Ok, I read the Klinghoffer case and it’s very enlightening, thanks for digging it up and posting. However, the decision to allow the suit against John Doe and Richard Roe of the Palestinean Liberation Organization ( :dubious: ) was based on the PLO not having international recognition as a legitimate State ( therefore the FSIA does not render them immune, something that presumably would apply to the Taliban and Iran ). Furthermore because the PLO engaged in proselytizing activities ( giving talks, etc ) outside of their mission in NY ( as part of their observer status at the UN ) this qualified as “doing business in NY”, therefore placing them under jurisdiction of NY courts. I don’t think that the same can be said of Al Qaeda, so this precedent does not really apply, does it? Did Al Qaeda ever “did business” in the US? I don’t think so.
And lastly, it seems like the judge should apply the FSIA regardless of whether there is a defendant or not. The FSIA is codified in law already, it should be applied by the judge without anyone “reminding” him that it exists.
And oh yeah, I skimmed the wiki jurisdiction page, but I don’t understand the legal reasoning why you think it applies in these cases. Can you explain?
I have seen some egregious bigotry presented in the sheep’s clothing of debate before, but this really takes the cake.
No interest in fact or precedent here, folks-just inutile and peurile argumentam ad hominem, circumlocution, and confirmation bias.
But, as to the purported topic- Occams Razor dictates the simplest explanation is likely true- and there is no simpler explanation than Iran as culprit. Everything fits.
Now I know how badly the conspiricists wanted this to be a giant false flag, but when you resort to an argument that the lack of evidence is proof of conspiracy, well, there you have it.:smack:
I have no idea what he’s talking about, and judging by his other post he might not either.
Doing business is just one way you can submit to local jurisdiction. Due process in terms of jurisdictional analysis basically revolves around whether the defendant has a “certain minimum” amount of contact with the venue where he’s being sued.
Al Quaeda submitted itself to jurisdiction of US courts (or at least those located in New York, and probably Florida) by deliberately establishing a certain amount of contact with the US and New York - sending its operatives there to hijack airliners and crash them into the WTC, for example.
Look at it this way: if you were in Rome, and ran over a pedestrian in your rental car, you probably wouldn’t be surprised to be sued in an Italian court afterwards, would you?
That’s a somewhat deeper issue. It’s not absolutely clear that either the Taliban or Iran are entitled to immunity, because the former is not the government per se of a sovereign state and the latter is not recognized as a sovereign state under US law. The judge could have applied sovereign immunity on his own if he wanted to.
That’s just how default judgments work, though; if the plaintiffs have a plausible argument and their evidence doesn’t fail on its own, they win.
Hm. I don’t know. I would actually expect to be sued here in the US. Italian law could be different in this respect obviously, but assuming that the same principles are applied ( in fact I’m referring to the section of International Shoe Doctrine in the wiki article you linked ) Justice Gingsberg said that defendants should be “essentially at home”. It’s a far fetched argument to say that Al Qaeda was basically at home in the US. If the furtive and secretive activities of a handful of Qaeda operatives is enough to be considered to be at home, then this would circumvent the cases dismissed where foreign entities tried to sue one another in US courts. After all it’s entirely possible that these legitimate entities have sent their employees to the US for let’s say a conference or tradeshow or what not for a limited amount of time. This fact does not establish these entities to be at home in the US.
Finally, from a utilitarian philosophical perspective, this case does seem farcical, since realistically there is no chance of collecting the $100,000,000,000. Also, how is this case not any different from me suing you in every foreign country, forcing you to obey a court summons everywhere at great cost to you, you basically ignoring all these summons, me getting default judgements in my favor everywhere, your standing with all these countries blemished to various degrees… Etc. can I do this type of thing? I don’t think so.
Ginsburg was referring to general jurisdiction, which is a related but different concept from specific jurisdiction, which is what we’re discussing here. The case Wikipedia refers to is Goodyear Dunlop v. Brown. Here’s the quote in context:
Here, the suit stems from the same occurrence or series of occurrences which give rise to the jurisdictional claim (ie., al Quaeda established contact with the US via 9/11, which the suit is about). That’s called specific jurisdiction, and the standards are greatly relaxed relative to general jurisdictional claims.
By way of example, using the pedestrian example again:
You run an Italian person over in the US.
