foreign policy. This argument is not one

the SG considered or addressed when it counseled against

granting certiorari in Von Saher I, and we decline to read any

more into the SG’s brief than is there.

It also concerns us that the SG characterizes the facts in

a way that conflicts with the complaint, the record before us

and the parties’ positions. The SG argued that Von Saher I

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24 VON SAHER V. NORTON SIMON MUSEUM

“concerns artworks and transactions that, consistent with U.S.

policies, have already been the subject of both external and

internal restitution proceedings, including recent proceedings

bythe Netherlands in response to the Washington Principles.” 

As we have discussed, however, the Cranachs were not

subject to immediate postwar internal restitution proceedings

in the Netherlands, and Von Saher’s 1998 and 2004 claims

did not include the Cranachs.

This factual discrepancy also makes us wary of giving too

much credence to the SG’s brief because it demonstrates that

the SG goes beyond explaining federal foreign policy and

appears to make factual determinations. For instance, the

SG’s conclusion that the Cranachs have already been subject

to both internal and external restitution proceedings is not a

statement about our nation’s general approach to Nazi-looted

art. Instead, the SG concludes that in this specific case

involving these specific parties, external restitution took place

as contemplated by the United States. This looks much like

a factual finding in a matter in which we must accept the

allegations in the complaint as true. While we recognize and

respect the SG’s role in addressing how a matter may affect

foreign policy, we do not believe this extends to making

factual findings in conflict with the allegations in the

complaint, the record and the parties’ arguments.

Most worrisome, the SG admitted that “[t]he United

States does not contend that the fact that the Cranachs were

returned to the Dutch government pursuant to the external

restitution policy would be sufficient on its own force to bar

litigation if, for example, the Cranachs had not been subject

(or potentially subject to) bona fide restitution proceedings in

the Netherlands.” And therein lies the most serious and

troublesome obstacle to our relying too heavily on the SG’s

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VON SAHER V. NORTON SIMON MUSEUM 25

brief. Von Saher alleges, the Museum agrees and the record

shows that the Cranachs were never subject to immediate

postwar internal restitution proceedings in the Netherlands. 

Though the paintings were potentially subject to restitution

proceedings had Desi opted to participate in the postwar

internal restitution process, she chose not to engage in what

she felt was an unjust and unfair proceeding. Years later, the

Dutch government itself undermined the legitimacy of that

restitution process by describing it as “bureaucratic, cold and

often even callous,” and by eventually restituting to Von

Saher all of the artworks Göring had looted that were still

held by the Netherlands.

It would make little sense, then, for us to conclude that

Von Saher’s claims against the Museum cannot go forward

just because the United States returned the Cranachs to the

Netherlands as part of the external restitution process, for we

know and we cannot ignore, that the Cranachs were never

subject to postwar internal restitution proceedings and that

the 1998 and 2004 proceedings excluded the Cranachs. We

therefore do not find convincing the SG’s position—

presented in a brief in a different iteration of this case that

raised different arguments, that involved different sources of

law and that seems to have misunderstood some of the facts

essential to our resolution of this appeal.

Von Saher’s claims against the Museum and the remedies

she seeks do not conflict with foreign policy. This matter is,

instead, a dispute between private parties. The district court

erred in concluding otherwise.

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26 VON SAHER V. NORTON SIMON MUSEUM

D. Act of State

We are mindful that the litigation of this case may

implicate the act of state doctrine, though we cannot decide

that issue definitively on the record before us. We remand for

further development of this issue.

“Every sovereign state is bound to respect the

independence of every other sovereign state, and the courts of

one country will not sit in judgment on the acts of the

government of another, done within its own territory.” 

Underhill v. Hernandez, 168 U.S. 250, 252 (1897). “[T]he

act within its own boundaries of one sovereign state cannot

become the subject of re-examination and modification in the

courts of another. Such action when shown to have been

taken, becomes, . . . a rule of decision for the courts of this

country.” Ricaud v. Am. Metal Co., 246 U.S. 304, 310

(1918).

