Supreme Court Allows US Victim Suits Against Palestinian Authorities
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Court allows lawsuits by U.S. victims of overseas terrorist attacks to move forward
The Supreme Court ruled that a pair of lawsuits by U.S. victims of terrorist attacks in Israel can go forward. In an opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts, the justices unanimously rejected arguments by the PA and PLO. The dispute centers on the issue of personal jurisdiction: whether courts have the authority to hear a lawsuit against particular defendants. The court declined to say what limits, if any, the Fifth Amendment does place on the government’s power “to hale foreign defendants into U.s. courts.’ ‘’The case before the justices is a long-running one – indeed, the lawyer representing the victims observed at the April 1 oral argument that it was “old enough to go to law school.”‘ ‘The court reversed the 2nd Circuit and revived their lawsuits.
The Supreme Court on Friday ruled that a pair of lawsuits by U.S. victims of terrorist attacks in Israel against the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization can go forward. In an opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts, the justices unanimously rejected arguments by the PA and the PLO that allowing the victims to sue them in U.S. courts violates the Constitution’s guarantee of due process.
The case before the justices is a long-running one – indeed, the lawyer representing the victims observed at the April 1 oral argument that it was “old enough to go to law school.” As it came to the Supreme Court, the dispute centers on the issue of personal jurisdiction: whether courts have the authority to hear a lawsuit against particular defendants.
To ensure that federal courts could hear cases by victims of terrorism that occurs overseas, Congress in 2019 passed the Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act. The law provides that, subject to a few narrow exceptions, the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization “shall be deemed to have consented to personal jurisdiction” in any civil case brought under the Anti-Terrorism Act, even when the act of terrorism occurred before the law was passed, if the two groups either make payments to terrorists in Israeli prisons who injured or killed a U.S. national or the families of deceased terrorists who did such or engages in any activities within the United States.
Despite that law, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit concluded that the two lawsuits brought by U.S. citizens who were injured in terrorist attacks in Israel, as well as the families of U.S. citizens killed by terrorist attacks, could not go forward because the PA and PLO had not agreed to allow U.S. courts to exercise jurisdiction over them. And it would not be fair, the court of appeals continued, to infer consent from the kind of conduct that the law targets.
The victims came to the Supreme Court, which on Friday reversed the 2nd Circuit and revived their lawsuits. Roberts rejected the PLO and the PA’s suggestion that the standards that the court has outlined for personal jurisdiction cases under the 14th Amendment, which guarantees due process by the states, should also apply to personal jurisdiction cases, like this one, under the Fifth Amendment. The standards under the 14th Amendment, “and in particular, the requirement that a defendant have minimum contacts with” the state where a lawsuit is filed, Roberts reasoned, are intended to guard against efforts by the states to exceed their power, at the expense of other states.
But there are no such concerns with the federal government under the Fifth Amendment, Roberts continued, since the Constitution gives the federal government “both nationwide and extraterritorial authority.” This is especially true, Roberts added, in light of the federal government’s “interest in holding accountable those who perpetrate an ‘act of violence against’ U.S. nationals—who, even when physically outside our borders, remain ‘under the particular protection’ of American law.”
At the same time, the court declined to say what limits, if any, the Fifth Amendment does place on the government’s power “to hale foreign defendants into U.S. courts.” Although the victims had contended that it “imposes no territorial limits on personal jurisdiction,” the federal government had argued – and the court agreed – that it did not need to decide that issue now. It is enough, Roberts wrote, that the 2019 law “ties federal jurisdiction to conduct closely related to the United States that implicates important foreign policy concerns.”
Justice Clarence Thomas, in a concurring opinion joined in part by Justice Neil Gorsuch, explained that he would have gone further and held that the Fifth Amendment does not impose any “limits on the Federal Government’s power to extend federal jurisdiction beyond the Nation’s borders.”
