Three Armenian American descendants of victims of the Armenian genocide nearly a century ago filed suit Wednesday against the government of Turkey and two Turkish banks, claiming they are owed at least $65 million for property seized from their relatives and untold millions more for the profits their lands generated.

The lawsuit filed by two Los Angeles-area residents and a Washington, D.C. man could be the start of a flood of litigation spurred by last week’s ruling by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upholding a California law recognizing the crimes committed against Armenians after 1915 as genocide.

The appeals court reversed its earlier opinion that the state law was unconstitutional because it interfered with the federal government’s power to decide foreign policy matters.

“Now that that obstacle is gone, it definitely opens up the possibility of many more lawsuits being filed” in pursuit of compensation for expropriated property, said Michael J. Bazyler, a Chapman University law professor and an expert on litigation stemming from the Holocaust and other crimes against humanity.

Anais Haroutunian, a 68-year-old Pasadena resident whose grandparents were killed when Ottoman Turks drove Armenians out of ancestral lands, said she has retained her family’s deeds to the 40 acres seized after their expulsion. She joined the lawsuit in hopes of recovering some of the family wealth lost in the genocide.

“I want to do this for our children. It is our civil right to have all these things they took from our family,” the retired tailor’s assistant said, noting there are at least nine living descendants of the family whose seized property is now part of Incirlik Air Base, rented by the U.S. government.

The suit estimates that the three plaintiffs’ share of the base land to be worth $65 million. It also seeks compensation for the profits accrued by the Turkish government and the two banks that inherited the confiscated land, Ziraat Bank and the Turkish Central Bank.

The Turkish government is likely to contest the jurisdiction of U.S. courts in the matter by invoking the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. But Bazyler said the law doesn’t protect foreign states from suits over illegal property seizures.

via Descendants of Armenian genocide victims seek $65 million from Turkey for seized land | L.A. NOW | Los Angeles Times.

A federal appeals court reversed itself Friday and allowed heirs of victims of the Armenian genocide to sue in California for unpaid insurance benefits, finding no conflict between state law and U.S. foreign policy.

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled 2-1 in August 2009 that the California law contradicted a national policy of refusing to characterize Turkey’s killing of as many as 1.5 million Armenians, between 1915 and 1923, as genocide. The court cited statements by Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush that characterizing the slayings as genocide in congressional resolutions would damage U.S. relations with Turkey.

But after additional written arguments, the court took the unusual step Friday of withdrawing its ruling and issuing a new 2-1 decision that upheld the state law.

The law, passed in 2000, allowed descendants of Armenian victims to sue insurers doing business in California, suits that would otherwise be barred by legal deadlines. The law said such suits could be filed until the end of 2010.

“There is no clear federal policy with respect to reference to the Armenian genocide,” Judge Harry Pregerson, the dissenter in last year’s ruling, said in Friday’s majority opinion.

Although Clinton and Bush persuaded House members not to vote on three resolutions labeling the killings as genocide, Pregerson said, the House passed similar resolutions in 1974 and 1984.

He said President Ronald Reagan referred to the “genocide of the Armenians” in a 1981 proclamation, and President Obama recognized Armenian Remembrance Day in 2009 with a statement that mentioned Meds Yeghern, the Armenian-language term for the genocide.

Forty states have passed laws or resolutions recognizing the Armenian genocide, and the federal government has never objected, Pregerson said.

Judge David Thompson, who wrote the majority opinion last year, restated his views in a dissent Friday, saying Clinton’s and Bush’s opposition to the congressional resolutions, and their concerns about U.S.-Turkish relations, demonstrated an “express foreign policy prohibiting legislative recognition of the ‘Armenian genocide.’ ”

Judge Dorothy Nelson, who had joined Thompson’s earlier opinion, switched sides and voted with Pregerson.

Most historians view the Armenian killings as a genocide, but the Turkish government has protested use of the term and urged U.S. administrations to prevent any congressional endorsement.

The ruling revives a class-action suit by several hundred Armenian Americans against a German insurance group that challenged the state law, said Brian Kabateck, lawyer for the policy-holders.

