Court Opinion

ID: 9480935
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:03:20.212991+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:00.709089
License: Public Domain

CUDAHY, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I.
Although I concur in all respects in the excellent majority opinion, there are two points that I believe merit elucidation. The first of these involves the difficult problem of the time of accrual of the cause of action in replevin. The majority opinion affirms the holding of the district court, based on its interpretation of Indiana law, that the plaintiff’s cause of action does not accrue until it has, or reasonably should have, discovered the location of the stolen property — in this case the Cypriot mosaics. Although we accept the district court’s construction of Indiana law, it is unnecessary to rely solely upon this application of the discovery rule. For, as a recent study of the law of missing property demonstrates, whenever the possessor of lost or stolen personal property commits “fraud in the concealment,” the statute of limitations does not run against the original owner until that owner has actual knowledge of the location of the property and of the identity of the possessor.1
This concept is analogous to the requirement that one who asserts a statute of limitations defense against an action for the recovery of real property must have possessed the property in an “open and notorious” manner. Because it is difficult to assess openness of possession in the realm of personal property, courts have required good faith on the part of the possessor to satisfy, or substitute for, the openness requirement. Most courts considering this problem have thus concluded that the statute of limitations should not run against an original owner who lacks the facts necessary to institute suit as long as the property is held by the original thief or by a subsequent holder acting in bad faith.2
If a good faith requirement were applied to the facts of the case before us, the *295statute of limitations would not have begun to run so long as the mosaics were in the hands of Dikman, the original thief. Nor would Goldberg’s purchase of the mosaics in July 1988 have triggered the running of the statute. As Judge Noland pointed out, Goldberg undertook only a cursory inquiry into Dikman’s ability to convey good title under circumstances which should have aroused the suspicions of a wholly innocent and reasonably prudent purchaser. She thus does not appear to have been a good faith purchaser. Under the foregoing analysis, the cause of action would not have accrued until later in 1988, when Cyprus first ascertained the location of the mosaics and the identity of the current possessor. This approach, which seems equitable to me, thus poses no bar to a cause of action for replevin of the mosaics. An owner should not be at risk under the statute of limitations until she has actual knowledge or the property has passed into innocent hands.
II.
A second and unrelated, but important, aspect of this case involves the treatment of the cultural heritage of foreign nations under international and United States law. The United States has both acceded to international agreements and enacted its own statutes regarding the importation of cultural property. These regulatory efforts have encompassed transfers of property during both wartime and peacetime and apply whether the property was originally stolen or “merely” illegally exported from the country of origin. The two most significant international agreements that attempt to protect cultural property are the 1954 Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (the “1954 Hague Convention”), 249 U.N.T.S. 215 (1956), and the UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Transport, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property (the “UNESCO Convention”), 823 U.N.T.S. 231 (1972). Under both these multinational treaties, as well as under the United States’ Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act, 19 U.S.C. § 2601 et seq. (1983), the Cypriot mosaics would be considered cultural property warranting international protection. For ex*296ample, Article I of the UNESCO Convention defines cultural property as “property which, on religious or secular grounds, is specifically designated by each State as being of importance for archaeology, prehistory, history, literature, art or science and which belongs to one or more of the following categories:
(d) elements of artistic or historical monuments or archaeological sites which have been dismembered;
(e) antiquities more than one hundred years old ...;
(g) property of artistic interest, such as:
(i) pictures, paintings and drawings produced entirely by hand on any support and in any material____”
The 1954 Hague Convention may be applicable to the case before us given the incursion of Turkish armed forces into Cyprus in 1974 and our ongoing refusal to recognize the government established in the northern part of Cyprus. The 1954 Hague Convention, which is but the most recent multilateral agreement in a 200-year history of international attempts to protect cultural property during wartime,3 prohibits the destruction or seizure of cultural property during armed conflict, whether international or civil in nature, and during periods of belligerent occupation. The Hague Convention also applies to international trafficking during peacetime in cultural property unlawfully seized during an armed conflict. The attempt of the government established in northern Cyprus by the Turkish military to divest the Greek Cypriot church of ownership of the mosaics might be viewed as an interference of the sort contemplated by the 1954 Hague Convention. If this were the case, the acts and decrees of the northern Cyprus government divesting title to this cultural property would not demand the deference of American courts.
