Civil Procedure – FSIA — terrorism exception

United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

Civil

Civil Procedure – FSIA — terrorism exception

Non-citizens can sue a foreign sovereign for emotional distress caused by the sovereign’s terrorist acts against a citizen.

“[T]he plain text and plain meaning of § 1605A(a)(2)(A)(ii) extends jurisdiction to cases where either ‘the claimant or the victim was, at the time of the [terrorist] act’ a United States citizen. The claimant and victim need not both be American citizens. As a general matter, ‘[w]e should prefer the plain meaning since that approach respects the words of Congress.’ Lamie v. U.S. Tr., 540 U.S. 526, 536 (2004). If Congress intended a jurisdictional scope coterminous with that of § 1605A(c)’s private right of action for United States nationals, there would have been no need to include the word ‘victim.’ We would show little deference to Congress’s chosen language if we simply read the word ‘victim’ out of the statute entirely. Denying jurisdiction over family members’ claims for American victims would require us to ignore the disjunctive structure of § 1605A(a)(2)(A)(ii).”

Reversed and Remanded.

11-1564 Leibovitch v. Islamic Republic of Iran

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Hart, J., Williams, J.