Supreme Court revives family’s claim to recover Pissarro painting stolen by the Nazis

WASHINGTON  — The Supreme Court on Monday revived a family’s claim to recover a painting that had been hung in a Berlin apartment in 1939 and was stolen by the Nazis.

In a brief order, the justices overturned the 9th Circuit Court for the second time and said the fate of the Claude Pissarro painting should be decided under the terms of a new California law that protects the rightful heirs of art that was lost during the Holocaust.

Repeatedly, a federal judge in Los Angeles and the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco had ruled the Spanish museum that had lawfully obtained the painting, called “Rue Saint-Honoré in the Afternoon. Effect of Rain,” more than 30 years ago had a rightful claim to own it.

But this legal conclusion over property transfers ran into the moral claim that stolen art work from the Holocaust era must be returned.

In 2000, Claude Cassirer, a San Diego resident, was astonished to learn that the painting that he remembered from the Berlin apartment was hanging in a museum in Madrid.

After trying successfully to have it returned by the museum, he filed a lawsuit in 2005 in federal court in Los Angeles that has been carried on by his family. Claude Cassirer died in 2010; his wife, Beverly, in 2020.

Last year, the California Legislature changed the state’s law in response to the case.

“For survivors of the Holocaust and their families, the fight to take back ownership of art and other personal items stolen by the Nazis continues to traumatize those who have already gone through the unimaginable,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said when he signed the bill into law. “It is both a moral and legal imperative that these valuable and sentimental pieces be returned to their rightful owners, and I am proud to strengthen California’s laws to help secure justice for families.”

In response, lawyers for David Cassirer, the couple’s son, appealed to the Supreme Court and urged the justices to vacate, or set aside, the 9th Circuit’s latest ruling.

The court did just that on Monday.

It granted the appeal and told the 9th Circuit to reconsider the case under the new California law.