AP Newswire NEW YORK (AP) -- Descendants of slaves filed a $1 billion lawsuit Monday against U.S. and British corporations, accusing them of profiting by committing genocide against their ancestors. Lawyers for the eight plaintiffs said the complaint was the first slave reparations lawsuit to use DNA to link the plaintiffs to Africans who suffered atrocities during the slave trade. The suit filed in federal court in Manhattan accuses Lloyd's of London, FleetBoston and R.J. Reynolds of "aiding and abetting the commission of genocide" by allegedly financing and insuring the ships that delivered slaves to tobacco plantations in the United States. The defendants "have destroyed our national and ethnic identity," one of the plaintiffs, Deadria Farmer-Paellmann, said at a news conference announcing the suit. DNA testing has made a "direct connection" between Farmer-Paellmann and the Mende tribe in Sierra Leone, whose people "were kidnapped, tortured and shipped in chains to the United States," the suit said. Scientific evidence also has linked the other plaintiffs to tribes in Niger and Gambia, the suit said. Ellen Matthews, a spokeswoman for R.J. Reynolds, said the company had not received a copy of the suit. Calls to the other defendants were not immediately returned. In January, a federal judge in Chicago threw out a similar lawsuit brought by descendants of slaves. Copyright 2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This is the biggest crock of crap. Everyone is looking for a free buck these days and those crooked leeches of lawyers looking to get a huge profit too. I hate people like this. No one committed and atrocity towards them.
In other news, descendents of Israelites sue Egypt for 30 trillion dollars, accusing them of profiting by committing genocide against their ancestors. And about 300 gazillion other cases in which people were cruel to other people.
These same people tried this same thing last year, but against different defendants ( a bunch of different companies and countries). It didn't make it past day 1....and neither will this one. I'm not really sure why this is even news at all. Crazy people file crazy lawsuits every day, about the governmetn transmitting radio waves to their dentall fillings and all that kind of stuff.
I should sue too, I mean my ancestors got run off of this continent by the white man. Or, maybe people should just get a job. DD
Where do you stand on the Jewish folx suing the Swedish Banks for the money and arts stolen during the holocaust? Rocket River
1. Was slavery illegal? 2. Does it make sense to create an arbitrary sum like 1 billion dollars to represent the wages owed to descendents of slaves? And why are these wages owed anyway. As a form of opputunity cost? Please.
Damn, I just found out I am being sued for $1 billion also. Seems my great great great great grandfather smoked a cigar that was made from the tobacco of a plantation that used slaves.
Slavery is an accepted institution in the bible. God says slavery is okay. The only hang up I see is whether male slaves were set free after six years of service.
Yet another reason why all courtrooms should have a trap door in front of the judge that leads to a pit of tigers. "I am suing Subway because I did not lose 100 pounds on the Subway dieeeeeeeeeeeeiiiieeeeeeeee!!!!!" (sound of tearing flesh) ah....justice......
I'd be all for opening up a 'Black Reparations' casino and funneling all profits to something like the United Negro College fund. People talk like the only discrimination against blacks in this country was slavery 150 years ago. Up until 1966 most cities in this country had seperate school systems for blacks that were anything but equal. Black people were considered a whole different class. Not only did they have less access to education but were limited in advancement no matter their level of competance and limited in their access to the credit required to build their own businesses. There is no way to assign a real value to their loss and no culpability for today's population so I doubt a legal case can be made but we could direct a little sin tax to rectify the past.
I really don't support reparations but what pisses me off is when people act like discrimination against blacks supported by the government is ancient history. Comments about Egyptian slavery in threads like this are ridiculous and insulting.
Slavery... they should sue state governments because of Jim Crow, which effectively ran through the late 1960s. It is more recent and you can at least have more substantial evidence (documentation, witnesses and even survivor testimony) to present in court (such as Tulsa's "Black Wallstreet" massacre in 1921).
