The Newest Litigation Frontier - Slavery
By Michelle Logsdon - March 28, 2002Three lawsuits filed March 26 in federal court seek reparations from the government and three companies that may have profited from the enslavement of Africans during the early 17th century to the mid 19th century. Defendants in the lawsuits say slavery was practiced so long ago that it would be unfair to pin liability on a few businesses still operating today.
The suits were filed by Deadria Farmer-Paellmann, 36, against Aetna Inc., CSX Corp. and FleetBoston Financial Corp.
Paellmann, a descendant of slaves, went to law school with the specific purpose of building a case that would end in reparations for slavery.
The suits will not generate claims but instead will put money into a fund to be spent on health care, education and housing for African-Americans. If successful, Farmer-Paellmann hopes the settlement money will help minimize the economic and social gaps created between Caucasians and African-Americans.
“They lag behind whites according to every social yardstick: literacy, life expectancy, income and education,” according to the lawsuit wordings. “The practice of slavery constituted an immoral and inhuman depravation of Africans’ life, liberty, African citizenship rights, cultural heritage and it further deprived them of the fruits of their own labor.”
Aetna was targeted because its predecessor wrote life insurance policies for slaves. Aetna responded to the suit in a statement acknowledging evidence of 16 slave’s lives covered by them around 1853. “We have, and we continue to express, our deep regret over any participation at all.” But the statement also said, “We have concluded that beyond our apology and our ongoing diversity commitments, no further actions are required.”
CSX said the lawsuit should be dismissed because it lacks merit. In a statement, the company pointed out that today’s industries should not be blamed for an historical societal problem and that CSX is a company with a well-diversified workforce. “We will oppose the lawsuit vigorously to safeguard those jobs and services.”
The statement also said, “The claimants named CSX because slave labor was used to construct portions of some U.S. rail lines under the political and legal system in place more than a century before CSX was formed in 1980.”
According to the lawsuits, FleetBoston’s connection to slavery is traced back to Rhode Island businessman John Brown, the founder of Providence Bank, Fleet’s predecessor. Brown apparently organized several slaving voyages with his ships.
Fleet has not commented on the suits filed.
The California legislature has taken steps to evaluate the issue of slavery on two occasions in the past few years. During 2000, two bills were held over addressing the topic, SB 1737 and SB 2199. The first bill called for a research proposal from the University of California on the economic benefits of slavery to slave owners and businesses, including insurance companies.
SB 2199 requires the insurance commissioner to collect the names of slaveholders or slaves mentioned in insurance records. The information obtained has to be made public.
Los Angeles attorney Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. recently held a press conference where he said slavery could be the newest frontier in class action, personal injury lawsuits against major industries and the government. Asbestos litigation laid the groundwork for tobacco litigation and Cochran is searching for the trigger issue for the new millennium.
Cochran has joined forces with several other lawyers to form a “consortium for justice” that would “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” He plans to take on societal ills such as slavery, as well as hard-to-touch industries like tobacco and nursing homes.
Farmer-Paellmann has some precedent-setting decisions in her corner fighting for her slavery lawsuit. For example, the settlements received by Holocaust victims and Japanese-Americans who were imprisoned during World War II. | 
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