Posted in Featured, Merits Cases
Supreme Court allows victims of terrorist attacks to sue the Palestinian Authority
The Supreme Court says families of victims of terrorist attacks in Israel may sue the Palestinian Authority. The decision will likely make it easier for victims of other overseas attacks with ties to Palestinian groups to seek damages in US courts. At issue are a series of deadly attacks inside Israel that date back to the Second Intifada in the early 2000s. A federal court in 2015 awarded victims more than $650 million under the federal Anti-Terrorism Act. But a federal appeals court in New York reversed that verdict, ruling that courts lacked jurisdiction over the PLO and the Palestinian authority. The question for the Supreme Court was whether Congress had the authority to subject the Palestine Liberation Organization to the jurisdiction of federal courts, which would allow the victims of those attacks to sue for damages in the U.S., the court said.
The Supreme Court on Friday said that the families of victims of terrorist attacks in Israel may sue the Palestinian Authority in a decision that will likely make it easier for victims of other overseas attacks with ties to Palestinian groups to seek damages in US courts.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion for the court and the vote was unanimous.
Roberts wrote that the federal government has “strong interest in permitting American victims of international terror to pursue justice in domestic courts.”
The court has “recognized the national government’s interest in holding accountable those who perpetrate an ‘act of violence against’ US nationals — who, even when physically outside our borders, remain ‘under the particular protection’ of American law,” Roberts wrote. “So too the national government’s corresponding authority to make ‘the killing of an American abroad’ punishable as a federal offense ‘that can be prosecuted in (US) courts.”
Though the Supreme Court decided the case amid the war in Gaza and increasing tension with Iran, the circumstances that led to the lawsuit and appeal took place years earlier. And the underlying question was a technical one.
At issue are a series of deadly attacks inside Israel that date back to the Second Intifada in the early 2000s. The question for the Supreme Court was whether Congress had the authority to subject the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority to the jurisdiction of federal courts, which would allow the victims of those attacks to sue for damages.
One of those victims, Ari Fuld, an American citizen and the named plaintiff in the case before the Supreme Court, was stabbed in 2018 hours after the chairman of the PLO claimed the Israeli government wanted to establish Jewish prayer zones inside one of Islam’s holiest sites, according to court records. A federal court in 2015 awarded victims more than $650 million under the federal Anti-Terrorism Act, which permits Americans to sue for damages caused by terrorism.
But a federal appeals court in New York reversed that verdict, ruling that courts lacked jurisdiction over the PLO and the Palestinian Authority.
As the case bounced around federal courts, Congress repeatedly stepped in to amend the law to allow the victims to sue after federal courts ruled against them, most recently in 2019. That law essentially made the Palestinian groups subject to federal court jurisdiction if they conducted “any activity” within the United States, with few exceptions.
But the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that law violated the Fifth Amendment.
The Palestinian Authority told the Supreme Court in a briefing that because it does not “maintain any constitutionally meaningful connection to the United States,” allowing federal courts to exercise jurisdiction over claims “for alleged atta cks in Israel and Palestine would violate due process.”
During oral arguments in April, several of the justices had indicated they were keen to defer to the other branches on the question.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a member of the court’s conservative wing, noted that the president and Congress had acted together on the question of court jurisdiction.
“Now there is still a role for judicial review to make sure they’re not crossing some other constitutional line, but, usually, that’s a very sensitive judgment for a federal court to make,” Kavanaugh said in April.
“Usually, we would require something in either the text of the Constitution or in the historical practice over the years that would suggest some principle that the courts could rely on that would disagree with the foreign policy and national security judgment of Congress and the president acting together,” he said.
In a concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas – joined in part by Justice Neil Gorsuch – said he would have gone further, ruling that the Fifth Amendment shouldn’t be read to constrain courts from hearing cases involving foreign parties.
US Supreme Court upholds law allowing Palestinian authorities to be sued over attacks
The 9-0 ruling overturned a lower court’s decision that the 2019 law violated the rights of the Palestinian Authority and Palestine Liberation Organization. At issue were due process rights under the U.S. Constitution. Chief Justice John Roberts, who authored the ruling, said the 2019 jurisdictional law comported with due process Rights enshrined in the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment. Among the plaintiffs are families who in 2015 won a $655 million judgment in a civil case alleging that the Palestinian organizations were responsible for a series of shootings and bombings around Jerusalem from 2002 to 2004. They also include relatives of Ari Fuld, a Jewish settler in the Israel-occupied West Bank who was fatally stabbed by a Palestinian in 2018.”I am very hopeful that the case will soon be resolved without subjecting these families to further protracted and unnecessary litigation,” a lawyer for the plaintiffs said.
