Justices Deal Blow To Jewish Heirs In Nazi Art Dispute | The Next Frontier of The Affordable Care Act
February 4, 2021
THE ART OF WAR
|In a unanimous decision handed down yesterday, the Supreme Court rejected a lower court ruling that had allowed heirs of Jewish art dealers who had their art taken by Nazis in 1935 to move forward with their claim that the “sale” of the art had been coerced. The justices decided their case cannot proceed due to a law that limits the jurisdiction of American courts over foreign governments. However, all is not lost for the victims. Although SCOTUS delivered a setback, it also sent the case back to the lower courts to re-examine other arguments made in the case.
ART HISTORY
|Adam Liptak with The New York Times explains the art case, Federal Republic of Germany v. Philipp. At the center of the case is a collection of medieval religious art that is now estimated to be worth $250 million. “A consortium of three firms owned by Jews bought the collection in the waning days of the Weimar Republic and went on to sell about half of it to individual buyers and museums, including the Cleveland Museum of Art. As the Nazi government took power, the collection caught the interest of Hermann Goering, Hitler’s second in command and the prime minister of Prussia. According to the heirs, he threatened the dealers with political persecution and physical harm to coerce them to sell the remaining artifacts in 1935 for much less than they were worth. The pieces are now in the Museum of Decorative Arts in Berlin. In 2014, a German commission determined that the museum had acquired the collection legitimately.”
COULD ACA WAR BE COMING TO A CLOSE
|The Affordable Care Act survived four years of DONALD TRUMP and now PRESIDENT BIDEN could help the healthcare law move past existential challenges that have haunted it for years. Adam Schank and Danielle Parnass with Bloomberg answer questions about the state of Obamacare, the Supreme Court case on justices’ docket involving the law, and what might happen to it under Biden.