Neil Soltman, lawyer for the German companies, told the Associated Press that the firms have not decided whether to appeal the ruling.

E-mail Bob Egelko at [email protected].

This article appeared on page C – 3 of the San Francisco Chronicle

via Armenian genocide suit revived by court reversal.

By PAUL ELIAS

The Associated Press

Friday, December 10, 2010; 6:12 PM

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal appeals court on Friday reversed itself and now says the heirs of Armenians killed in the Turkish Ottoman Empire can seek payment from companies that sold their relatives life insurance.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said a California law labeling the killings as a “genocide” does not conflict with U.S. foreign policy, which the court said is unsettled on the issue.

The ruling was 2-1, the same vote the same judicial panel came to last year when it struck down the California law empowering the heirs to sue companies that sold life insurance policies to Armenians killed in Ottoman-era Turkey during World War I.

Last year, the same panel concluded that the U.S. government has sided with the Turkish government and formally taken the position against labeling the killings as a genocide. Therefore, that panel concluded, California’s calling the event a genocide conflicted with U.S. foreign policy, making the state law invalid.

But in a rare and stunning move on Friday, Judge Dorothy Nelson changed her mind and sided with Judge Harry Pregerson, which turned his 2009 dissenting view into law.

“We conclude that there is no express federal policy forbidding states to use the term ‘Armenian Genocide,’” Pregerson wrote.

The ruling revived a lawsuit filed by heirs against three German insurers, including Munich Re AG.

“This was totally unexpected,” said attorney Brian Kabateck, who represents the Armenian heirs. “It’s a great victory for the Armenia people.”

Kabateck and other lawyers have filed similar lawsuits against New York Life Insurance Co. and French insurer AXA, which were settled in 2005 for a combined $37.5 million.

Turkey has long denied that the loss of 1.5 million Armenian lives between 1915 and 1919 constituted genocide and instead describes the deaths as resulting from civil unrest that accompanied the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

Judge David Thompson, who wrote the now-overturned majority opinion last year, said in dissent that former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush defeated congressional legislation that would have recognized an Armenian genocide. Thompson said those presidential efforts show the United States has a clear foreign policy against recognizing the deaths as a genocide.

The majority opinion Friday called those efforts “informal presidential communications” and not official policy. The court said the insurance companies can file a request for a rehearing. The companies could also ask the U.S. Supreme Court to consider the case.

Attorney Neil Michael Soltman, who represented the German insurance companies, said an appeal decision hasn’t been made.

Soltman said he was surprised by the decision since no new facts or legal cases were presented to the appellate panel between its first decision in August 2009 and the court’s about face Friday.

“It’s very rare that a panel changes its mind,” Soltman said. “Everything is exactly as it was in August 2009, and all of sudden there’s a new opinion. It’s hard to explain.”

The Armenian community of U.S. and particularly Minneapolis is outraged by the recent manifestation of Turkey’s denial policy, Father Hrach Sargsyan, pastor of the Armenian community of Minneapolis Sample, the U.S. Eastern Diocese of Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, told NEWS.am. The priest commented on reports saying that the Turkish Coalition of America sued the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota.

“The university and the center enjoy popularity in scientific circles. As an influenced structure the university expresses opinion about the Turkish denial literature, noting that the books published by the Turkish Coalition of America are false and doubtful,” he said, adding this was used as a basis to file lawsuit against the center.

According to him, representatives of the Armenian community are shocked at regular demonstration of Turkey’s denial policy. “Each Armenian family living in U.S. knows the history of its family and descendants remember that in 1915 the Ottoman Empire wanted to fully eliminate Armenians. Descendants of Armenian Genocide survivors realize why they are living far from their historic motherland,” he said.

The Armenian community protests against Turks’ actions in support for the University of Minnesota. “The Armenian community can not remain indifferent to this problem, as Armenians and the Genocide issue is a real target of the Turkish policy,” Father Hrach Sargsyan concluded.

via Armenian community of Minneapolis shocked at manifestation of Turks’ denial policy | Armenia News – NEWS.am.