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84 B.U. L. Rev. 1209 (2004)
Slavery and Tort Law

handle is hein.journals/bulr84 and id is 1221 raw text is: SLAVERY AND TORT LAW KEITH N. HYLTON* IN TRODU CTION ............................................................................................. 1209 I. TORTS OF SLAVERY ........................................................................... 1213 1I. D ERIVATIVE CLAIM S ......................................................................... 1237 A. Tort Law and Derivative Claims ............................................... 1238 B. Reparations as a Derivative Claim ........................................... 1240 C. The Normative Question ............................................................ 1248 III. THE ACCOUNTING CLAIM ................................................................ 1251 C ON CLU SION ................................................................................................. 1254 INTRODUCTION On March 26, 2002, a class action complaint seeking reparations for slavery was filed in the federal district court for the Eastern District of New York under the name Farmer-Paellman v. FleetBoston.1 The complaint named as Professor of Law and Paul J. Liacos Scholar, Boston University, knhylton@bu.edu. I thank Jack Beermann, Alfred Brophy, Ron Cass, Hanoch Dagan, Adrienne Davis, David Lyons, Allan Macurdy, Rusty Park, Tony Sebok, and Ken Simons for helpful discussions and/or written comments. I also thank fellow conference participants - Richard Epstein, Jim Hackney, Dennis Klimchuk, Andrew Kull, Saul Levmore, Kyle Logue, Emily Sherwin - for insightful comments made in the course of the meeting that either led me to correct mistakes in my thinking or avoid additional ones. I take responsibility for errors that remain in this paper. I Of course, I am referring to slavery in the American South, before its abolition in 1865. The complaint alleged counts of conspiracy, human rights violations, conversion, and unjust enrichment. See Complaint and Jury Trial Demand, Farmer-Paellman v. FleetBoston Fin. Corp., No. 02-CV- 1862 (E.D.N.Y. filed March 26, 2002) [hereinafter Complaint], available at http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/slavery/fpllmnflt032602cmp.pdf (accessed Oct. 11, 2004). The complaint was later consolidated with other cases and dismissed in In re African-American Slave Descendants Litigation, 304 F. Supp. 2d 1027 (N.D. I11. 2004), on the grounds that the plaintiffs lacked standing, the case presented a non-justicable political question, and the claims were barred by the statute of limitations. The plaintiffs filed an amended complaint on April 5, 2004. See Second Consolidated and Amended Complaint and Jury Demand, In re African-Am. Slave Descendants Litig., MDL No. 1491 (N.D. I11. filed Apr. 5, 2004) [hereinafter Amended Complaint] (alleging thirteen counts including conspiracy, conversion, unjust enrichment, replevin, federal civil rights violations, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligent infliction of emotional distress and violations of several state statutes governing continued intentional misrepresentation). 1209

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