Holocaust Survivors File Suit Against International Insurance Claims Commission Under "Unfair Business Practices" Law

I earlier reported on the controversy surrounding the International Commission on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims, and particularly the ongoing efforts of Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi to involve the California Department of Insurance in efforts to identify and collect on life policies issued to Holocaust victims. The U.S. Supreme Court rebuffed those efforts, finding that the Holocaust claims represent a foreign policy issue in which the State of California should not become involved.

Now the issue is moving into a new forum, as a prominent plaintiff's "bad faith" attorney has filed suit against the Commission on behalf of two claimants. The New York Times summarizes the filing:

The two survivors who are filing the lawsuit are California residents. The suit is based on California's unfair business practices statutes and focuses on the commission's relationship with one of its five member-companies, Assicurazioni Generali, a big Italian insurer that dominated sales to Jews in Eastern Europe. Generali has paid most of the claims resolved through the commission.

Christopher Carnicelli, the senior executive in New York for the company, said Generali had paid 'well over $100 million' to the commission to be used for paying claims. Most of that money has not been passed along to beneficiaries, but Mr. Carnicelli said that 'over 2,200 individual claimants' had 'accepted offers of well over $30 million.'

In the lawsuit, the lead lawyer, William M. Shernoff, estimated that Generali owed 'well in excess of $1 billion' on Holocaust-era policies.

In a press release, Commissioner Garamendi is encouraging the suit:

If this lawsuit helps insure that this money is returned more quickly to its rightful owners, in a fair and equitable manner, I welcome the effort as a step in the right direction.

California's Unfair Business Practices statute [Business & Professions Code section 17200] has a notoriously broad reach. Still, one has to wonder whether it can be stretched in such a way as to characterize the Commission as a "business." It is not unlikely that, based on the U.S. Supreme Court's prior decision, the court in this case will conclude that private litigants cannot coerce the Commission any more than state regulators can.

Comments

[ron kolman]

To Those Concerned,
Won't you PLEASE take a moment to read this short mail about a survivor, not just with head, but with your heart as well?

My name is Ron Kolman, and I'm writing on behalf of my mother-in-law Lydia Reich.

Lydia was born and raised in Germany. At age 11, Lydia's family was deported to Poland. At around age 15, Lydia's family was separated by the Nazi SS. Her sisters and parents later died at Auschwitz. Lydia was taken to Graben, a satellite camp of Gros-Rosen. Recently, a Judge who acted as an independent reviewer of the "Fund for Victims of Medical Experiments and Other Injuries," has established her eligibility as a victim of medical experiments while incarcerated there. This Judge determined that the notorious Dr. Josef Mengele and Dr. Friedrich Entress perpetrated these atrocities at Graben, a satellite of Gros-Rosen (letter fom judge is attached as Word doc.).

Today, Lydia is 76 years old. She cares for her husband (who was also in a concentration camp), who has had Parkinson's Disease for 26 years and is 78. They live in Skokie, Illinois. Lydia has a remarkable collection of letters, Third Reich artifacts, photographs, and more. Lydia was able to sew these items into her little red coat that miraculously left the rotting camp with her at liberation. In 1945, She was liberated from Bergen-Belsen by the British, and was near death from lice-borne Typhus. At Bergen-Belsen, she met Anne Frank. There they exchanged their poetry among other writings before Frank died there.

Lydia has written a manuscript. It recounts in detail her life as a child, through the Hell of the Holocaust, and her personal accounting of the atrocities. It was written just after she came to the United States in the mid-1950's while all of this was fresh in her mind, and with the help of her notes that she salvaged from camp. She and her husband Jack are the last generation to bear witness to the actual events.

Upon receipt of this letter attempting to address what Lydia sufferd, and at the hands of Mengele as well, she has decided to retain counsel and litigate against Germany for monies due her regarding mental and physical torture, from Day One, when she was taken from her family by the Gestapo, through the day in 1945 when she was liberated, near death with lice-borne Typhus.

Given all factors, Lydia, and her family, decided to bring this to the legal system, and see if there is interest in handling such an expansive, unprecedented, and highly charged case.


Please contact us with your thoughts. Time is an issue as well. Lydia's 59th anniversary of her liberation from Bergen-Belsen is April 15th of this year. Lydia is in excellent health in mind and body and anxious to move ahead with her legal matters and opportunity to have mer manuscript named "Desperation" published.

Thank you for taking time to read this mail, looking forward to hearing from you,

Ron Kolman
914 Park Avenue West
Highland Park, Illinois 60035
home: 847-433-9900
email: SurvivedTheCamps@aol.com
Lydia's web site: HolocaustSurvivor1945.com