The second international agreement, the UNESCO Convention, focuses on private conduct, primarily during peacetime, and thus is also applicable to the theft and removal of the mosaics from Cyprus.4 Article 7 of that Convention requires signatory nations:
(a) To take the necessary measures, consistent with national legislation, to prevent museums and similar institutions within their territories from acquiring cultural property originating in another State Party which has been illegally ex-ported____;
(b)(i) to prohibit the import of cultural property stolen from a museum or a religious or secular public monument or similar institution in another State Party ..., provided that such property is documented as appertaining to the inventory of that institution;
(ii) at the request of the State Party of origin, to take appropriate steps to recover and return any such cultural property ..., provided, however, that the requesting State shall pay just compensation to an innocent purchaser or to a person who has valid title to that property____
It is clear that the mosaics in the case before us were stolen (under any reasonable definition of that word) from a religious institution and that the mosaics were extensively documented by the Dumbarton Oaks publication as belonging to the Kanakaria Church. While the UNESCO Convention seems to contemplate primarily measures to be implemented by the executive branch of a government through its import and export rules and policies, the judicial branch should certainly attempt to reflect in its decisionmaking the spirit as well as the letter of an international agreement to which the United States is a party.
The UNESCO Convention, although ratified by Congress in 1972, was not formally implemented in the United States until the *297enactment of the Cultural Property Implementation Act in 1983. The Cultural Property Implementation Act, 19 U.S.C. §§ 2601-2613, focuses primarily on implementation of Articles 7(b) and 9 of the UNESCO Convention, which call for concerted action among nations to prevent trade in specific items of cultural property in emergency situations. The delay in the enactment of the Cultural Property Implementation Act apparently was caused, in part, by pressure from art dealers and traders, who argued that if the United States undertook unilateral import controls, illegal cultural property would simply be sold to those art market countries lacking similar import controls. In fact, the Cultural Property Implementation Act was perhaps finally enacted only because it was perceived as a restraint of sorts on certain Customs officers. These officials had deemed all archaeological materials that a foreign country had claimed were “stolen” to be subject to seizure under the National Stolen Property Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2311 et seq. (1934). The Cultural Property Implementation Act, therefore, emphasized the need for concerted action and, in particular, seemed to prefer action resulting from bilateral treaties between the United States and the affected source countries. Such treaties have now been put into effect with a few countries, including Mexico, Guatemala and Peru.
As indicated, the Cultural Property Implementation Act addresses primarily the question of import controls and, in section 2607, prohibits the importation into the United States of any “cultural property documented as appertaining to the inventory of a museum or religious or secular public monument or similar institution in any State Party which is stolen from such institution----” This section is not directly applicable here, first, because the mosaics were stolen after the effective date of the statute and, second, because the statute is directed at import controls rather than replevin suits. Nonetheless, the policy that the Act embodies is clear: at the very least, we should not sanction illegal traffic in stolen cultural property that is clearly documented as belonging to a public or religious institution. This is particularly true where this sort of property is “important to the cultural heritage of a people because of its distinctive characteristics, comparative rarity, or its contribution to the knowledge of the origins, development, or history of that people.” 19 U.S.C. § 2601(2)(C)(ii)(II).
Focusing on a relatively short segment of what might otherwise be considered its “history,” the United States chooses sometimes to ignore the ancient cultural heritage of the land which it now occupies. But a short cultural memory is not an adequate justification for participating in the plunder of the cherished antiquities that play important roles in the histories of foreign lands. The UNESCO Convention and the Cultural Property Implementation Act constitute an effort to instill respect for the cultural property and heritage of all peoples. The mosaics before us are of great intrinsic beauty. They are the virtually unique remnants of an earlier artistic period and should be returned to their homeland and their rightful owner. This is the case not only because the mosaics belong there, but as a reminder that greed and callous disregard for the property, history and culture of others cannot be countenanced by the world community or by this court.

