D.D.C. No. 24-cv-02523Confirmed
Judge revives Watch Tower's suit over Russia's seizure of the Witnesses' St Petersburg headquarters
A federal judge in Washington threw the case out in September 2025 — not on its merits, but because the lawsuit papers had never been validly delivered. On 23 July 2026 he undid that dismissal, giving the Jehovah's Witnesses' Pennsylvania corporation 180 days to serve the Russian Federation, its health ministry and the state institute now using the site, this time through diplomatic channels. Documents filed with the complaint valued the property at more than $30 million. As of that opinion the court had decided nothing about whether a U.S. court can hear the claim at all.