“In every case in which . . . the act of state doctrine

appli[es], the relief sought . . . would have required a court in

the United States to declare invalid the official act of a

foreign sovereign performed within its own territory.” W.S.

Kirkpatrick & Co., Inc. v. Envtl. Tectonics Corp., Int’l,

493 U.S. 400, 405 (1990). This doctrine is not “inflexible

and all-encompassing,” Banco Nacional de Cuba, 376 U.S.

at 428, nor is it “some vague doctrine of abstention but a

principle of decision binding on federal and state courts

alike,” W.S. Kirkpatrick, 493 U.S. at 406 (internal quotation

marks and citation omitted). The justification for invoking

the act of state doctrine “depends greatly on the importance

of the issue’s implications for our foreign policy.” Northrop

Corp. v. McDonnell Douglas Corp., 705 F.2d 1030, 1047 (9th

Cir. 1983).

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Von Saher seeks as remedies a declaration that she is the

rightful owner of the panels and an order both quieting title

in them and directing their immediate delivery to her. 

According this kind of relief may implicate the act of state

doctrine. See Oetjen v. Central Leather Co., 246 U.S. 297,

303–04 (1918) (holding act of state doctrine barred American

courts from considering the sale of animal hides by the

Mexican government); Ricaud, 246 U.S. at 310 (holding act

ofstate doctrine prohibited American courts from considering

the seizure of an American citizen’s property by the Mexican

government for military purposes).

Thus, it becomes important to determine whether the

conveyance to Stroganoff constituted an official act of a

sovereign, which might trigger the act of state doctrine. W.S.

Kirkpatrick, 493 U.S. at 406 (“Act of state issues only arise

when a court must decide—that is, when the outcome of the

case turns upon—the effect of official action by a foreign

sovereign.”). We cannot answer this question because the

record is devoid of any information about that transfer. For

her part, Von Saher alleges that the Netherlands “wrongfully

delivered the Cranachs to Stroganoff as part of a sale

transaction,” and for the purpose of this appeal, we must

accept the allegations in her complaint as true, Manzarek,

519 F.3d at 1031. She also contends that no one ever referred

to the transfer of the Cranachs to Stroganoff as attendant to

“restitution proceedings” until we described the facts that way

in Von Saher I. 592 F.3d at 959. In her view, the Museum

has since adopted that characterization of the facts. The

district court is best-equipped to determine which of these

competing characterizations is correct.

If on remand, the Museum can show that the Netherlands

returned the Cranachs to Stroganoff to satisfy some sort of

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28 VON SAHER V. NORTON SIMON MUSEUM

restitution claim, that act could “constitute a considered

policy decision by a government to give effect to its political

and public interests . . . and so [would be] . . . the type of

sovereign activity that would be of substantial concern to the

executive branch in its conduct of international affairs.” 

Clayco Petrol. Corp. v. Occidental Petrol. Corp., 712 F.2d

404, 406–07 (9th Cir. 1983) (per curiam) (internal quotations

and citations omitted); see also Alfred Dunhill of London, Inc.

v. Rep. of Cuba, 425 U.S. 682, 695 (1976) (noting foreign

government had not offered a government “statute, decree,

order, or resolution” showing that the government action was

undertaken as a “sovereign matter”); but see id. at 406–07

(noting the Third Circuit held that the granting of patents by

a foreign sovereign would not implicate the act of state

doctrine); Timberlane Lumber Co. v. Bank of Am., N.T. and

S.A., 549 F.2d 597, 607–08 (9th Cir. 1976) (holding judicial

proceedings in another country initiated by a private party

were not the sort of sovereign acts that would require

deference under the act of state doctrine). On remand, the

district court also should consider whether the conveyance of

the Cranachs to Stroganoff met public or private interests. 

Clayco, 712 F.2d at 406 (holding that “without sovereign

activity effectuating public rather than private interests, the

act of state doctrine does not apply”) (internal quotation

marks and citation omitted).

