Price v. United States

After World War II, United States troops found, confiscated, and shipped to the United States four paintings by Adolf Hitler owned by Hitler’s personal photographer, Heinrich Hoffmann. Artworks not by Hitler were returned to Hoffmann’s son. The military also found photographic archives compiled by Hoffmann and his son, used them in the Nuremberg war trial, and in 1948 shipped them to Washington, D.C. In 1951, pursuant to the Trading with the Enemy Act (TWEA), the US attorney general vested in himself all rights in the photographs. In the early 1980s, Time-Life Inc. gave the military institute in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, a small part of Hoffmann’s archives that Time-Life employees had removed from Germany. Billy Price, a Hitler-art collector, purchased from Hoffmann’s heirs the rights to the paintings and archives. In 1983, Price and Hoffman’s heirs (collectively, Price) (plaintiffs) sued for conversion after the United States (defendant) orally refused Price’s demand for return of Hoffmann’s property. The court granted Price summary judgment and awarded damages. The US appealed. Price cross-appealed for additional damages. Price argued in part that (1) because the Army’s warfare rules and Hague Convention Respecting Laws and Customs of War on Land did not authorize the US to keep the paintings, the US held the paintings in a bailment and did not convert them until refusing Price’s demand; and (2) the vesting order relating to the Washington archives was invalid.