Republic of Austria v. Altmann
Case Date: 07/10/2025
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Republic of Austria v. Altmann, 541 U.S. 677 (2004),[1] was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act applies retroactively. It is one of the most recent cases that deals with the "anti-retroactivity doctrine", which is a doctrine that holds that courts should not construe a statute to apply retroactively (to apply to situations that arose before it was enacted) unless there is a clear statutory intent that it would do so. This means that, regarding lawsuits filed after its enactment, the FSIA standards of sovereign immunity and its exceptions apply even to conduct that took place before 1976.
The result of this case for the plaintiff, Maria Altmann, was that she was authorized to proceed with a civil action against Austria in a U.S. federal district court for recovery of a painting stolen by the Nazis and then housed in a government museum. As the Supreme Court noted in its decision, Altmann had already tried suing the museum before in Austria, but was forced to voluntarily dismiss her case because of Austria's rule that court costs are proportional to the amount in controversy (in this case, the enormous monetary value of the painting). That is, just to file her complaint in an Austrian court, she would have had to pay a filing fee of $135,000 (an outrageous requirement when measured by American standards of due process). Although Altmann's forum shopping was quite transparent, Justice Stephen Breyer, in his concurring opinion, emphasized that the Court was dealing purely with the FSIA retroactivity issue and not with "any legal determination about the merits of Austrian legal procedures."
As a result of the Court's decision, both parties agreed to arbitration in an Austrian court in 2005, which in turn ruled in favor of Altmann on 16 January 2006.
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