the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit

“ A person whose ancestor had been wronged a thousand years ago could sue on the ground that it was a continuing wrong and he is one of the victims.
The plaintiffs introduce another claim of injury by asserting that had the defendants refused to violate their own states' laws by doing business with slaveowners, there would have been less slavery because the refusal would have been tantamount to subjecting the slaveowners to a partial boycott. That would have raised their costs, and, by making slavery less profitable, might have reduced the amount of it. ”

“ These plaintiffs not only escape the objection to standing that the suits seek damages for injuries actually suffered by third parties (the ancestors—no longer third parties, but the real parties in interest, merely represented by the plaintiffs) , but have less to prove. They just have to prove the injury to the ancestors; the trickle-down question is elided.
In all likelihood it would still be impossible for them to prove injury, requiring as that would connecting the particular slavery transactions in which the defendants were involved to harm to particular slaves. ”

“ The second qualification concerns a claim, rather buried in the complaint but not forfeited, that in violation of state fraud or consumer protection law members of the plaintiff classes have bought products or services from some of the defendants that they would not have bought had the defendants not concealed their involvement in slavery. This claim has nothing to do with ancient violations and indeed would be unaffected if the defendants' dealings with slaveowners had been entirely legal. It is a complaint of consumers' being deceived because sellers have concealed a material fact. ”

“ All that to one side, there is a fatal disconnect between the victims and the plaintiffs. When a person is wronged he can seek redress, and if he wins, his descendants may benefit, but the wrong to the ancestor is not a wrong to the descendants. For if it were, then (problems of proof to one side) statutes of limitations would be toothless. ”

“ The district judge ruled that by virtue of both the political-question doctrine and the requirement of standing to sue derived from Article III of the Constitution, there was no federal jurisdiction over any of the suits and that in any event they had no merit because the applicable statutes of limitations had lapsed and anyway the complaint failed to state a claim. ”

“ The dismissal of the claims brought by the plaintiffs who claim to be legal representatives is affirmed, but on the merits (statute of limitations) and so with prejudice. The dismissal of the consumer protection claims is reversed and the case remanded to the district court for further proceedings on those claims consistent with this opinion. The district court is authorized to retain those claims for the duration of the litigation, except in the case of the Hurdle plaintiffs, as to whom the court is authorized only to conduct pretrial proceedings under 28 U.S.C. § 1407. ”

“ But the plaintiffs are charging the defendants with misrepresenting their activities in relation to slavery. A seller who learns that some class of buyers would not buy his product if they knew it contained some component that he would normally have no duty to disclose, but fearing to lose those buyers falsely represents that the product does not contain the component, is guilty of fraud. ”

“ It is highly unlikely that the estate of anyone who died a century or more ago, or indeed more than half a century ago (for although many former slaves survived into the twentieth century, very few would still have been alive 50 years ago, which is to say in 1956, 91 years after the end of the Civil War) , has not yet been closed. ”

“ Nine suits were filed in federal district courts around the country seeking monetary relief under both federal and state law for harms stemming from the enslavement of black people in America. A tenth suit, by the Hurdle group of plaintiffs, makes similar claims but was filed in a state court and then removed by the defendants to a federal district court. The Multidistrict Litigation Panel consolidated all the suits in the district court in Chicago for pretrial proceedings. ”