What made the case truly unprecedented was the ripple effect. Until Volkov, U.S. banks and title companies routinely froze assets held by Soviet citizens, assuming that any will would be unenforceable without diplomatic recognition of inheritance rights. The State Department, asked for an amicus brief, declined to intervene—silence that the court interpreted as acquiescence.
A man died in San Diego and left his estate to his sister in the Soviet Union. What made the case truly unprecedented was the ripple effect
The first probating of a Soviet citizen’s will in the U.S. did not make headlines in the same way a summit meeting or a treaty might have. However, it represented a crucial fracture in the monolithic wall separating the two systems. It forced the U.S. legal system to acknowledge the humanity of Soviet citizens—their right to bequeath, and their families' right to inherit—at a time when their governments could barely agree on the color of the sky. The State Department, asked for an amicus brief,