## Facts

- The dispute concerned an Oskar Kokoschka painting, “Portrait of a Youth (Hans Reichel)” (1910).
- Sarah Blodgett Dunbar possessed the painting in Louisiana, having inherited it from her mother in 1973.
- Dunbar’s mother purchased the painting in New York in 1946 from art dealer Otto Kallir or an associated gallery.
- Dr. Claudia Seger-Thomschitz, an heir of the Reichel family, alleged the painting was taken from the family through a Nazi-era forced sale in Vienna in 1939.
- Dunbar and her mother maintained long-term possession that was open and public, including lending the painting to museums and galleries.
- The Reichel family pursued postwar compensation claims regarding other property but did not assert a claim to this painting until decades later.
- After Seger-Thomschitz asserted an ownership claim, Dunbar filed suit to quiet title and to bar any adverse claims as prescribed under Louisiana law.
- Seger-Thomschitz counterclaimed in quasi-contract and unjust enrichment, seeking return of the painting or its value.

## Issues

1. Whether federal common law or the Holocaust Victims Redress Act displaced or preempted Louisiana acquisitive prescription and limitations rules in a private title dispute over alleged Nazi-looted art.
2. Whether Dunbar established ownership under Louisiana acquisitive prescription for movables based on long-term possession.
3. Whether Seger-Thomschitz’s quasi-contract and unjust enrichment counterclaims were barred by Louisiana’s ten-year prescriptive period.

## Decision

- The court granted summary judgment for Dunbar and quieted title in her favor.
- The court held that neither the Holocaust Victims Redress Act nor any asserted federal policy created a federal common-law rule overriding Louisiana prescription law.
- Applying Louisiana law, the court found Dunbar had acquired ownership by acquisitive prescription based on open, continuous, and unequivocal possession well exceeding the required period.
- The court dismissed Seger-Thomschitz’s quasi-contract and unjust enrichment counterclaims as prescribed under Louisiana’s ten-year limitations period.

## Legal Principles

- Federal common law will not displace state property and limitations rules absent clear congressional intent; aspirational federal policies, without a private right of action or preemptive language, do not override state law in private title disputes.
- Under Louisiana law, ownership of a movable may be acquired through acquisitive prescription when possession is continuous, public, peaceable, and unequivocal for the required period.
- Louisiana quasi-contract and unjust enrichment claims are subject to a ten-year prescriptive period, and the period is not suspended solely by generalized federal policy favoring restitution.

## Conclusion

The court resolved the ownership dispute under Louisiana prescription law, rejecting an HVRA-based federal common-law approach, holding that Dunbar acquired title through long, public possession, and barring the heir’s restitution-based counterclaims as untimely.


Dunbar v. Seger-Thomschitz, No. 08-0711, 2009 WL 1911008 (E.D. La. June 30, 2009)