Summary Lower court ruled in favor of Palestinian authorities
At issue were due process rights under U.S. Constitution
Chief Justice Roberts writes Supreme Court’s ruling
WASHINGTON, June 20 (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court upheld on Friday a statute passed by Congress to facilitate lawsuits against Palestinian authorities by Americans killed or injured in attacks abroad as plaintiffs pursue monetary damages for violence years ago in Israel and the West Bank.
The 9-0 ruling overturned a lower court’s decision that the 2019 law, the Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act, violated the rights of the Palestinian Authority and Palestine Liberation Organization to due process under the U.S. Constitution.
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Conservative Chief Justice John Roberts, who authored the ruling, said the 2019 jurisdictional law comported with due process rights enshrined in the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment.
“It is permissible for the federal government to craft a narrow jurisdictional provision that ensures, as part of a broader foreign policy agenda, that Americans injured or killed by acts of terror have an adequate forum in which to vindicate their right” to compensation under a federal law known as the Antiterrorism Act of 1990, Roberts wrote.
The U.S. government and a group of American victims and their families had appealed the lower court’s decision that struck down a provision of the law.
Among the plaintiffs are families who in 2015 won a $655 million judgment in a civil case alleging that the Palestinian organizations were responsible for a series of shootings and bombings around Jerusalem from 2002 to 2004. They also include relatives of Ari Fuld, a Jewish settler in the Israel-occupied West Bank who was fatally stabbed by a Palestinian in 2018.
“The plaintiffs, U.S. families who had loved ones maimed or murdered in PLO-sponsored terror attacks, have been waiting for justice for many years,” said Kent Yalowitz, a lawyer for the plaintiffs.
“I am very hopeful that the case will soon be resolved without subjecting these families to further protracted and unnecessary litigation,” Yalowitz added.
The ongoing violence involving Israel and the Palestinians served as a backdrop to the case.
U.S. courts for years have grappled over whether they have jurisdiction in cases involving the Palestinian Authority and PLO for actions taken abroad.
Under the language at issue in the 2019 law, the PLO and Palestinian Authority automatically “consent” to jurisdiction if they conduct certain activities in the United States or make payments to people who attack Americans.
Roberts in Friday’s ruling wrote that Congress and the president enacted the jurisdictional law based on their “considered judgment to subject the PLO and PA (Palestinian Authority) to liability in U.S. courts as part of a comprehensive legal response to ‘halt, deter and disrupt’ acts of international terrorism that threaten the life and limb of American citizens.”
New York-based U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman ruled in 2022 that the law violated the due process rights of the PLO and Palestinian Authority. The New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that ruling.
President Joe Biden’s administration initiated the government’s appeal, which subsequently was taken up by President Donald Trump ‘s administration. The Supreme Court heard arguments in the case on April 1.
Reporting by John Kruzel; Editing by Will Dunham
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Supreme Court allows terrorism victims to sue Palestinian entities
The court held unanimously that the 2019 law does not violate the due process rights of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority. The law reasonably took account of “sensitive foreign policy matters within the prerogative of the political branches,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court. The lawsuits were filed by various victims, including the family of Ari Fuld, an American citizen who was killed by a Palestinian terrorist in 2018.
The court held unanimously that the 2019 law, called the Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act, does not violate the due process rights of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority.
The law reasonably took account of “sensitive foreign policy matters within the prerogative of the political branches,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court. As such, the law “comports with the Due Process Clause,” he added.
It was an unusual case in which Congress stepped in to legislate on specific litigation after the New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held that U.S. courts did not have jurisdiction to hear the claims.
