Heirs of Armenian Genocide Victims Win Court Ruling

A judge has upheld a state law that allows heirs of Armenian genocide victims to use California courts to try to collect life insurance on relatives who died in Ottoman Turkey during World War I.

The ruling Friday by U.S. District Judge Christina Snyder denied a motion by New York Life Insurance Co. to void the law, implemented last year, that permitted a 1999 class-action lawsuit to go forward in California.

The subject of the suit is New York Life policies written between 1895 and 1915, payable in French francs or English pounds. In Snyder’s Los Angeles courtroom, lawyers for the insurance company argued that lawsuits over those policies should be filed in France or England.

Snyder said that with hundreds of thousands of ethnic Armenians living in California, enforcing such a requirement “would be fundamentally unfair.”

“I know this is only the first hurdle, but it’s a very important hurdle,” said attorney Vartkes Yeghiayan, one of the lawyers representing the Armenians. “The clients are very happy with the decision.”

In April, New York Life made an offer to settle the case for $15 million that was rejected by the plaintiffs, according to lawyers. About $3 million of that money would have gone to Armenian civic organizations, said New York Life representatives.

“Without a settlement, the claims of heirs of policyholders remain unresolved, and the proposed donation to Armenian community groups will not occur,” said William Werfelman, spokesman for New York Life. “We regret that our efforts to resolve the case were unsuccessful and that litigation is likely to go on for some time.”

Werfelman said the company is evaluating whether to appeal the judge’s decision.

“The motion to dismiss had been filed to address a jurisdictional issue . . . not its merits or lack of merits. New York Life believes that the law and the facts are firmly on its side in this matter,” Werfelman said.

Snyder also rejected a New York Life claim that the law would interfere with the United States’ relationship with the Turkish republic, which succeeded Ottoman Turkey in 1923 and has long denied that Turks committed genocide.

“New York Life had tried to raise the red herring that this would somehow damage American-Turkish relations,” said attorney Mark Geragos, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs. “The judge ruled this had nothing to do with foreign reactions.”

The vice counsel of the Turkish Consulate in Los Angeles, Ozger Altan, said he could not comment on the case because it is a legal matter.

Gunay Evinch, a lawyer who represents the Turkish government, was not familiar with the case.

“Turkey is not a party to the case,” Evinch said from Washington, D.C. “But if the New York Life lawyers thought it could damage relationships between America and Turkey, I would think they would have contacted the Turkish government, and they did not.”

Between 1895 and 1915, more than 7,000 Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire bought life insurance policies, most of them from New York Life, according to court records. The vast majority were never paid, both sides agree. An estimated 1.5 million Armenians died at the hands of the Turks between 1915 and 1923.

A Feb. 26, 1919, letter written by the general counsel of New York Life to the State Department said, “New York Life Insurance Co. has outstanding life insurance on subjects of Armenia aggregating [to] more than $7 million.”

“Imagine what $7 million in 1919 would be worth today,” said Geragos, who estimated it would be more than $100 million.

The California law covering claims by Armenians was basically a copy of the state Holocaust Victims Insurance Relief Act of 1999.

Snyder’s ruling “bolsters the claims Holocaust victims are relying on in California,” said attorney William Shernoff, a plaintiffs’ lawyer in the Armenian suit and in Jewish class-action suits related to World War II. Lawyers for the Armenian plaintiffs said they believe a significant number of potential beneficiaries live in California. More than 400,000 Armenians live in the state, 300,000 in the Los Angeles area, according to Peter Abajian, director of the lobbying group Armenian Assembly of America.

The lead plaintiff in the case is Marty Marootian, an 85-year-old resident of La Canada Flintridge who, according to the lawsuit, is the unpaid beneficiary of a policy on his uncle Setrak Cheytian.

“I’m thrilled about the decision,” said Marootian, who maintains that his uncle gave the policy to Marootian’s mother in 1914 when she came to the United States. The next year, Cheytian was killed.

“After nearly 100 years, things are going in the right direction,” Marootian said by phone Tuesday. “I don’t mind going to court. I’m just glad I don’t have to go to Paris.”