Opinion ID: 3020185
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: ” Garamendi, 539 U.S. at 424.

Text: In Garamendi, the Supreme Court discussed the same set of agreements for Holocaust compensation that are at issue here, holding that California's Holocaust Victim Insurance Relief Act (HVIRA), and in particular a provision of the HVIRA requiring any insurer that did business in California and that sold insurance policies in Europe which were in effect during the Holocaust-era to disclose certain information about those policies to the California Insurance Commissioner or risk losing its license, impermissibly interfered with the Executive Branch’s foreign policy, and was preempted on that basis. Id., 539 U.S. at 421. The Court observed: [R]esolving Holocaust-era insurance claims that may be held by residents of this country is a 14 matter well within the Executive's responsibility for foreign affairs. Since claims remaining in the aftermath of hostilities may be “sources of friction” acting as an “impediment to resumption of friendly relations” between the countries involved, there is a “longstanding practice” of the national Executive to settle them in discharging its responsibility to maintain the Nation's relationships with other countries. The issue of restitution for Nazi crimes has in fact been addressed in Executive Branch diplomacy and formalized in treaties and executive agreements over the last half century, and although resolution of private claims was postponed by the Cold War, securing private interests is an express object of diplomacy today, just as it was addressed in agreements soon after the Second World War. Vindicating 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 420-21. Although Garamendi was not a political question case, the same reasoning applies here. The Executive Branch engaged in a decades-long negotiation with the German government to resolve Nazi-era reparations claims. That process culminated with the signing of the Executive 15 Agreement, which enunciated a foreign policy that the Foundation be the exclusive forum for claims by Nazi-era victims of medical experimentation against German companies. The Statement of Interest confirms that understanding. In this context, judicial review of Rozenkier’s claims would express a lack of respect for the Executive Branch’s longstanding foreign policy interest in resolving Nazi-era claims through intergovernmental negotiation. We therefore conclude that his case presents a nonjusticiable political question that requires dismissal. We reject Rozenkier’s argument that United States foreign policy interests were limited to the act of “creating” the Foundation. As discussed, the Executive Branch has expressed a longstanding foreign policy interest in resolving Nazi-era claims at the intergovernmental level, and that interest did not terminate with the creation of the Foundation. Indeed, the Statement of Interest provides that, four years after the creation of the Foundation, the “United States maintains [the] policy in the current administration” that “all asserted claims should be pursued through the Foundation instead of the courts.” Statement of Interest, at 11. In so holding, we reach the same result as the Second Circuit and New Jersey district courts that have dismissed claims arising out of the Nazi-era on political question grounds. See Whiteman v. Dorotheum GmbH & Co. KG, 431 F.3d 57 (2d Cir. 2005) (affirming the dismissal of Nazi-era claims against Austria on political question grounds); In re Nazi Era Cases 16 Against German Defendants Litig., 129 F. Supp. 2d 370, 383 (D.N.J. 2001) (dismissing on political question and international comity grounds); Burger v. Fischer v. DeGussa AG, 65 F. Supp. 2d 248 (D.N.J. 1999) (dismissing on political question grounds); Iwanowa v. Ford Motor Co., 67 F. Supp. 2d 424 (D.N.J. 1999) (dismissing on political question and international comity grounds). In Whiteman, the Second Circuit dismissed a putative class action against Austria for Nazi-era wrongdoing as a nonjusticiable political question. 431 F.3d at 59-60. The court held: We conclude that we cannot “undertak[e] independent resolution without expressing lack of respect due” the Executive Branch because (1) the Executive Branch has exercised its authority to enter into executive agreements respecting the resolution of the claims in question; (2) the United States Government (a) has established through an executive agreement an alternative international forum for considering the claims in question, and (b) has indicated that, as a matter of foreign policy, the alternative forum is superior to litigation; and (3) the United States foreign policy advanced by the executive agreement is substantially undermined by the continuing pendency of this case. 17 Id. at 73-74 (quoting Baker, 369 U.S. at 217). The Second Circuit’s analysis is thus consistent with our holding that the claims of Rozenkier and similarly situated individuals present a nonjusticiable political question. We note, however, that our conclusion rests not only on the foreign policy interests expressed in the Executive Agreement and the Statement of Interest, but also on the United States’ long-standing foreign policy commitment to resolving reparations claims arising out of World War II and the Holocaust at the governmental level. We