Alperin

ORDER GRANTING DEFENDANTS’ MOTIONS TO DISMISS

Before the Court are two separate motions to dismiss plaintiffs’ Third Amended Complaint (“TAC”), filed, respectively, by defendant Order of Friars Minor (“OFM”) and defendant Istituto per le Opere di Religione (“IOR”). The matters came on regularly for hearing on May 25, 2001. Ronald Mallen and Joanna Opperman of Hinshaw & Culbertson appeared on behalf of defendant OFM. Jeffrey Lena and John Niblock appeared on behalf of IOR. Tom Easton of the Law Offices of Thomas Dewey Easton and K. Lee Boyd of Pepperdine University Law School appeared on the behalf of plaintiffs. Having considered the papers filed in support of and in opposition to the motions and the arguments of counsel at the hearing, the Court rules as follows.

BACKGROUND

This case arises out of the atrocities committed during World War II at the behest of the Ustasha Regime (“Ustasha”), a Nazi puppet government that controlled the Independent State of Croatia (“Croatia”) from 1941 through 1945 and occupied portions of the former Soviet Union along with German military forces. (See TAC ¶¶ 1, 43) The plaintiffs in this action are twenty-four individuals and four…