Even if the district court finds that the transfer of the

Cranachs is a sovereign act, it also must determine whether

any exception to the act of state doctrine applies. A plurality

of the Supreme Court has noted that an exception may exist

for “purely commercial acts” in situations where “foreign

governments do not exercise powers peculiar to sovereigns”

and instead “exercise only those powers that can be exercised

by private citizens.” Alfred Dunhill, 425 U.S. at 704.

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VON SAHER V. NORTON SIMON MUSEUM 29

We have not yet decided whether to adopt a commercial

exception in our Circuit. Clayco, 712 F.2d at 408. When

presented with this issue previously, we held that even if a

commercial exception to the act of state doctrine existed, it

did not apply because a private citizen could not have granted

a concession to exploit natural resources—the government

action at issue in Clayco. Id.

On the present record, we are unable to determine

whether a commercial exception would apply in this case. 

Thus, it is unnecessary for us to determine whether our court

recognizes a commercial exception to the act of state

doctrine.

Other exceptions to the act of state doctrine may apply. 

For example, the Hickenlooper Amendment provides that the

act of state doctrine does not apply to a taking or confiscation

(1) after January 1, 1959, (2) by an act of state (3) in violation

of international law. 22 U.S.C. § 2370(e)(2). The Dutch

government kept possession of the Cranachs in 1951 when

Desi opted not to seek restitution for the artworks Göring had

confiscated during the war. Though the government took

possession of the pieces before the effective date of the

Hickenlooper Amendment, the Dutch government transferred

the Cranachs to Stroganoff in 1966. That conveyance may

constitute a taking or confiscation from Desi. Again, we

cannot determine from the record whether that transaction

was a commercial sale or whether the government transferred

the Cranachs to Strogranoff to restore his rights in some way. 

That distinction may bear on whether the Dutch government

confiscated the artworks from Desi, via the transfer to

Stroganoff, in violation of international law. The district

court should consider this issue on remand.

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We recognize that this remand puts the district court in a

delicate position. The court must use care to “limit[] inquiry

which would impugn or question the nobility of a foreign

nation’s motivation.” Clayco, 712 F.2d at 407 (internal

quotation marks and citation omitted). The court also cannot

“resolve issues requiring inquiries . . . into the authenticity

and motivation of the acts of foreign sovereigns.” Id. at 408

(internal quotation marks and citations omitted). 

Nevertheless, this case comes to us as an appeal from a

dismissal for failure to state a valid claim. The Museum has

not yet developed its act of state defense, and Von Saher has

not had the opportunity to establish the existence of an

exception to that doctrine should it apply. Though this

remand necessitates caution and prudence, we believe that the

required record development and analysis can be

accomplished with faithfulness to the limitations imposed by

the act of state doctrine.

REVERSED and REMANDED.

WARDLAW, Circuit Judge, dissenting:

The United States has determined that the Netherlands

afforded the Goudstikker family an adequate opportunity to

recover the artwork that is the subject of this litigation. Our

nation’s foreign policy is to respect the finality of the

Netherlands’ restitution proceedings and to avoid

involvement in any ownership dispute over the Cranachs. 

Because entertaining Marei Von Saher’s state law claims

would conflict with this federal policy, I respectfully dissent.

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VON SAHER V. NORTON SIMON MUSEUM 31

I.

The United States has articulated the foreign policy

applicable to the very artwork and transactions at issue here. 

When Von Saher petitioned for certiorari from our court’s

decision rejecting her claims under Cal. Civ. Proc. Code

§ 354.3 on preemption grounds, the Supreme Court invited

the Solicitor General to express the position of the United

States on the question there presented. The United States set

forth its policy in an amicus curiae brief signed by Harold

Hongju Koh, then the Legal Adviser to the Department of

State, and Neal Kumar Katyal, then the Acting Solicitor

General.

