Let me just start off by making one thing perfectly clear. Slavery is bad. It was bad in the past, and it’s bad now in the places where it still occurs.

But even I had to shake my head in wonder over the latest twist in the argument over whether the descendants of African slaves brought to America should receive "reparations" for that monstrous injustice. A black activist by the name of Deadria Farmer-Paellmann has filed suit in Brooklyn District Court against Aetna Insurance, FleetBoston Financial Corporation, and CSX Transportation (the railroad) for compensation for those companies’ participation in the practice of slavery.

Aetna is a defendant, supposedly, because they issued property insurance on the lives of slaves (with riders exempting the firm from payment if the "property" in question was lynched, worked to death, or committed suicide. Trust an insurance company to come up with loopholes.) FleetBoston is in it, because the founder of the original corporation, a Rhode Island businessman named John Brown, supposedly made much of his fortune in the slave trade. (This, obviously, is not the same John Brown whose body lies a-molderin’ in the grave in the old song).

But I have to tell you, I’m baffled as to how CSX is on the hook, since it didn’t even exist as a corporation until 1980. Even if you grant for the moment the Plaintiff’s argument that "CSX is a successor in interest to numerous predecessor railroad lines that were constructed or run, at least in part, by slave labor," those railroads are long gone. They’re not even running on the same tracks that existed in the 1800’s, except perhaps in and around New Jersey.

One of the problems with criticizing a lawsuit like this is that it does contain some statements that are impossible to argue with. For example: "The practice of slavery constituted an immoral and inhumane deprivation of Africans' life, liberty, African citizenship rights, cultural heritage and it further deprived them of the fruits of their own labor," according to the suit.

Hard to argue with that. Like I said, slavery is bad. But it’s a long jump from that premise to holding financially responsible companies that no longer even have the same name, to say nothing of directors, officers and stockholders.

The advocates of reparations point out the example of a number of German companies, like I.G. Farben and Volkswagen, who paid reparations for their use of Jewish slave labor during the Holocaust. But this is a different situation, and the difference is time. While I agree in principle that there’s no statute of limitations on crimes against humanity, identifying actual victims in the case of the long-vanished institution of slavery is a bit more difficult. For example, is Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas entitled to compensation because, in the words of the lawsuit, blacks "lag behind whites according to every social yardstick: literacy, life expectancy, income and education?" How about Michael Jordan? Or that guy that owns Black Entertainment Television? Do they get a slice of the reparations pie? Or would you have to prove that you’re down and out as a direct result of slavery and not because, like a large number of people of all races, you’re just a loser?

I can’t help it. As an attorney who actually has to try cases, I can’t get beyond the practicalities of a lawsuit like this. Will African-Americans have to be excluded from the jury pool on the basis that they stand to profit from the outcome of the lawsuit? Will potential African-American jurors have to present their genealogy to prove themselves free of conflict of interest? Or will the Plaintiff be happy if we just take the safest route and pick an all-Asian jury? I didn’t think so, especially since the descendants of Chinese immigrants have a few beefs of their own with the railroads.

And then, when considering damages, what sort of credit or offset should the jury consider against the alleged 1.4 trillion dollars in economic damages the Plaintiff calculates? How about offsetting that by the monetary value of 646,292 dead and wounded Yankee soldiers? Or, for that matter, the punitive damage value of 133,821 Confederate casualties? Or are reparations advocates prepared to concede that the Civil War and its accompanying carnage wasn’t about freeing slaves?

Of course, no one expects this to actually come to trial, not even, I would imagine, the Plaintiff. "This is a case about wealth built on the back and from the sweat of African slaves," said the Plaintiff's lawyer Roger Wareham at a news conference. "We expect those companies that are targeted to stand up," he said. And while they’re up, one supposes, they should reach into their pockets and pull out their wallets. Plaintiff attorneys said 12 other companies would be getting letters in the coming days requesting a "dialogue on a settlement."

Uh-huh. In this context "dialogue" sounds an awful lot like "shakedown." Hopefully this suit will be quickly dismissed. If not, the companies, like the ones in Germany, will probably settle to avoid the risk of getting smacked with a humungous verdict.

But if they do settle, I wonder if we’ll see a common provision for civil settlements, that is: When they pay the money, it’s over. Done. No more. You’ve been paid. No more government programs. No more affirmative action. No more debate about slavery.

Think it’ll happen?

COPYRIGHT 2002 BY JERRY D. RHOADES, JR.