The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts (the state’s highest court) recently issued a surprising decision that permits claims against Harvard arising out of a series of daguerreotypes taken of the plaintiff’s ancestors in the 19th century by famed professor Louis Agassiz to proceed. While the SJC affirmed the dismissal of the plaintiff’s property claims that sought outright ownership, the court reinstated claims for emotional distress. The decision held that the manner in which an educational institution responds to a grievance about something in its possession may itself be actionable in the context of the institution’s relationship to the historical facts. In stretching the bounds of the traditional causes of action for negligent or reckless infliction of emotional distress to reach a sympathetic set of facts, however, the SJC has effectively abolished limits on museum liability for collections created under problematic circumstances where the response to such claims is attacked creatively enough. The issue is not whether the result is fair to Harvard, or whether the plaintiff’s family deserves recognition and justice for what was done—they do. The problem with cases that are hard or impossible to limit is that they may lead to socially positive outcomes in one instance, but can be weaponized in the next. In an era when all manner of actors are politicizing what universities should or shouldn’t teach, this opinion creates innumerable opportunities for mischief. As a result, it raises First Amendment and Due Process concerns that Harvard might plausibly petition the Supreme Court to address.
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Topics:
due process,
Supreme Judicial Court,
SJC,
Harvard,
First Amendment,
Museum of Fine Arts Boston,
NAGPRA,
Tamara Lanier,
negligent infliction of emotional dismiss,
Louis Agassiz,
Daguerreotype,
Renty Taylor,
Delia Taylor,
MFA,
reckless infliction of emotional distress,
Philip Guston,
Drew Gilpin Faust
A U.S. District Court judge has taken the recent invitation of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, and transferred to Oklahoma a lawsuit by Léone Meyer over ownership of a Camille Pissarro painting at the Fred Jones, Jr. Museum at the University of Oklahoma. The case will now proceed in Oklahoma, where the museum seems likely to assert both sovereign immunity under Oklahoma law, as well as an argument that transfers in Switzerland conferred legal title to the museum as a successor to those transfers. However counterintuitive it seems, it may yet be that a court could agree with Meyer that the painting was stolen, but agree with Oklahoma that a Swiss litigation in the 1950s about whether it was sold to a good faith buyer means that Oklahoma holds full title and ownership.
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Topics:
David Findlay Jr. Inc.,
due process,
third party beneficiary,
Metropolitan Museum of Art,
Raoul Meyer,
Nazi Occupation,
American Alliance of Museums,
University of Oklahoma,
Aaron and Clara Weitzenhofer,
Judge Colleen McMahon,
Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art,
AAM,
Vichy,
La bergère rentrent des moutons,
Association of Art Museum Directors,
Restitution,
David Findlay Galleries,
World War II,
CPLR 301,
Switzerland,
Leone Meyer,
long art statute,
Camille Pissarro,
Museums,
personal jurisdiction,
AAMD,
Christoph Bernoulli,
Swiss judgment,
Rep. Mike Reynolds
As we reported last week, the U.S. District Court dismissed claims against the Fred Jones, Jr. Museum of Art, the University of Oklahoma, and associated Oklahoma defendants, over title to the Camille Pissarro painting La bergère rentrent des moutons (a case in which I represented the David Findlay Jr. Gallery).
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Topics:
David Findlay Jr. Inc.,
due process,
third party beneficiary,
Metropolitan Museum of Art,
Raoul Meyer,
Nazi Occupation,
American Alliance of Museums,
University of Oklahoma,
Aaron and Clara Weitzenhofer,
Judge Colleen McMahon,
Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art,
AAM,
Vichy,
La bergère rentrent des moutons,
Association of Art Museum Directors,
Restitution,
David Findlay Galleries,
World War II,
CPLR 301,
Switzerland,
Leone Meyer,
long art statute,
Camille Pissarro,
Museums,
personal jurisdiction,
AAMD,
Christoph Bernoulli,
Swiss judgment
The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York has dismissed the much-publicized claims by Leone Meyer against the University of Oklahoma and related Oklahoma public officials and insitutions for the return of La bergère rentrent des moutons by Camille Pissarro, currently in the Fred Jones, Jr. Museum of Art. In full disclosure: I represented David Findlay, Jr., Inc. in the action, who was dismissed from the action last year by agreement.
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Topics:
David Findlay Jr. Inc.,
due process,
third party beneficiary,
Metropolitan Museum of Art,
Raoul Meyer,
Nazi Occupation,
American Alliance of Museums,
University of Oklahoma,
Aaron and Clara Weitzenhofer,
Judge Colleen McMahon,
Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art,
AAM,
Vichy,
La bergère rentrent des moutons,
Association of Art Museum Directors,
Restitution,
David Findlay Galleries,
World War II,
CPLR 301,
Switzerland,
Leone Meyer,
long art statute,
Camille Pissarro,
personal jurisdiction,
AAMD,
Christoph Bernoulli,
Swiss judgment
