Last week, the New York Times reported that a group of Holocaust survivors had filed a $40 billion lawsuit against the U.S. government. The lawsuit alleges that the U.S.'s failure to bomb Auschwitz (and presumably other concentration camps) during WWII meant that the U.S. contributed to the genocide.
This morning, NPR reported that an Italian-American organization in Illinois has filed suit against HBO over The Sopranos. The group is not seeking an injunction nor monetary damages, but seeks a declaratory judgment that the show is offensive to Italian-Americans.
I’ll leave it to others to debate the rightness or wrongness of U.S. actions during WWII and/or ethnic stereotypes. I’m pissed at the lawyers.
These fuckwads apparently stopped taking notes after they heard in the first week of law school that “you can sue anybody for anything.” Apparently they were picking their asses, and didn’t write down the next sentence - “but ya can’t win unless you have a case.” And these shit-for-brains don’t have a case.
The Holocaust case - oh yeah, like any self-respecting judge is gonna say, “Well, ya know, I’ve never been in the military, but I’m going to substitute my judgment on how the U.S. Army Air Corps should have used their bombers in WWII. By the way, I’m going to ignore the fact that, had the U.S. bombed Auschwitz, many of the plaintiffs might have been killed then, and wouldn’t be here to sue now. The U.S. was obviously wrong not to take an action that may have killed the plaintiffs. Oh, and let’s ignore sovereign immunity - I’m sure the U.S. will have no problem being sued for $40 Billion.”
The Soprano case - obviously the judge will say, “Well of course you were right to bring this suit. Yeah, you don’t want me to do anything, but you’re not wasting my time. Ya see, regular people don’t have the ability to say ‘I’m offended by that.’ Only judges have that power.”
The curse of publicity. These lawyers are bringing their clients along for a ride in unwinnable cases just to get some press time. These shitheads should join the carnie - it’s their natural calling.
Heh. HBO had a open call for extras on the show last year. Every Guido, Vinnie, Maria and Connie in the tri-state area descended on Paramus or Secaucus or wherever the heck it was, trying to get on the show.
That’s about how offended Italians are in this area.
The Holocaust was a horrible thing. The US’s (and other Allies) involvement prevented Hitler from fully realizing his plan of extermination. These people are obviously looking at the “glass half empty” perspective. I’m really trying to be nice here, 'cause this burns my butt.
It’s crap like this that makes me such a proponent of rules requiring the filers of fivolous lawsuits to pay the costs of defending them. SUA, you hold these shysters down and I’ll kick 'em.
So why blame the legal profession instead of the client who searched high and low for someone foolish enough to represent them? As a lawyer I dealt with dozens of outraged people who wanted to bring what I considered frivolous actions. I like the long list of lawyers they had seen before me explained their case had no merit so they went looking for someone else. I have a hard time seeing contingency fees as the cause for this, most lawyers only take a sure winner on contingency.
Beware of reports of lawsuits, they are often innacurate and will often focus on one frivolous statement in an otherwise meritorious claim. One infamous example reported across the country claimed a woman won damages for loss of psychic powers while conveniently glossing over the ongoing debilitating pain experienced as a result of her injuries. My WAG regarding the holocaust case is that they want access to records.
I am in Canada where we have always had costs go to the winning party. They are not so high as to scare off legitimate suits but are a serious factor to consider in cases with questionable merit.
Just wondering, but wouldn’t a “winner pays” system result in an increase in frivolous lawsuits? I could theoretically drive you to bankruptcy by continually filing groundless lawsuits that you would win and then have to pay for (until you caught on and started doing the same thing to me).
I’m not so sure that the concentration camp class action is so far fetched. It is probable that evidence could be put forth indicating that the US had the ability to bomb some camps, but chose not to, and than in general the US was aware of but did not pay much attention to the Jewish plight. (For an intro, check out the Newseum.)
