"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.
Although we have seen this happen several times in the past ten years, I doubt it will happen again this time. There is no legal standing for the parties who bring these suits. Slavery was legal at the time and I don't believe they can get anywhere with this "white companies profited from slavery and blacks are continually harmed by the lingering affects of slavery" argument. How some one is "harmed" by something that happened hundreds of years ago is subjective at best, but in reality actually very specious. There is absolutely no legal concept that allows for such a "recovery", if one can call it that.