NINTH CIRCUIT REJECTS ARMENIAN GENOCIDE SUIT
By Annie Youderian
Courthouse News Service
inth_Circuit_Rejects_Armenian_Genocide_Suit.htm
Au g 24 2009
(CN) – The 9th Circuit dismissed a lawsuit for insurance benefits
filed by victims of the Armenian genocide. The court said the claims
were trumped by the U.S. government’s refusal to use the term genocide
to describe the systematic slaughter of more than 500,000 Armenians
during and after World War I.
The plaintiffs, all of Armenian descent, cited a California code
that gives "Armenian Genocide" victims until 2010 to file insurance
claims. Their policies had been issued by two German insurers owned
by Munich Re.
The district court dismissed their claims for unjust enrichment and
constructive trust, but allowed the plaintiffs to sue for breach
of contract.
Munich Re challenged the ruling on several fronts, including that the
state law was preempted by the foreign affairs doctrine. The state
code isn’t valid, Munich Re argued, because the U.S. government doesn’t
officially recognize the Armenian Genocide, the term used to describe
the mass killings ordered by a political party in the Ottoman Empire
known as the Young Turks.
The Pasadena-based appellate panel voted 2-1 to dismiss all claims,
saying they were preempted by federal foreign policy.
Senior Circuit Judge Thompson cited the Bush administration’s efforts
to quash a 2007 Armenian Genocide Resolution, which sought official
recognition of the genocide. Former Secretary of State Condoleeza
Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates argued in a letter to House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi that passage of such a resolution "could harm
American troops in the field, constrain our ability to supply our
troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and significantly damage our efforts
to promote reconciliation between Armenia and Turkey."
Then-President George W. Bush added that the resolution "is not the
right response to these historic mass killings, and its passage would
do great harm to our relations with a key ally in NATO and in the
global war on terror."
No further action was taken on the resolution.
These and other statements by top-ranking U.S. officials "clearly
establish a presidential foreign policy preference against proving
legislative recognition to an ‘Armenian Genocide,’" Judge Thompson
noted.
"We conclude that [the California code] impermissibly infringes on
the federal government’s foreign affairs power."
In a dissenting opinion, Judge Pregerson argued that California has
the authority to regulate genocide insurance claims.
"There is no express federal policy forbidding California from
using the term ‘Armenian Genocide’ in the course of exercising its
traditional authority to regulate the insurance industry," Pregerson
wrote.