Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-1566_l5gm.pdf
Page Number: 4.0

Cite as:  596 U. S. ____ (2022) 

1 

Opinion of the Court 

NOTICE:  This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the 
preliminary  print  of  the  United  States  Reports.  Readers  are  requested  to 
notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Wash-
ington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order that 
corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press. 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

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No. 20–1566 
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DAVID CASSIRER, ET AL., PETITIONERS v. THYSSEN-
BORNEMISZA COLLECTION FOUNDATION 

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF 
APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT 

[April 21, 2022] 

JUSTICE KAGAN delivered the opinion of the Court. 
Under  the  Foreign  Sovereign  Immunities  Act  of  1976
(FSIA), 28 U. S. C. §1602 et seq., a foreign state or instru-
mentality is amenable in specified circumstances to suit in
an American court.  In this case, the plaintiffs brought such
a suit to recover expropriated property.  The question pre-
sented is what choice-of-law rule the court should use to de-
termine  the  applicable  substantive  law.  The  answer  is: 
whatever choice-of-law rule the court would use if the de-
fendant were not a foreign-state actor, but instead a private 
party.  Here, that means applying the forum State’s choice-
of-law rule, not a rule deriving from federal common law. 

I 

Although  the  legal  issue  before  us  is  prosaic,  the  case’s 
subject matter and background are anything but.  At issue 
is  the  ownership  of  an  Impressionist  painting  depicting  a
Paris streetscape: Camille Pissarro’s Rue Saint-Honoré in 
the Afternoon, Effect of Rain (shown in this opinion’s appen-
dix).  Pissarro’s agent sold the painting in 1900 to Paul Cas-
sirer, a member of a prominent German Jewish family own-
ing  an  art  gallery  and  publishing  house.    Some  quarter