Slave Trade Suit Targets Lloyd’s, U.S. Companies

Ten present-day descendants of slaves who were transported from Africa in the 18th and 19th centuries have filed a lawsuit against R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., Fleet Boston Financial Corp. (as successor in interest to the Providence Bank of Rhode Island) and Lloyd’s of London, seeking some $2 billion in compensation for their ancestors’ enslavement.

High profile U.S. lawyer Edward Fagan filed the case in the Southern District of New York. According to news reports, Reynolds is charged with operating the tobacco fields where the slaves were put to work, Fleet Boston participated by financing the voyages of slave ships, and Lloyd’s has been named as the insurer of the ships and their human cargo.

This is not the first such action aimed at obtaining reparations for slavery. In March 2002 Fagan was also part of a legal team representing Deadria Farmer-Paellmann, a 36-year-old black activist who filed suit against Aetna, Fleet Boston and the transportation company CSX. Although the subject has been debated for a number of years, this case was the first class action suit seeking reparations from firms for profiting from slavery.

Activists hailed that suit as a harbinger of more legal actions to compensate today’s descendants for the forced transportation and enslavement of their ancestors. Aetna reportedly responded at the time with the following statement: “We do not believe a court would permit a lawsuit over events which—however regrettable—occurred hundreds of years ago. These issues in no way reflect Aetna today.”

As he had in that case, Fagan described the action against Lloyd’s, Fleet and R.J. Reynolds as involving “genocide,” although that term more properly refers to “the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national or racial group,” according to the Random House Dictionary. Fagan nevertheless analogized the forced transportation as genocide because the slave trade resulted in the destruction of local communities in Africa and their culture. He asserted that by underwriting insurance contracts on slave ships the U.K.’s oldest insurance firm played a key role in supporting the trade.

Asked about Lloyd’s’ position, spokeswoman Emmanuelle Thiney said, “We haven’t yet been served with papers, so there are no comments on the actual contents of the suit.” She noted, however, that from news reports the basis for the action seemed to be much the same as in the earlier case, which was dismissed in January. “Assuming that they are, Lloyd’s completely rejects these allegations,” she added.

It would seem hard to make a case against Lloyd’s given the historical facts. Britain abolished slavery throughout its empire in the 1830s, and although the United States didn’t do so until 1865 with the passage of the 13th Amendment, British control of the seas largely stopped the African slave trade by 1840. However, slavery has left a profoundly harmful legacy in the United States. The question is whether a lawsuit for monetary damages by members of a generation many times removed from the actual fact against companies equally separated by time from their predecessors’ actions is the right way to redress that legacy.

The judge in the earlier case didn’t think so. According to an Asssociated Press report from Chicago, following the dismissal of the case, which had been transferred there from New York, Judge Charles R. Norgle stated: “Plaintiffs’ attempt to bring these claims more than a century after the end of the Civil War and the formal abolition of slavery fails.” He indicated that the plaintiffs’ claims “are beyond the constitutional authority of this court,” adding that the lawsuit claimed no specific connection between the plaintiffs and the companies named as defendants.

The AP reported that Andrew McGaan, an attorney representing Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., one of the defendants, said he was “not surprised at all that the court decided to dismiss.” He noted that the judge had agreed with almost all the points raised by the defense, and had specifically recognized that “long-standing doctrine in matters involving political questions ‘bars the court from deciding the issue of slavery reparations, an issue that has been historically and constitutionally committed to the legislative and executive branches of our government.'” McGaan added that the plaintiffs also failed to show how the wrongs cited in the lawsuit fell within the statute of limitations.

The current case does differ somewhat from the one dismissed in January, as the plaintiffs claim they are able to trace their ancestors’ origins through DNA evidence to specific locations and specific ships. According to a BBC report one of the claimants even has insurance documents issued by Lloyd’s on the ship that carried his forebear to the United States.

At least Fagan has come up with a new argument, and he has a track record in handling high profile legal cases. In 1998 he secured settlements totaling $1.25 billion from Swiss banks accused of receiving gold and funds from Germany that had been taken from Holocaust victims.

Earlier this year he was involved with a case against companies, including Anglo American, Fluor, IBM and Deutsche Bank, for conducting business with South Africa during the apartheid era, which allegedly helped the government discriminate against black workers. He was dropped from that case in November 2003.

Nevertheless, Fagan’s presence in this case virtually guarantees it will get a lot of publicity.

Topics Lawsuits USA Excess Surplus Lloyd's