The United States explained that its post-World War II

policy of “external restitution” did not end on September 15,

1948, as our court had determined, but remains extant. After

World War II, the United States determined that it would

return private property expropriated by the Nazis to its

country of origin – that is, “externally” – rather than to its

private owners. In turn, the country of origin was responsible

for returning the property to its lawful owners through

“internal” restitution proceedings. A central purpose of this

policy was to avoid entangling the United States in difficult,

long-lasting disputes over private ownership. For this reason,

the United States expressed its “continuing interest” in the

finality of external restitution, “when appropriate actions

have been taken by a foreign government concerning the

internal restitution of art that was externally restituted to it by

the United States following World War II.”

The United States and the international community have

also recognized, however, that some countries’ internal

restitution processes were deficient. Accordingly, pursuant

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to such non-binding international agreements as the

Washington Principles and the Terezin Declaration, the

United States supports ongoing efforts to restore expropriated

art to Holocaust victims and their heirs. Furthermore, the

United States does not categorically insist upon the finality of

its postwar external restitution efforts. Our nation maintains

a continuing interest in the finality of external restitution only

when the country of origin has taken “appropriate” internal

restitution measures. The United States has a “substantial

interest in respecting the outcome” of “bona fide”

proceedings conducted by other countries. Thus, the policy

of the United States, as expressed in its Supreme Court brief,

is that World War II property claims may not be litigated in

U.S. courts if the property was “subject” or “potentially

subject” to an adequate internal restitution process in its

country of origin.

The United States not only set forth these general policy

principles in its brief before the Supreme Court, but also

explained their application to the very artwork and historical

facts presented by this case. According to the United States,

the Cranachs “have already been the subject of both external

and internal restitution proceedings, including recent

proceedings by the Netherlands in response to the

Washington Principles.” In the federal government’s

considered judgment, these proceedings were “bona fide,” so

their finality must be respected. Because the Cranachs were

“subject (or potentially subject) to bona fide internal

restitution proceedings in the Netherlands,” our nation’s

ongoing interest in the finality of external restitution “bar[s]

litigation” of the Goudstikkers’ claims in U.S. courts. Simply

put, the United States has clearly stated its foreign policy

position that it will not be involved in adjudicating ownership

disputes over the Cranachs.

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II.

The Constitution allocates power over foreign affairs

exclusively to the federal government, and the power to

resolve private parties’ war claims is “central to the foreign

affairs power in the constitutional design.” Deutsch v. Turner

Corp., 324 F.3d 692, 714 (9th Cir. 2003). Federal foreign

policy preempts Von Saher’s common law claims if “there is

evidence of clear conflict” between state law and the policies

adopted by the federal Executive. Am. Ins. Ass’n v.

Garamendi, 539 U.S. 396, 421 (2003). We must determine

whether, “under the circumstances,” Von Saher’s state law

action “stands as an obstacle to the accomplishment and

execution of the full purposes and objectives” of our national

foreign policy concerning the resolution of World War II

claims. Crosby v. Nat’l Foreign Trade Council, 530 U.S.

363, 373 (2000) (internal quotation marks omitted).

A.

In my view, Von Saher’s attempt to recover the Cranachs

in U.S. courts directly thwarts the central objective of U.S.

foreign policy in this area: to avoid entanglement in

ownership disputes over externally restituted property if the

victim had an adequate opportunity to recover it in the

country of origin. The majority concludes that Von Saher’s

claims do not conflict with federal policy because the

Cranachs were never subject to any restitution proceedings in

the Netherlands. As the United States explained in its amicus

brief, however, the relevant issue is whether the Cranachs

were subject or potentially subject to bona fide internal

proceedings. The majority fails to acknowledge the

Executive’s clear determination that the Goudstikkers had an

adequate opportunity to assert their claim after the war.

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It is beyond dispute that the Cranachs were “potentially

subject” to internal restitution proceedings in the Netherlands

in the years following World War II. Desi Goudstikker could

have filed a claim for the Cranachs with the Dutch

government before the 1951 deadline lapsed. She chose not

to do so because she believed she would not be treated fairly. 

