Lengthier U.S. limitations period allows claim over accidental deaths of medical students in Nevis

The Massachusetts three-year statute of limitations rather than a foreign one-year statute of limitations permitted wrongful death suits in the tragic case of two medical students killed while studying abroad, a trial court ruled in March.

Plaintiffs' decedents were students from New Jersey and California studying at the Medical University of the Americas (MUA) on the island of Nevis, in the Federation of St. Christopher (Kitts) and Nevis, in the West Indies. MUA is a nonprofit based in Devens, Massachusetts.

MUA campus, Nevis
(Bazi014 CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons)

The women suffered fatal burns in their MUA dormitory when a gas cooking stove connected to an external propane tank exploded. Plaintiffs sued MUA two years later in negligence, alleging failure to inspect and maintain the stove and gas piping.

The defendant sought dismissal under the one-year statute of limitation in Nevis law. The plaintiffs contended that the more generous three-year limitations period in Massachusetts pertained.

The Superior Court in Worcester, Mass., explained the choice-of-law analysis, relying on Commonwealth high court precedent and the Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws:

Massachusetts applies a functional approach in determining the statute of limitations when a choice of law question arises.... Generally, Massachusetts "will apply its own statute of limitations permitting the claim unless: (a) maintenance of the claim would serve no substantial interest of the forum; and (b) the claim would be barred under the statute of limitations of a state having a more significant relationship to the parties and the occurrence." .... "Stated in affirmative terms, a forum should apply its own statute of limitations permitting the claim if it would advance a substantial forum interest and would not seriously impinge upon the interests of other states." .... The focus of this choice of law analysis is on the timeliness of the action, rather than the underlying claim.

The court reasoned that oversight of the dorm was a function of the defendant's management in and directives from Massachusetts. And Nevis's interest was less than Massachusetts's when it is a Massachusetts defendant that faces liability.

The defendant also sought dismissal for forum non conveniens, and the court decided that the question is premature.

The case is Balasanyan v. R3 Education Inc., No. 2085CV01052 (Mass. Super. Ct. Mar. 29, 2022), Justice David M. Hodge presiding.

Christian flag, Nazi art color SCOTUS arguments this week, raising First Amendment, choice-of-law issues

On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in both the Boston flag First Amendment scrap (on this blog) and the latest transnational Nazi-appropriated-art case.

My take of the transcript accords with what I'm reading from commentators (e.g., Brian Dowling (subscription required)): It looks bad for Boston.  The city seems to know that, having already pledged to rewrite its flag policy.  So I'm not sure why this dispute has been belabored into a literal Supreme Court case.

Justice Kagan seemed unsure, too.  She, and not she alone, regarded city commissioner George Rooney's refusal to raise the Christian ecumenical flag on a public pole as based on a mistaken understanding of the Establishment Clause, if "an understandable mistake."

Neutrality in the policy for "guest" flags rides to the rescue, abating any establishment-of-religion issue.  So I don't expect this case will generate establishment or free exercise jurisprudence, nor any new First Amendment principle at all.  The Court seemed willing to locate the case firmly in existing public forum doctrine.  Boston just did a lousy job of defining the forum, creating for itself the "risk of being forced to fly the swastika," in the words of city counsel.

At least the case might yield a neat demonstration-of-principle opinion for law school casebooks.

The same day, the Court heard argument in the latest art appropriation (and expropriation) case.  In the "Woman in Gold" vein, heirs of a Jewish family are trying to recover a Camille Pissarro painting, Rue St Honoré, Apres-midi, Effet de Pluie (1897) (pictured), that came into the possession of respondent Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid.

In its present iteration, the case involves a choice-of-law problem.  Because the Spanish museum is a public entity, the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act is implicated; claimants are threading the immunity needle through the FSIA "expropriation" exception.  Ownership subsequently hinges on the substantive law of California or Spain.  The district court used federal common law to choose Spanish law and reach a conclusion in favor of the museum.  The claimants assert that California choice-of-law rules should pertain—though it remains arguable that California choice-of-law rules would render a different outcome.

The U.S. Solicitor General is favoring the claimants' position, which generated a curious exchange in oral argument.  Chief Justice Roberts admitted "surprise" that the government wasn't worried about a potential conflict between the federal prerogative in foreign affairs and the application of state choice-of-law rules.  Assistant to the S.G. Masha Hansford responded that if a federal interest were implicated, that problem could be dealt with upon the application of substantive law; and that, meanwhile, state choice-of-law rules employed in other cases have proven fair in choosing between foreign and domestic law.

Boston-based lawyer and writer Martha Lufkin wrote a superb review and analysis for The Art Newspaper (free account after limited access) (HT @ James Romoser). 

The Boston flag case is Shurtleff v. City of Boston, No. 20-1800 (U.S. argued Jan. 18, 2022).  The Pissarro case is Cassirer v. Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Foundation, No. 20-1566 (U.S. argued Jan. 18, 2022).