are aware that the Ninth Circuit has rendered a decision in Alperin v. Vatican Bank, 410 F.3d 532 (9th Cir. 2005), in which it arrived at the same conclusion that we do concerning slave labor claims against the Vatican Bank, but not with regard to property claims against the Vatican Bank. In Alperin, Holocaust survivors asserted property claims alleging that the Vatican Bank had profited from looted assets and slave labor during the Croatian Ustasha political regime, which was supported throughout World War II by Nazi forces. The Holocaust survivors also asserted slave labor claims alleging that the Vatican Bank had actively assisted the war objectives of the Utasha Regime in violation of international law. The Ninth Circuit allowed the property claims to proceed, but noted that the case was “distinguishable from those involving the Foundation in that there is no analogous executive agreement covering claims to the Ustasha treasury.” Id. at 550 (emphasis added) (referring to Decision, 334 F. Supp. 2d at 696-97). Thus, Alperin is not persuasive to the resolution of this case involving the Foundation. However, the court held that the slave labor 18 claims were nonjusticiable because they raised a political question. Id. at 562. Thus, the holding of Alperin in its analysis of the slave labor claims is consistent with our resolution here concerning tort claims. Finally, we respectfully find the Eleventh Circuit’s reasoning in Ungaro-Benages v. Dredsner Bank AG, 379 F.3d 1227 (11th Cir. 2004), to be unpersuasive. In that case, the Eleventh Circuit declined to dismiss a Holocaust-related claim against German banks based on the political doctrine, instead dismissing the claim on the grounds of international comity. 379 F.3d at 1236, 1239. The court reasoned that because the Executive Agreement, which is the same as that at issue here, stated that it did not provide an independent legal basis for dismissal, the “President has purposely chosen not to settle [the] claims directly” and therefore adjudication of the claims does not “interfere with American foreign relations.” Id. at 1237, 1236. We disagree with the Eleventh Circuit’s interpretation of the Executive Agreement. The provision in the Executive Agreement that the court relied on for its holding that the political question doctrine was inapplicable is set forth in the section entitled “Elements of U.S. Government Statement of Interest,” and provides: “The United States does not suggest that its policy interests concerning the Foundation in themselves provide an independent legal basis for dismissal, but will reinforce the point that U.S. policy interests favor dismissal on any valid legal ground.” Executive Agreement, Annex B, ¶ 7. 19 However, that language does not preclude United States federal courts from dismissing claims arising under the Executive Agreement as raising a nonjusticiable political question. Indeed, in its Statement of Interest in this case, the United States recommends dismissal based on foreign policy interests. Thus, while the United States has not asserted that the foreign policy interests expressed in the Executive Agreement and the Statement of Interest1 provide an independent legal basis for 1 The Executive Agreement states that “it would be in the foreign policy interests of the United States to be the exclusive remedy and forum for resolving . . . claims asserted against German companies . . . and that dismissal of such cases would be in its foreign policy interest.” Executive Agreement, Art. 2(1). The Executive Agreement also explains that the foreign policy interest at issue was resolving Nazi-era cases outside of litigation and creating an all-embracing and enduring peace. Executive Agreement, at 3. Further, the Statement of Interest asserts that [t]he President of the United States concluded that it would be in the foreign policy interests of the United States for the Foundation to be the exclusive forum and remedy for the resolution of all asserted claims against German companies arising from their involvement in the Nazi era and World War II, including without limitation those relating to compensation for slave and forced labor, “aryanization” or other confiscation of, damage to, or loss of property (including banking assets and insurance policies), subjection to medical experimentation, placement in children’s homes, and other cases of 20 dismissal, such interests are especially compelling here, and the United States government’s long-standing foreign policy commitment to resolving reparations claims arising out of World War II and the Holocaust at the governmental level, coupled with the more recent creation of the Foundation, the signing of the Executive Agreement, and the filing of the Statement of Interest in this case, together provide such a basis. Because we conclude that the claims of Rozenkier and similarly situated individuals present a nonjusticiable political question, we do not address whether the act of state doctrine and international comity are alternative grounds for dismissal. In addition, we have considered Rozenkier’s remaining arguments and find them unpersuasive or unnecessary for our decision. Because Rozenkier’s claims present a nonjusticiable political question, we affirm the district court’s judgment granting the Appellees’ motion to dismiss Rozenkier’s complaint.