On October 21, 2025, the First Department issued a decision in Bennigson v. Salvation Army, 2025 NY Slip Op. 05762, holding that laches barred a claim relating to art sold during the Holocaust, explaining:
[T]he Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act of 2016 (HEAR Act) (Pub L No 114-308, 130 US Stat 1524) does not bar defendant’s equitable defense of laches. The question involves interpretation of a federal statute, and the Second Circuit has already correctly concluded that laches is not preempted by the HEAR Act.
Plaintiffs contend that the motion court erred by deciding laches as a matter of law on a motion to dismiss. However, this Court has held that where the original owner’s lack of due diligence and prejudice to the party currently in possession are apparent, the issue may be resolved as a matter of law.
Here, plaintiffs’ lack of due diligence and unreasonable delay in bringing this action and the prejudice to defendant from plaintiffs’ delay are apparent from the face of the amended complaint. Plaintiffs allege that Adler sold the painting to Thannhauser in 1938. In 1963, the New York Times published a front-page article about Thannhauser’s planned bequest, upon his death, of the painting to defendant The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. The article included a photograph of the painting. In 1974, while Thannhauser was still alive, defendant (by its trustee, nonparty Daniel Catton Rich) wrote to nonparty Eric Adler (one of Karl Adler’s sons) at his New York City address inquiring about the painting. Specifically, defendant requested information about the period of time that the painting was in the Adler collection, when Karl Adler acquired the painting, and when the painting left the Adler collection. Eric responded that his parents bought the painting in 1916 and kept it until 1939. Eric suggested that if Rich needed additional information, he should contact Eric’s sister, who also resided in New York City. Eric did not suggest that there was anything untoward about the transition of ownership of the painting. Thanhausser died in 1976.
Plaintiffs, heirs of Karl Adler’s children, did not contact defendant to allege any concern regarding the painting’s sale until January 24, 2017. They did not demand the painting’s return until June 2021, over 80 years after the sale and 40 years after the painting became part of defendant’s collection.
Also prior to plaintiffs’ 2021 demand, most of the individuals who might have had relevant information had died. Karl Adler died in 1957, and his wife Rosa predeceased him in 1946. Thannhauser and Rich both died in 1976. Karl’s children died in 1989, 1990, and 1994. And nonparty Thomas Messer, who had been defendant’s director at the time it acquired the painting, died in 2013. Against this backdrop, the equitable doctrine of laches bars plaintiffs’ claims. Indeed, this is not a case where the identity of the buyer was unknown to the seller or the lost property was difficult to locate.
(Internal quotations and citations omitted).