If you wait 200 years to file suit, even on a claim that would habe been legitimate, you lose. It's called "laches," the doctrine of unnecessary delay. Any competent, unbiased lawyer would agree with this point.
Congressman Billybob
"The claimants named CSX because slave labor was used to construct portions of some U.S. rail lines under the political and legal system in place more than a century before CSX was formed in 1990," the company complained. "Courtrooms are the wrong setting for this issue."
"Whatever claims they are alleging, are too remote or attenuated from the direct conduct of slavery to be able to have a legal claim," said Behrens, who predicted the suit would be dismissed or, perhaps, settled out of court.
The smell of money is in the air, as these companies will capitulate just to be left alone.
Juanita Brodrick couldn't charge Clinton with rape due the the statute of limitations, I believe 7 years? It seems as though an overdue paycheck limitation would have run out as well. If not, the *dead* slave owners who owe could be sued, not his innocent decendants or people who's relitives weren't even in the country at the time. It would be making someone pay a bill that they didn't owe.