California rejoins fight with Spain over Nazi-looted painting

California is once again fighting in federal court for a Jewish family’s right to have a valuable Impressionist painting returned to them by a Spanish museum nearly 90 years after it was looted by the Nazis.

The state also defends its legal authority to demand the return of artworks and other stolen treasures to other victims with ties to the state, even in disputes that extend far beyond its borders.

The state has weighed in on the case repeatedly since the Cassirer family first filed suit in 2005, when they were living in San Diego. Last year, it passed a new law designed to bolster the legal rights of the Cassirers and other families in California to recover valuable property stolen from them due to genocide or political persecution.

On Monday, California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta’s office filed a motion to intervene directly in the Cassirer case in an effort to defend the law. The Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Foundation, which is owned by Spain and owns the Camille Pissarro masterpiece, claimed that the law was unconstitutional and should therefore be ignored.

Bonta told The Times that the law is “about fairness, moral and legal responsibility, and doing the right thing” and that the state will defend it in court.

“There is nothing that can undo the horror and loss that individuals experienced during the Holocaust. But there is something we can do, as California has done, to return what was stolen to survivors and their families and provide them with some measure of justice and healing,” Bonta said. “My job as attorney general is to defend California laws, and I intend to do that here.”

Bonta said his office “has supported the Cassirers’ quest for justice for two decades” and “will continue to fight with them for the rightful return of this priceless family heirloom.”

Museum lawyer Thaddeus J. Stauber did not answer The Times’ questions. Bonta’s office said Stauber did not oppose intervening in the case.

Sam Dubbin, the Cassirers’ longtime attorney, thanked Bonta’s office for “re-intervening in this case to defend California’s interests in protecting the integrity of the art market and the rights of victims of stolen property.”

“California law has always provided strong protections, especially for victims of stolen property and stolen artwork, and the Legislature has continually strengthened this,” Dubbin said.

The state defied the powerful 9th ​​U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals by passing the law last year. In its decision in January 2024, the appeal court ruled that the painting legally belonged to the Spanish museum.

Bonta’s latest move adds to the intrigue surrounding the 20-year-old case, which is watched around the world for its potential ramifications in the high-stakes world of looted art cases.

The painting in question – Pissarro’s “Rue Saint-Honoré in the Afternoon. Effect of Rain” – is estimated to be worth tens of millions of dollars. Both sides acknowledge that it was stolen by the Nazis in 1939 from Lilly Cassirer Neubauer after he desperately agreed to hand her over to a Nazi appraiser in exchange for a visa to escape Germany at the dawn of World War II.

The interest in the case and its potential to set a new precedent in international law probably makes the painting even more valuable.

Lilly, II. He received compensation for the painting from the German government after World War II, but the family never relinquished its right to the masterpiece, which was considered forfeited at the time. The amount paid to him was a tiny fraction of the current estimated value.

In the years that followed, Lilly’s grandson Claude Cassirer, a Holocaust survivor, moved with his family to San Diego.

In 2000, Claude made the shocking discovery that the painting had not been lost over time, but was part of a large art collection Spain had acquired from the late Baron Hans Heinrich von Thyssen-Bornemisza, scion of a German industrialist family with ties to Hitler’s regime. Spain restored an early 19th-century palace near the Prado Museum in Madrid to house the collection as the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza.

Claude asked the museum to return the painting to his family. He refused. He filed a lawsuit in US federal court in 2005. The case has been going through the courts ever since.

California passed its new law last year in response to a 9th Circuit decision that said state law at the time required it to apply an old Spanish law. This measure requires that ownership of stolen goods pass legally to a new owner over time if the owner was not aware that the goods were stolen when he received them; The Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection also argues that this makes ownership of the painting legally valid.

In September 2024, Governor Gavin Newsom signed the new law during a small meeting with families of Holocaust survivors at the Los Angeles Holocaust Museum. David Cassirer, Lilly’s grandson and Claude’s son who now lives in Colorado, was there, praising state lawmakers for “taking a firm stance in favor of the rightful owners of stolen art.”

In March, the Supreme Court ruled in a brief order that the 9th Circuit should reconsider its decision in light of California’s new law.

In September, the Thyssen-Bournemisza Collection filed a motion asking the appeals court to once again rule in its favor. He made many arguments, but among them was that California’s new law was “constitutionally indefensible” and deprived the museum of due process rights.

“According to the binding precedents of the Supreme Court, a State may not, by legal order, reopen barred claims and alienate property for which title has already been vested,” the museum said.

He said that under federal law, the United States “does not seek to impose its own property laws or the property laws of its own states on other foreign dominions, but rather expressly recognizes that different legal traditions and systems must be taken into account to facilitate fair and equitable solutions to cases of Nazi-looted art.”

It was stated that the California law adopts an “aggressive approach” that “disrupts the federal government’s efforts to maintain uniformity and friendly relations with foreign countries” and “obstructs the accomplishment and implementation of federal policy.”

David Cassirer, the lead plaintiff in the case since Claude’s death in 2010, argued otherwise in his own filing with the court.

Cassirer argued that California’s new law required an outcome in its favor, saying it would also be consistent with “the moral commitments made by governments around the world, including the United States and Spain, to Nazi victims and their families.”

“It is undisputed that California substantive law mandates the issuance of title hereto to the Cassirer family, Lilly’s heirs, of whom Plaintiff David Cassirer is the last surviving member,” Cassirer’s attorneys wrote.

They wrote that California law provided that “a thief cannot give good title to stolen works of art” and therefore required the painting to be returned to Cassirer.

Assemblyman Jesse Gabriel (D-Encino), who sponsored the bill in the legislature, praised Bonta for stepping in to defend the legislation; himself called it “part of a decades-long quest for justice, rooted in the belief that California should stand on the right side of history.”