I expect the question would come down to duty of care, particularly with regard to soverign immunity. If a nation is intervening in a conflict, does it owe a duty of care to others in the conflict, or is it free to act as it choses regardless of the impact? Upon intervening, is it under any duty of care to do the job right, or is it free to make mistakes regardless of the impact?
It the duty hurdle were met, what then would the standard hurdle be set at? Would it be relaxed because things must be expected to slip during war, or might it be heightened due to the nature and severity of the harm?
I wouldn’t begin to guess at how a court might handle these questions, but I suggest that they are reasonble questions, and that the matter is of such import that a court ought to have a crack at them. The case would help further define the boundaries within a nation must act when assuming an interventionist role. Given that the US is now the world’s keeper, such clarification might be useful. Thus I don’t think the concentration camp action is necessarily a nuisance suit, and I certainly would not suggest that it’s lawyers are acting in anything other than a professional manner.
If these matters are without merit, then summary judgment will follow shortly.
If the matters cannot be summarily disimssed, then whether the plaintiffs ultimately win or not, I suggest that the plaintiff’s lawyers probably acted properly in bringing the matter forward.
A point - when I’ve heard this accusation before, it concerned the Allies’ failure to disable rail lines leading to Auschwitz, or failure to put Zyklon B manufacturing facilities out of commission, not failure to bomb the camps themselves.
Could even be true, I suppose. It would make sense - a rail line carrying munitions to the front is a far more valuable target in purely military terms than one carrying civilians to gas chambers. Wars, by definition, involve thinking in nasty, but realistic, terms.
How many US citizens were in the camps? How could you hold the US resonsible for actions taken by a third party outside our borders?
If I go to, say, Nigeria and get beaten up, could I sue the US government for failing to protect me? What if I could show that they KNEW there were gangs in Nigeria but did nothing to stop them? I mean, does the US government have the responsiblity to stop bad actions that don’t even occur inside the US?
Next we’re going to see lawsuits against the US for failing to stop Tiananmen Square.
I have to say this line of reasoning is why I prevent any American trained legal staff from coming anywhere near my projects. Recall my pit thread re Monsanto (Genetic … )?
Only insofar as armchair generals…
The horror, the horror…
I can think of few things ** worse ** than this. Very few in terms of the subject. Never mind I find the whole stink of extraterritoriality to be offensive to start with.
I wonder how they’d quantify the claim for the 300,000 Americans who died fighting the Axis and preventing the Holocaust from going any further. Are their families on the hook for the $40 billion lawsuit?
If we were to assume that each young man slain in the war would have contributed $40,000 (in 2001 dollars) annually to their families for 30 years, that’s $1.2 million per man, which would be - uhhhh - 360 thousand million dollars. $360 billion. So perhaps these donkey-raping shiteaters should do the fucking math. Taking off their $40 billion lawsuit, they owe the USA $320 billion, and that’s a conservative estimate, because I haven’t counted material costs, medical costs, lost productivity from those who were crippled, lost productivity from all those fighting the war while it was going on… How much do you think a P-51 costs in today’s money? A B-17? A Sherman tank? Virtually all those things built were built only to fight that war. We’re into trillions, aren’t we?
Um…they wanted the US to bomb Aushwitz? Are they nuts?
I mean, wouldn’t that like, oh, I don’t know…KILL EVERYONE THERE AND THEREFORE AID HITLER’S EXTERMINATION PLAN!!!
Jesus wept.
Actually Guin there has been considerable debate about the failure to bomb from people who have thought about that issue. Hitting the rail sidings could have caused considerable difficulty for the nazi’s. Those who like darker motives suggest that the allies were perfectly happy with rail resources being used to transport Jews instead of materials which would have aided the German war effort.
Please don’t read this to mean I support the court action, it does from the extremely small amount of information I have, seem to have no chance of success. My WAG on the subject is that the purpose of the action has nothing to do with winning a money judgement. I don’t personally believe that the court is a terribly useful forum for type of historic vindication that I would imagine they are hoping for but others disagree.
