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Case Summary

Price v. United States; Hoffman v. United States

In re Petition of Price, 723 F.2d 1193 (5th Cir. 1984), vacated and remanded for consolidation; Price v. United States, 707 F. Supp. 1465 (S.D. Tex. 1989); rev’d, 69 F.3d 46 (5th Cir. 1995); modified and reh’g denied, 81 F.3d 520 (5th Cir. 1996); cert. denied, 519 U.S. 927 (1996).

Hoffman v. United States, 53 F. Supp. 2d 483 (D. D.C. 1999); aff’d in part and vacated in part, 17 Fed. App'x 980 (Fed. Cir. 2001); remanded to 266 F. Supp. 2d 27 (D.C. Cir. 2003); cert. denied, 543 U.S. 1002 (2004).

Précis
In these complex suits against the United States, the heirs of Hitler’s official photographer, together with an American art investor, claimed damages resulting from the alleged tortious 

conversion by the U.S. government of four Hitler watercolors and two photographic archives that were seized by the U.S. Army in Germany in 1945 (or, in the case of the second archive, looted by a photographer for an American magazine and then transferred to the U.S. government).  After many years of litigation . . . .






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