American Insurance Association, et al. v. John Garamendi, Insurance Commissioner, State of California (539 U.S. 396)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 23, 2003 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 539 U.S. 396 · 123 S. Ct. 2374
- Decided
- June 23, 2003
- Term
- October Term 2002
- Vote
- 5–4
- Majority author
- Justice Souter
- Issue area
- Federalism
- Disposition
- Reversed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Justice Souter delivered the opinion of the Court. California’s Holocaust Victim Insurance Relief Act of 1999 (HVIRA or Act), Cal. Ins. Code Ann. §§ 13800-13807 (West Cum. Supp. 2003), requires any insurer doing business in that State to disclose information about all policies sold in Europe between 1920 and 1945 by the company itself or any one “related” to it. The issue here is whether HVIRA interferes with the National Government’s conduct of foreign relations. We hold that it does, with the consequence that the state statute is preempted. I A The Nazi Government of Germany engaged not only in genocide and enslavement but theft of Jewish assets, including the value of insurance policies, and in particular policies of life insurance, a form of savings held by many Jews in Europe before the Second World War. Early on in the Nazi era, loss of livelihood forced Jews to cash in life insurance policies prematurely, only to have the government seize the proceeds of the repurchase, and many who tried to emigrate from Germany were forced to liquidate insurance policies to pay the steep “flight taxes” and other levies imposed by the Third Reich to keep Jewish assets from leaving the country. See G. Feldman, Allianz and the German Insurance Business, 1933-1945, pp. 249-262 (2001). Before long, the Reich began simply seizing the remaining policies outright. In 1941, the 11th Decree of…
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