Did you know that it was Cristóbal Colón (a/k/a Christopher Columbus) who initiated the longest running lawsuit in history? According to attorney Daniel Voelker (see here or here), who has conducted extensive research on this epic case, the so-called Pleitos Colombinos (“Colombian Lawsuits”) began with a contract drawn between Colón and his royal patrons, the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Aragon:

“The royals agreed, in writing, known as the ‘Capitulations of Santa Fe,’ to give [Colón] and his heirs ‘ten percent of all the wealth he discovered and claimed for the Crown on his voyages made on their behalf’ as well as land grants, extravagant titles and untold potential powers in the New World, in perpetuity.”

According to Voelker, the contract would be valued at over $100 trillion USD in today’s currency and would have made the Colón family the wealthiest in recorded history, but it was not to be. Colón fell out of favor and the royals reneged on their agreement. (The Crown’s defense to Columbus’s lawsuit was that it was Martín Alonso Pinzón, the captain of the Pinta, who actually discovered the New World.)

The legendary explorer spent his final days poor and destitute, and his lawsuit dragged on for three centuries and involved ten generations of the Colón family. Postscript: The four-volume, 3,600-plus page book below contains the main legal documents in this historic case.