Choking back tears, Frank Bigelow asked the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday why the federal government opposes his lawsuit against the Japanese corporation he says made him a World War II slave laborer.
The 78-year-old former seaman from Brooksville, Fla., spent two years as a prisoner of war, suffering beatings, malaria, jaundice and dysentery. Other POWs cut off part of his leg after a rock fell and broke it while he mined for Mitsui and Co. Inc.
The federal government says lawsuits like Bigelow’s are prohibited under the 1951 peace treaty between the U.S. and Japan.
California became a magnet for such cases last year when the legislature enacted a law allowing victims of slave labor to sue multinational corporations.
In May, a U.S. district judge in San Francisco asked the Justice and State Departments for an opinion on one such lawsuit.
The agencies reiterated that the treaty bars the suits.
Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) responded that the government should not be able to prevent lawsuits by citizens against private businesses.