. Gerstenblith, The Adverse Possession of Personal Property, 37 Buffalo L.Rev. 119, 127 (1989).

. See, e.g., Frye v. Commonwealth Inv. Co., 107 Ga.App. 739, 741, 131 S.E.2d 569, 571, aff’d, 219 Ga. 498, 134 S.E.2d 39 (1963); Commercial Union Ins. Co. v. Connolly, 183 Minn. 1, 6, 235 N.W. 634, 636 (1931); Lightfoot v. Davis, 198 N.Y. 261, 266, 91 N.E. 582, 583-84 (1910). See generally Gerstenblith, supra note 1, at 126-31.
The "demand and refusal” rule applied by the New York courts, however, constitutes one exception to this general approach. Under the "demand and refusal" rule, the statute of limitations for a replevin action does not run until the original owner makes a demand of the current possessor for the return of the property and the possessor refuses. See, e.g., De Weerth v. Baldinger, 836 F.2d 103 (2d Cir.1987), cert. denied, 486 U.S. 1056, 108 S.Ct. 2823, 100 L.Ed.2d 924 (1988); Kunstsammlungen zu Weimar v. Elicofon, 678 F.2d 1150 (2d Cir.1982); Menzel v. List, 22 A.D.2d 647, 253 N.Y.S.2d 43 (1964), and 49 Misc.2d 300, 267 N.Y.S.2d 804 (Sup.Ct.1966), modified on other grounds, 28 A.D.2d 516, 279 N.Y.S.2d 608 (1967), modification rev'd, 24 N.Y.2d 91, 246 N.E.2d 742, 298 N.Y.S.2d 979 (1969). An old Indiana decision, in fact, holds that the original owner of stolen property can*295not sue the good faith possessor for conversion until the owner has made a demand upon the possessor for the return of the property. See Wood v. Cohen & Another, 6 Ind. 455 (1855). The original purpose of this rule was to protect the good faith possessor who, upon learning of the original theft, would presumably return the property to the rightful owner voluntarily and without need for litigation.
Some courts adopt a slightly different approach — the O'Keeffe "discovery” rule — emphasizing the due diligence of the original owner, as in O'Keeffe v. Snyder, 83 N.J. 478, 416 A.2d 862 (1980), rather than lack of good faith on the part of the possessor. In DeWeerth v. Baldinger, 836 F.2d 103 (2d Cir.1987), the Second Circuit, exercising its diversity jurisdiction and interpreting New York law, found that New York’s "demand and refusal" rule incorporates the requirement that the original owner exercise reasonable diligence in locating the stolen property. In a recent statement on the subject by a New York court, however, the defense was characterized as one of laches, rather than as a statute of limitations bar. The laches defense required a showing of prejudice to the defendant by the delay as well as knowledge or imputed knowledge on the part of the plaintiff and a showing of reasonableness of the plaintiff's conduct under the particular circumstances. See Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation v. Lu-bell, 153 A.D.2d 143, 550 N.Y.S.2d 618 (N.Y.App. Div.1990), leave to appeal to the N.Y. Court of Appeals granted, App.Div., 554 N.Y.S.2d 992 (1990). The New York appellate court, in remanding to the trial court, was reluctant to conclude that the defendant was prejudiced by any asserted delay by the plaintiff even though the defendant was arguably a good faith purchaser of the stolen art works. The court there stated that the “defendant’s vigilance is as much in issue as plaintiff’s diligence.” 153 A.D.2d at 152, 550 N.Y.S.2d at 623. The emphasis in the present case on Cyprus’ diligence should also be tempered by the plaintiff's lack of good faith, as found by Judge Noland. Lack of good faith minimizes the likelihood of prejudice to the defendant. Following the Lubell decision, a judge in the Southern District of New York recently denied a motion to dismiss by the defendant in a suit in which the Turkish government is attempting to recover various archaeological materials from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Judge Broderick denied defendant’s motion based on the statute of limitations, so that the issues of prejudice allegedly caused by plaintiff’s delay and the defendant’s good faith could be extensively considered. See N.Y. Times, July 20, 1990, at C 25, col. 1.

. For more detailed discussion of this two hundred year development, see Bassiouni, Reflections on Criminal Jurisdiction in International Protection of Cultural Property, 10 Syracuse J. of Int’l Law and Commerce 281, 287-97 (1983).

. For a more detailed discussion of the UNESCO Convention, see Jora, The Illicit Movement of Art and Artifact: How Long Will the Art Market Continue to Benefit from Ineffective Laws Governing Cultural Property? 13 Brooklyn J. Int'l L. 55, 62-66 (1987), and for discussion of the United States’ implementation of the UNESCO Convention, see Note, Harmonious Meeting: the McClain Decision and the Cultural Property Implementation Act, 19 Cornell Int’l L.J. 311, 318-21 (1986).