As the amicus brief explained:

In this case, Ms. Goudstikker settled with the

Dutch government in 1952, and that

settlement did not provide for the return of

artworks like the Cranachs that had been

acquired by [Hermann] Göring. When

petitioner brought a Dutch restitution

proceeding in 1998, the State Secretary found

that “directly after the war – even under

present standards – the restoration of rights

was conducted carefully.” Petitioner sought

review of that decision in the Court of

Appeals for the Hague, which found that at

the time of the 1952 settlement Ms.

Goudstikker “made a conscious and well

considered decision to refrain from asking for

restoration of rights with respect to the Göring

transaction.”

Thus, the only question is whether the internal restitution

proceedings Desi forewent were bona fide.1If they were, the

United States has an ongoing interest in their finality and in

the finality of the Cranachs’ external restitution to the

1 The majority correctly explains the U.S. government’s position that

external restitution alone is not “sufficient of its own force” to bar civil

litigation in U.S. courts.

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VON SAHER V. NORTON SIMON MUSEUM 35

Netherlands, and U.S. foreign policy expressly bars Desi’s

granddaughter-in-law from reviving Desi’s unasserted claim

six decades later in federal district court.

The United States has determined as a matter of foreign

policy that the postwar process in which Desi declined to

participate was bona fide. As the United States explained in

its brief, “As both the 1998 and 2004 restitution proceedings

reflect, the Dutch government has afforded [Von Saher] and

her predecessor adequate opportunity to press their claims,

both after the War and more recently.” The majority

concludes that this question has not been decisively

determined only by finding ways to disavow the State

Department’s prior representations to the Supreme Court in

this case.

But we lack the authority to resurrect Von Saher’s claims

given the expressed views of the United States. The

sufficiency of the Netherlands’ 1951 internal restitution

process is a quintessential policy judgment committed to the

discretion of the Executive. “[I]t is for the political branches,

not the Judiciary, to assess practices in foreign countries and

to determine national policy in light of those assessments.” 

Munaf v. Geren, 553 U.S. 674, 700–01 (2008). Just as we

may not “second-guess” the Executive’s assessment that a

prisoner is unlikely to be tortured if transferred to an Iraqi

prison, id. at 702, we may not displace the Executive’s

assessment that the Netherlands’ postwar proceedings were

adequate. For the federal courts to contradict the State

Department on this issue, as is necessary to decide this appeal

in Von Saher’s favor, would “compromise[] the very capacity

of the President to speak for the Nation with one voice in

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36 VON SAHER V. NORTON SIMON MUSEUM

dealing with other governments.”2 Garamendi, 539 U.S. at

424 (internal quotation marks omitted).

The majority strongly suggests that the federal courts

should determine the bona fides of the Netherlands’ 1951

internal restitution process. It acknowledges that the

Cranachs were “potentiallysubject to restitution proceedings”

that Desi Goudstikker found unfair. It notes, however, that

the Dutch government later “undermined the legitimacy of

that restitution process by describing it as ‘bureaucratic, cold

and often even callous.’” The majority then asserts that it

does not “find convincing” the United States’ statement of its

foreign policy because it was “presented in a brief in a

different iteration of this case that raised different arguments,

that involved different sources of law and that seems to have

misunderstood some of the facts essential to our resolution of

this appeal.”

But we are not at liberty to find that the State

Department’s articulation of U.S. foreign policy is not

“convincing.” Cf. Zivotofsky ex rel. Zivotofsky v. Clinton,

132 S. Ct. 1421, 1427 (2012) (finding a question justiciable

because “[t]he federal courts are not being asked to supplant

a foreign policy decision of the political branches”). And it

is immaterial whether the Executive expressed our nation’s

policy in a Supreme Court amicus brief concerning field

2

I would not reach the question of whether Von Saher’s claims are

barred by the act of state doctrine because I would affirm the district

court’s dismissal of the complaint on the basis that her claims are

preempted. I note, however, that adjudicating whether the Netherlands’

1951 proceedings were bona fide may implicate the act of state doctrine

because “the outcome” of this inquiry “turns upon[] the effect of official

action by a foreign sovereign.” W.S. Kirkpatrick &Co. v. Envtl. Tectonics

Corp., Int’l, 493 U.S. 400, 406 (1990).

