For openers, there is no cause of action for the wrongs for which she claims compensation. Secondly, there is no statute of limitations that would allow a suit for damages sustained by people, everyone of whom has been dead for more than twenty-one years.
The Defendants should seek not only an immediate dismissal, but sanctions for a frivolous suit and for abuse of process. The underlying theory is itself absurd. Practically no one among us has a family history that is totally free from some form of involuntary service. Involuntary service has been the rule, not the exception, at some time or another among virtually every people on earth. In most cases, people have accepted their past--even drawn pride in accomplishing what they had to accomplish--and gotten over it. What would European civilization be, for example, if the descendants from serfs--most of the population--demanded compensation from the upper classes (some of whom are descended, themselves, from those in bondage to the Romans).
It is only one more example of the poor quality of American journalism and media news commentary, that this suit is pictured as anything other than the absurdity that it is. As it is, we will probably get some more of the same. (Not necessarily slave descendants suing old businesses, but perhaps those claiming ancient abuse as blue collar workers in old company towns; those claiming discrimination in college admissions; those claiming that some uncompensated wrong to their great-grandparents, has somehow kept them down ever since; or similar silly reflections of a Marxist view of reality.)
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site