Israeli forensic policemen inspect the place where an Israeli man was stabbed in the occupied West Bank on Sept. 16, 2018. Ahmad Gharabli / AFP – Getty Images file
The lawsuits, brought under a law called the Anti-Terrorism Act, were filed by various victims, including the family of Ari Fuld, an American citizen who was killed by a Palestinian terrorist at a West Bank shopping mall in 2018. Other plaintiffs involved in the litigation had previously won a $655 million judgment that the lower court threw out.
The technical legal question was whether the defendants “consented” to the jurisdiction of U.S. courts.
Congress concluded in the 2019 law that they had consented if two conditions were met: that the defendants paid a terrorist convicted of or killed while committing a terrorist attack, and that the organization in question conducted any activity within the U.S. within 15 days after the law was enacted.
The Palestine Liberation Organization represents the Palestinian people internationally, while the Palestinian Authority exercises partial domestic government authority in the West Bank.
Supreme Court revives terror victim lawsuits against Palestinian groups
The Supreme Court on Friday upheld a law allowing Americans injured by acts of terror in the Middle East to take Palestinian leadership groups to U.S. courts for damages. In a unanimous decision, the justices ruled the law does not violate the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)’s due process rights by forcing them to consent to federal courts’ authority. The decision means lawsuits by U.s. victims of terrorist attacks in Israel can move forward in American courts. The Justice Department argued that Congress determined the PA and PLO would be made open to civil suits if they made payments to representatives of terrorists who injured or killed Americans or maintained a certain presence in the country. The justices should not override that assessment, owing both branches “virtually absolute deference,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in a concurring opinion.
In a unanimous decision, the justices ruled the Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act (PSJVTA) does not violate the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)’s due process rights by forcing them to consent to federal courts’ authority.
The decision means lawsuits by U.S. victims of terrorist attacks in Israel can move forward in American courts.
“It is permissible for the Federal Government to craft a narrow jurisdictional provision that ensures, as part of a broader foreign policy agenda, that Americans injured or killed by acts of terror have an adequate forum in which to vindicate their right to [Anti-Terrorism Act] compensation,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court.
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The justices reversed the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit’s ruling finding the law denied the groups a fair legal process and directed the lower court to hold further proceedings consistent with the court’s opinion.
Congress enacted the law in 2019 to let victim lawsuits move forward against the PA and PLO, responding to a series of court decisions that found the victims’ families had no jurisdiction to sue.
The justices consolidated two cases for arguments in April, a Justice Department appeal and an appeal by the family of Ari Fuld, an Israeli American fatally stabbed at a shopping mall in the West Bank in 2018.
The Justice Department argued that Congress determined the PA and PLO would be made open to U.S. civil suits if they made payments to representatives of terrorists who injured or killed Americans or maintained a certain presence in the country.
Former U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, who held the role in the Biden administration, wrote in court papers that a lower court’s finding those conditions fall short rests on a “rigid and misconceived” application of the law.
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The Biden administration initially intervened in Fuld’s case — which received bipartisan support, including through a friend-of-the-court brief authorized by Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) — and another case brought by 11 American families who sued the Palestinian leadership groups two decades ago for several attacks in Israel, winning more than $650 million in a 2015 trial.
In April, under the Trump administration, Deputy Solicitor General Edwin Kneedler argued before the justices that the legislative and the executive branches together determined it would prevent terrorism to find the PA and PLO consented to jurisdiction in federal courts. The justices should not override that assessment, owing both branches “virtually absolute deference,” he said.
An attorney for the PA and PLO argued personal jurisdiction is “over and above” what Congress can prescribe. He pointed to piracy as an example, noting that while piracy has been illegal since the nation’s founding, “no one” thought Congress would let pirates be tried in the U.S. without being present there.
“That’s never been the law,” attorney Mitchell Berger said.
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in a concurring opinion, joined in part by Justice Neil Gorsuch, that he would have gone a step further to define the boundaries of the Fifth Amendment’s due process clause — a question the high court ultimately left for another day.
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“I am skeptical that entities such as the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Palestinian Authority (PA) enjoy any constitutional rights at all, let alone qualify as ‘person[s]’ for purposes of the Fifth Amendment,” Thomas wrote.
Updated at 11:05 a.m. EDT
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