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VON SAHER V. NORTON SIMON MUSEUM 37

preemption, a district court merits brief concerning conflict

preemption, an executive agreement unconnected to any

litigation, or an official’s testimony before Congress. See

Garamendi, 539 U.S. at 416 (“[V]alid executive agreements

are fit to preempt state law . . . .”); id. at 421 (quoting

Ambassador Randolph M. Bell’s statement of U.S. foreign

policy in congressional testimony). The majority is correct

that we have the discretion to defer, or not, to “the Executive

Branch’s view of [a] case’s impact on foreign policy.” Sosa

v. Alvarez-Machain, 542 U.S. 692, 733 n.21 (2004). We have

no authority, however, to decide what U.S. foreign policy is. 

That is the exclusive responsibility of the political branches. 

See Munaf, 553 U.S. at 700–02. Here, the Executive has

clearly expressed its policy judgment that the process in

which Desi declined to participate was adequate. That should

be the end of the matter.

B.

The majority further errs by overlooking that the

Cranachs were in fact subject to bona fide internal restitution

proceedings in the Netherlands in 1998–99 and 2004–06.

In 1998, unaware that the Netherlands no longer

possessed the Cranachs, Von Saher filed a claim to recover

all of the Goudstikker artworks still in the Dutch

government’s possession. The State Secretary found that

Von Saher’s claim was untimely and declined to waive the

statute of limitations because “directly after the war – even

under present standards – the restoration of rights was

conducted carefully.” A Dutch appellate court determined it

had no jurisdiction to entertain an appeal from this decision

and declined to exercise its ex officio authority to grant relief

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38 VON SAHER V. NORTON SIMON MUSEUM

because Desi had “made a conscious and well considered

decision” not to pursue restitution after the war.

In 2004, after the Netherlands revised its restitution policy

to adopt a more equitable approach in response to the

Washington Principles, Von Saher filed another claim. A

governmental advisory committee recommended that the

claim be granted, reasoning that the claim was “still

admissible” despite the prior decisions by the State Secretary

and the appellate court. The State Secretary rejected this

reasoning, finding that Von Saher’s “restoration of rights”

had been “settled” as a legal matter and that her claim fell

outside the scope of the Dutch restitution policy. The State

Secretary nonetheless decided, as a matter of discretion, to

return to Von Saher all of the Goudstikker artworks still in

the government’s possession. The Netherlands transferred to

Von Saher more than two hundred of the 267 artworks she

sought – but not the Cranachs, which had long ago been

moved to California.3

The majority implausibly concludes that these were not

restitution proceedings at all because Von Saher’s restitution

claims were time-barred and because the Cranachs were

outside their scope. As an initial matter, the United States has

expressly determined that the Cranachs were subject to a

“1998 restitution proceeding” and a “2004 restitution

3

In 1961, George Stroganoff-Scherbatoff, heir to the Russian Stroganoff

dynasty, filed a restitution claim for the Cranachs in the Netherlands. He

asserted that the Cranachs had been wrongfully seized from his family by

Soviet authorities and then unlawfully auctioned off to the Goudstikkers. 

The Dutch government transferred the Cranachs to Stroganoff in 1966. 

Von Saher alleges that these were not restitution proceedings, but simply

a sale, and that the Stroganoffs never owned the Cranachs. In 1971,

Stroganoff sold the Cranachs to the Norton Simon Art Foundation.

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VON SAHER V. NORTON SIMON MUSEUM 39

proceeding” in the Netherlands, and that our nation “has a

substantial interest in respecting the outcome of that nation’s

proceedings.” This policy assessment is probably sufficient

to foreclose the majority’s contrary view.4See Munaf,

553 U.S. at 702. Even if it is not, Von Saher did seek

“restitution” of the Cranachs, and her filing of claims and the

official disposition of those claims do constitute

“proceedings.” See BLACK’SLAWDICTIONARY 1428 (9th ed.

