By: Derek Hawkins//April 4, 2017//
7th Circuit Court of Appeals
Case Name: Shlomo Leibovitch et al v. Islamic Republic of Iran et al and Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, et al
Case No.: 16-2504
Officials: POSNER, EASTERBROOK, and MANION, Circuit Judges
Focus: Judgment Against Foreign Nation
In 2003, a 7-year-old Israeli girl was killed, her 3-year-old sister (an American citizen) permanently disabled, and six Israeli members of the children’s family (two other siblings of the Israeli girl plus her parents and grandparents) were injured emotionally, when the minivan they all were riding in on a highway in Jerusalem was shot up by members of Palestine Islamic Jihad, a terrorist group supported by the government of Iran. The surviving family members, plus the estate of the child who was killed, filed a damages suit against the Islamic Republic of Iran and its Ministry of Information and Security (we’ll simplify by pretending that the only defendant is Iran) in the federal district court in Chicago, under both the Antiterrorism Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2333, and the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1605A. After protracted proceedings that included an appeal to this court, see Leibovitch v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 697 F.3d 561 (7th Cir. 2012), the district court entered a default judgment of $67 million against the Iranian defendants.
Affirmed