A unanimous Supreme Court on Friday dealt a severe blow to Holocaust survivors and their families in a long-running lawsuit seeking compensation from Hungary for property confiscated during World War II.
The justices threw out an appeals court ruling that had allowed the lawsuit to continue despite a federal law that generally shields sovereign nations like Hungary from suits in US courts.
The high court heard arguments in December in Hungary's latest bid to end the lawsuit filed in 2010 by survivors, all of whom are now over 90, and heirs of survivors. Some survived being sent to the Auschwitz death camp in what was German-occupied Poland.
The appeals court had held that the survivors satisfied the exception the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act makes for property taken in violation of international law. To qualify, the survivors must be able to show that the property has some commercial tie to the United States.
The survivors had argued that Hungary long ago sold off the property,