2009) (defining “restitution” as “[r]eturn or restoration of

some specific thing to its rightful owner or status”); id. at

1324 (defining “proceeding” as “[t]he regular and orderly

progression of a lawsuit, including all acts and events

between the time of commencement and the entry of

judgment,” or “[a]ny procedural means for seeking redress

from a tribunal or agency”). That Von Saher did not succeed

in obtaining her requested relief with respect to the Cranachs

does not imply that there were no proceedings pertaining to

the Cranachs.

Von Saher’s state law claims conflict with our nation’s

“substantial” policy interest in respecting the finality of these

two more recent rounds of Dutch proceedings. As the district

4 The majority attempts to draw an unworkable distinction between

“explaining federal foreign policy” and “mak[ing]factual determinations.” 

Our foreign policy often relies on factual assumptions inseparable from

the policy itself. For instance, the federal foreign policy that “Iran’s

pursuit of nuclear weapons is unacceptable” entails a factual assumption

that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons. U.S. Strategic Objectives Towards

Iran: Hearing Before the S. Comm. on Foreign Relations, 112th Cong. 7

(2011) (statement of Wendy R. Sherman, Under Secretary of State for

Political Affairs). Here, the federal foreign policy that the finality of the

Netherlands’ prior restitution proceedingsin this case should be respected

entails a factual assumption that those proceedings occurred. Von Saher’s

attempt to plead to the contrary simply highlights why entertaining her

claims would conflict with federal policy.

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40 VON SAHER V. NORTON SIMON MUSEUM

court explained, these proceedings collectively determined

that Von Saher was not entitled to the Cranachs’ restitution as

of right, but that the Cranachs should nonetheless be returned

to her as a matter of discretion if the Netherlands possessed

them. Put differently, Dutch authorities finally adjudicated

Von Saher’s legal claim to the Cranachs on the grounds that

it was procedurally defaulted as a matter of Dutch law. As is

routinely recognized in other contexts, allowing Von Saher to

relitigate these claims in U.S. courts would necessarily

undermine the finality of the Netherlands’ prior proceedings. 

Cf., e.g., Martinez v. Ryan, 132 S. Ct. 1309, 1316 (2012)

(noting that federal litigation concerning claims defaulted in

state court undermines the finality of state adjudication). 

This is precisely what our nation’s foreign policy requires us

to avoid.

Because the Cranachs were potentially subject to

restitution proceedings initiated by Desi in 1951 and actually

subject to restitution proceedings initiated by Von Saher in

1998 and 2004, and because we lack the authority to

invalidate the United States’ policy judgment that all of these

proceedings were bona fide, I would conclude that federal

foreign policy preempts Von Saher’s state law claims.

III.

During their campaign of atrocities in Europe, the Nazis

stole precious cultural heritage as they systematically

destroyed millions of innocent human lives. Shortly after the

Nazi invasion of the Netherlands in 1940, Hermann Göring

expropriated a historically significant artwork from the

Goudstikker family. Perhaps as restitution for earlier wrongs

byanother totalitarian regime,GeorgeStroganoff-Scherbatoff

later obtained the artwork from the Dutch government in

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VON SAHER V. NORTON SIMON MUSEUM 41

1966. An acclaimed Southern California museum then

acquired the Cranachs in 1971, presumably at a substantial

price. Today, they hang in the gallery of the Norton Simon

without the consent of the Goudstikkers’ sole heir.

Marei Von Saher and the Museum are both standing on

their rights to the Cranachs. Their dispute spans decades and

continents, and it cannot be resolved in an action under the

laws of California or any other U.S. state. The United States

has determined, as a matter of its foreign policy, that its

involvement with the Cranachs ended when it returned them

to the Netherlands in 1945 and the Dutch government

afforded the Goudstikkers an adequate opportunity to reclaim

them. This foreign policy decision also binds the federal

courts, and it should end our many years of involvement with

the Cranachs as well. I would affirm the judgment of the

district court.

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