BREAKING NEWS: Obama Asks Supreme Court Not To Hear Insurance Claims Case
Friday, May 10th, 2013
President Obama
WASHINGTON – The Obama Administration urged the Supreme Court not to
hear the appeal of the Ninth Circuit’s 2012 decision striking down a
California law extending the statute of limitations on Armenian
Genocide-era life insurance claims, reported the Armenian National
Committee of America.
`President Obama, rather than filing a brief based on the merits of
this case, chose instead – on the eve of Prime Minister Erdogan’s
visit to Washington, DC – to send Ankara a political gift by both
deepening his Administration’s complicity in the denial of the
Armenian Genocide and also obstructing justice for American citizens
seeking redress through the U.S. courts,’ said ANCA Executive Director
Aram Hamparian. `We will, despite the President’s retreat from
principle, persevere in pursuit of the justice owed the Armenian
nation.’
In a 27-page brief submitted to the Supreme Court earlier today, the
U.S. Solicitor General argues that the California law improperly
allows courts `to issue judgments based on politically contentious
events that occurred in the Ottoman Empire nearly a century ago, with
no substantial basis to claim that it is regulating in an area of its
traditional authority.’
It also makes reference to selective Executive branch opposition to
Armenian Genocide legislation, but not the U.S. record of recognition
of the Armenian Genocide as a crime of genocide, including:
1. the U.S. Government’s May 28, 1951 written statement to the
International Court of Justice regarding the Convention on the
Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, in which the
`Turkish massacres of Armenians’ is cited among other `outstanding
examples of the crime of genocide’
2. President Ronald Reagan’s April 22, 1981 Proclamation number 4838;
in which he stated, in part, `like the genocide of the Armenians
before it, and the genocide of the Cambodians, which followed it – and
like too many other persecutions of too many other people – the
lessons of the Holocaust must never be forgotten.’
Read the U.S. Government’s brief.
The Supreme Court, which had requested the Administration’s brief in
October of 2012, will consider the Solicitor General’s position, along
with several `friend of the court’ briefs defending the California
Armenian Genocide-era life insurance law, including one filed by
California Attorney General Kamala Harris, Nevada Attorney General
Catherine Cortez Masto, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette, and
Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Kilmartin.
The case has traveled a long and complex legal path, which has
included three separate and conflicting opinions from the Ninth
Circuit Court of Appeals, the most recent on February 23, 2012. That
decision struck down the California law extending the statute of
limitations for certain life insurance claims based on an
unprecedented expansion of the rarely invoked doctrine of foreign
affairs field preemption. In its ruling, the Ninth Circuit invalidated
the California law, which was unanimously passed by the legislature,
because of Turkish government threats aimed at silencing discussion of
the Armenian Genocide in the United States.
Plaintiffs’ petition to the Supreme Court to hear the case was filed
by Igor Timofeyev of Paul Hastings, LLP. Claims for unpaid life
insurance policies dating back to the Armenian Genocide were first
brought by plaintiffs’ attorney Vartkes Yeghiayan. Attorneys who have
been representing plaintiffs include Lee Crawford Boyd, Rajika Shah,
Mark Geragos, and Brian Kabateck.
A series of amicus briefs were filed in support of the plaintiffs’
petition including a filing by U.S. Federal and State legislators,
filed by attorneys Mary-Christine Sungaila and Seepan Parseghian at
the firm of Snell and Willmer, LLP.
Human rights and public policy groups including the Armenian Bar
Association, Armenian National Committee of America, Zoryan Institute
for Contemporary Armenian Research and Documentation, Inc., Genocide
Education Project, Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action, Center
for the Study of Law & Genocide, and the International Human Rights
Clinic of the University of Southern California Gould School of Law
also filed an amicus brief and were represented by Bingham McCutchen,
LLP, led by partner David Balabanian.
Read the complete set of filings.