Whether a California statutory choice-of-law requirement mandating California substantive law in Holocaust artwork recovery cases should result in a GVR or preempt Spain's adverse possession law

QUESTIONS PRESENTED In 2022, the Court in this case held that in an action under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, a federal court must apply the forum state’s choice-oflaw rules, rather than “federal common law,” to determine the applicable substantive law. The Court vacated the Ninth Circuit’s ruling that Spanish substantive law applied. Cassirer v. ThyssenBornemisza Collection Found., 596 U.S. 107 (2022). Choice-of-law is dispositive here, where the family of a Holocaust survivor sued in California district court to recover a painting stolen by the Nazis and now held by a Spanish state museum. Under California substantive law, a thief can never convey good title and the true owner cannot lose title without actual knowledge of the work’s location. Under Spanish law, the holder of stolen property can acquire title by three years of adverse possession, regardless of the owner’s knowledge. On remand from this Court, the Ninth Circuit, purporting to apply California’s common law choiceof-law test, again held that Spanish law applied. Following denial of rehearing en banc, the California Legislature unanimously enacted a statute which mandates that “California substantive law shall apply” in pending and future cases brought by California residents to recover stolen artworks in the possession of a museum or covered by the Federal Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery (HEAR) Act. Question 1: With California’s enactment of a statutory choice-of-law requirement that precludes ii the result below, should the Court grant the petition, vacate the judgment, and remand (“GVR”) for application of the choice-of-law statute, as is typical practice when an intervening change in law occurs? In the event that GVR is not granted, the following important questions of federal law are presented: Question 2: Under the Supremacy Clause, must a state choice-of-law test based on weighing each jurisdiction’s “governmental interests” incorporate relevant Federal interests embodied in treaties, statutes, policies, and international agreements? Question 3: Does Section 5(a) of the HEAR Act, authorizing actions to be brought within six years of “actual discovery” of a stolen artwork’s location “{njotwithstanding any other provision of ... State law or any defense at law relating to the passage of time,” pre-empt application of Spain’s adverse possession law? Question 4: Do treaties, laws, policies, and international agreements of the United States, which proscribe passing of good title to Nazi-looted art, preempt the interpretation of California choice-of-law rules to apply Spain’s adverse possession law to award title to the Nazis’