Over a three-week trial in December 1985, a Federal District court in Brooklyn adjudicated on a dispute between Agudas Chasidei Chabad and Barry S. Gourary over the ownership of the library of the sixth Rebbe, Yosef Yitshak Schneerson. Rabbi Dr Louis Jacobs, a scholar of hasidism, was called upon to testify as an expert witness. Explore here media reports and primary legal sources concerning this famous case which caught the attention of American Jews.
Chasidic niceties in a court of law

Rabbi Jacobs’s article that appeared in the Jewish Chronicle 27th June 1986 giving a personal perspective on the case
Judge Awards Rabbi's Library to Hasidic Unit

Newspaper article: Lubavitchers Win Books in a Bitter Legal Fight
New York Case

by Gene Rudolph, Official Court Reporter
United States District Court, Eastern District of New York. Agues Chasidei Chabad of United States, Plaintif – against – Barry S. Gourary, Defendant, Hanna Gourary, Intervenor-Defendant
Judges Summary

United States District Court, Eastern District of New York. Agues Chasidei Chabad of United States, Plaintif – against – Barry S. Gourary, Defendant, Hanna Gourary, Intervenor-Defendant