Chinese Sue Fed For Monopoly USD Devaluation

In what could to grow into a class action in US courts, a Chinese woman is suing the Federal Reserve after discovering that the real value of the USD250 she put in an account in 2006 had shrunk by 30%. She claims it was the result of the Fed issuing too much money, and as The South China Morning Post reports, her son Li Zhen, the lawyer, called the lawsuit "litigation for the public good". Alleging "abuse of monopoly in issuing currency," the People's Court of Kunming has yet to rule on the litigants' demand that the Fed cease-and-desist from its quantitative easing policy. While this may seem frivolous, there are some interesting points being made that bear watching, as Li notes, since "the Fed is private institution which enjoys monopoly over the issuing of currency, US Dollar holders can sue it for printing too much money."

Via SCMP,

A woman in Kunming, Yunnan province, is trying to sue the United States central bank after discovering that the real value of the US$250 she put in an account in 2006 had shrunk by 30 per cent.

She claims it was a result of the Federal Reserve issuing too much money.

Her attorney, her son Li Zhen , called the lawsuit "litigation for the public good" which aimed to stop the Fed from continuing its quantitive easing policy and promote people's awareness of their rights.

He filed the lawsuit alleging "the abuse of monopoly in issuing currency" last month at the Kunming Intermediate People's Court on behalf of his mother, Liu Hua , but the court has yet to decide whether to officially place the case on file.

...he was the first mainlander to have filed a lawsuit against a foreign country's central bank.

Li, who works at the Yunnan Tongbang Law Firm, said he referred to Black's Law Dictionary, the most cited legal dictionary in the US, and concluded that the Fed is a private institution instead of a government department.

...

"Since the Fed is a private institution which enjoys a monopoly over the issuing of currency, US dollar holders can sue it for printing too much money," he said.

Li said he requested two things from the court - that the Fed halts the abuse of its monopoly over the issuing of dollars and that it makes a "symbolic compensation" of US$1. Asked about the possibility of whether the court will accept the case, Li said it was "difficult to say".

...

He said he was looking for more "victims" like his mother and expected to bring a class action in a US court.