(COMTEX) B: Lawsuits Seek Reparations for Slavery
B: Lawsuits Seek Reparations for Slavery
NEW YORK, Mar 26, 2002 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- Three federal lawsuits seeking
unspecified reparations for the 35 million descendants of African slaves were
filed Tuesday against the Aetna insurance company, the FleetBoston financial
services group and railroad giant CSX.
The lawsuits also claim that as many as 1,000 unidentified corporations may have
profited from slavery and sometimes helped it continue in the United States
between 1619 and 1865.
Any damages would be put into a fund to improve health, education and housing
opportunities for blacks, said attorney Roger Wareham, one of a group of lawyers
who prepared the lawsuits. The plaintiffs are seeking class-action status.
"This is not about individuals receiving checks in their mailbox," Wareham said.
Only one plaintiff was identified during a news conference announcing the
lawsuits. Deadria Farmer-Paellmann, a recent law school graduate whose
great-grandparents were slaves, said she spent five years researching evidence
provided by more than 60 companies with a role in slavery.
The lawsuits say slavery is a wound that fails to heal, condemning blacks in
America to more poverty, unemployment, poor education and clashes with the
justice system than other Americans.
"They lag behind whites according to every social yardstick: literacy, life
expectancy, income and education," the lawsuits say. "They are more likely to be
murdered and less likely to have a father at home."
Plaintiffs lawyer Ed Fagan said a series of Holocaust lawsuits he helped settle
for $8 billion had blazed the legal trail for the slavery action.
In a statement, Aetna said: "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."
CSX said the lawsuits had no merit and should be dismissed.
"Slavery was a tragic chapter in our nation's history," the company said in a
statement. "It is a history shared by every American, and its impacts cannot be
attributed to any single company or industry."
Fleet spokesman James Mahoney said the company had not seen the lawsuits and had
no comment.
CSX said it was named as a defendant 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."
Farmer-Paellmann said Aetna, in particular, was cooperative in her research, but
that changed when she started speaking publicly about planned litigation.
Company documents showed one-third of Aetna's first 1,000 policies were written
on the lives of slaves, she said.
On her application to the New England School of Law in Boston, Farmer-Paellmann
said she wrote that she wanted to build the case that would win slavery
reparations. She graduated in 2000.
Farmer-Paellman said the filing was victory enough for one day.
"I feel confident that something good will come of all of this," she said. |
