A petition to the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on the interpretation of the Helms-Burton Act might decide the fate of several claims by Cuban Americans who seek compensation for property confiscated in Cuba six decades ago.
The petition, filed in December, asks the court to review the interpretation of the term “acquire” in the context of the law. In practice, that will decide whether heirs of the original property owners also have the right to sue companies doing business with those properties in Cuba.
The petitioner is Robert M. Glen, whose family owned two beach properties in Cuba’s famous Varadero area that are now the site of four hotels. He is suing American Airlines because the company offered to book the hotels through its website, and he received no compensation for those activities. He initially filed his lawsuit in Miami federal court in September 2019.
Glen and others like him have waited decades for the possibility to get any compensation for properties seized by the Cuban government shortly after Fidel Castro rose to power in 1959.
Congress passed the Helms-Burton Act, also known as the Libertad Act, in 1996 to provide Americans and naturalized Cuban nationals with a remedy in U.S. courts to sue companies engaging in unlawful business activities with property confiscated by the Castro regime. But then-president Bill Clinton and successive presidents suspended a key provision, Title III, that allows the cases to proceed in court.
After former president Donald Trump surprisingly lifted the suspension in May 2019, at least 42 lawsuits have been filed in federal courts against several companies, including 26 based in the U.S. The figures come from the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, the most complete depository of Title III lawsuit information.
But because so many years have passed since the Cuban government confiscated millions in assets without offering compensation, many of the original owners have died, and heirs like Glen are pursuing the lawsuits.
Helms-Burton, however, includes a clause barring cases involving people who “acquired” ownership of the claim related to a confiscated property after March 12, 1996, when the law was enacted.
At the core of the request for review by the Supreme Court is the issue of whether passive inheritance can be interpreted as an acquisition. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals found Glen has standing to sue, but because he “acquired” ownership of the claim via inheritance after 1996, the lawsuit lacks merit.
Glen’s lawyers argue that this interpretation is “overly literal” and “renders Title III toothless.”
“Without intervention by this Court, all trafficking claims held by heirs whose family members died between 1996 and 2019 will be totally barred,” the petition argues. The lawyers contend that the Fifth Circuit opinion also “undermines Congress’ express foreign policy aim of deterring trafficking in confiscated property by granting a private right of action to naturalized victims of the Castro regime.”
While the case’s progression up to the Supreme Court is “unusually swift,” it’s possible that the court will not take the case, as it usually awaits disagreements by the lower courts to be resolved before weighing in, said John Kavulich, president of the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council.
The Biden administration could also have a say on the fate of the Helms-Burton lawsuits, after the Eleventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta invited the U.S. government to clarify the meaning of several terms in the law text, including “acquire.”
“What does the word ‘acquire’... mean? Is inheritance encompassed in the term ‘acquire’?” the appeals court asked the government.
There might be other outcomes for Glen’s petition to the Supreme Court, Kavulich said, including a ruling that concludes that the issue should be resolved in Congress by, for example, passing legislation to change the March 1996 cutoff date.
“However, a most significant result for the plaintiff could be if SCOTUS decides to hear the case and then rules in favor of the plaintiff,” he added. “Then, the approximately thirty-plus Libertad Act Title III lawsuits that have been prepared by legal counsel and ready to be filed will likely be filed.”
