Armenian, Assyrian and Hellenic Genocide News

New York Life settles lawsuit over Armenian claims
by Dan Whitcomb, Reuters
Posted: Saturday, April 14, 2001 00:07 am CST

LOS ANGELES, April 11 (Reuters) - The New York Life Insurance Co. has agreed to pay at least $10 million to settle a lawsuit over unpaid policies by heirs
of Armenians killed in the Ottoman Empire 85 years ago, the company and lawyers for claimants said Wednesday.

Bill Werfelman, New York Life vice president, said the firm would pay at least $7 million to heirs of more than 2,000 policy-holders and $3 million to
Armenian civic organizations to settle the lawsuit, which was filed in 1999 in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.

Werfelman said both the company and lawyers for the plaintiffs were "confident" that a federal judge would sign off on the settlement, as required, in the coming weeks.

"We think this is a very fair and equitable solution to a long-standing issue
rooted in a terrible incident that occurred in the Ottoman Empire in 1915," Werfelman said.

Brian Kabateck, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said his clients were "happy" that they will be compensated after nearly a century and that New York Life had recognized their loss.

"This was a long time in coming," Kabateck said. "I'm half Armenian myself and I have grandparents who lost their family in the massacre and I think I can speak for the clients who say that it was important that New York Life recognizes the existence of these claims that were not paid."

Kabateck said the clients also were relieved that New York Life would publish
a list of all policy-holders from that era, which would enable their heirs to
collect.

More than 1.5 million people were killed in 1915 and thousands more were deported as the Ottoman Empire fell apart at the start of World War I in what
Armenians, some nations and many historians officially recognize as a genocide.

Turkey denies that a genocide took place and argues that any killings in 1915
were part of partisan fighting in which Turks also suffered.

The U.S. Congress last year considered a motion recognizing an Armenian genocide bill, but backed down after President Bill Clinton warned it would damage ties with Turkey and could compromise U.S. security interests in the Middle East.

Though New York Life does not refer to the "Armenian Genocide" in their statement about the agreement, referring instead to "widespread deaths" and "massacre," Kabateck said that he would insist that a final settlement use that term.

"Our records (from that era) don't use the term 'genocide,' they use the terms 'mass killings' or 'massacres,"' Werfelman said. "But the company readily acknowledges that something very awful occurred in 1915, resulting in
a loss to many policyholders."

Kabateck said New York Life held about 8,000 policies from the Ottoman Empire
in the years before 1915, of which less than half were Armenian Turks. Some of those claims were paid, leaving more than 2,000 at issue.

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