You go on vacation in Italy a couple of times, but otherwise have nothing to do with the place.
You get sued in Italian court for running the person over.
We’ll assume for the example that Italy uses the same jurisdictional analysis we do. The plaintiff here would have to consider whether it had general jurisdiction, since your contact with Italy was unrelated to the suit.
You’re obviously not “at home” in Italy, and using the more common phrasing, you have not established the minimum contacts (in Italy) sufficient to allow you to anticipate being hauled up in an Italian court. So, the court will find that it doesn’t have personal jurisdiction over you and toss the case.
In the original example, you ran somebody over in Italy. Your contact with Italy is what gave rise to the controversy (ie., you being there when it happened). In that case, the court would apply specific jurisdiction principles.
Justice Ginsberg also explains specific jurisdiction briefly in the Goodyear case:
The logic behind the distinction is pretty sensible, when you think about it: people or companies (or even states) which have a significant presence in a state can anticipate that they might have to go to court there. People/companies/states which have no significant presence can’t anticipate that they might have to go to court in places they have little connection with, except in the case of lawsuits arising directly from contact they do have with those places.
There is a chance of collecting at least some portion of the money. Iran at least certainly has assets subject to garnishment by US courts.
Don’t get hung up over the number. In a default judgment, the plaintiffs get whatever they’ve asked for, because there’s no one to dispute the amount of the damages. Certainly nobody will be collecting eleventy billion dollars from anyone, but there are probably some millions available.
That’s why plaintiffs’ typically sue for huge sums: because there’s always a chance one or more of the defendants won’t show up and a default will be entered.
Well, most countries don’t allow just anyone to file a lawsuit, for one thing. Countries don’t allow foreign nationals to sue other foreign nationals in their courts unless one or both are residents or otherwise subject to their jurisdiction (except under very limited circumstances like claims stemming from war crimes).
Things are quite different in criminal courts. At least under US law, you can’t be convicted of a crime if you don’t show up to defend yourself (though you can if you appear and then bolt).
Assuming you do show up, but you’re from far, far away, the court will apply a similar jurisdictional analysis to determine if it has jurisdiction to try you for a crime.
I read the original Goodyear Dunlop Tire v. Brown and the Supreme Court in a unanimous decision throws out the North Carolina decision to hear the case based on the previous decision in Helicopteros Nacionales de Colombia v. Hall, which reasoned that Helicopteros can’t be held liable in Texas even though its president travelled to Texas himself to close business deals, and employees were sent to Texas for training. All these activities were deemed not to be “continuous and systemic” business activities therefore Texas did not have jurisdiction over Helicopteros.
So basically section (a) defines specific jurisdiction, and section (b) says North Carolina was wrong in entertaining the suit against Helicopteros.
Anyway, all these cases linked in Wikipedia are precedents to dismiss defendants from suits due to jurisdiction restrictions. Do you have any precedents that can bolster the claim that a court does have jurisdiction over a foreign entity along the lines of Al Qaeda?
Ok, I have no contention that Al Qaeda can and should be tried in criminal court. It is an entirely different matter for a civil court that handles torts to have jurisdiction over such an entity. As far as I’m concerned nobody sued Ramzi Yousef for one dime.
So again, I humbly ask for any precedent that Al Qaeda can be sued in tort court.
Um, cite this case? You do realize this case has now concluded and a Federal judge who is a strong expert in answering the sort of questions you’re asking didn’t seem to believe his court lacked jurisdiction to hear the case.
Further, the actual quote basically confirms what Really Not All That Bright is saying. In that specific case the corporation was being sued in a North Carolina court for actions that were not intrinsically linked to that forum (essentially meaning they didn’t happen within the jurisdiction of that court.) It goes on to explain that since it isn’t a case in which there is a specific jurisdiction, the court can only then look and see if the corporation has enough of a presence or association with the State to establish some general jurisdiction, and in this case such a general jurisdiction was not established.
But the very logic that flows from that then suggests that if the acts did happen in North Carolina, then specific jurisdiction would apply and the case could be heard in North Carolina.
The issue of Al-Qaeda having a continuous and systematic presence in the U.S. such that they could be sued in a U.S. court on the principle of general jurisdiction is debatable. However, in the specific case of the terrorist attacks on 9/11/01, it’s patently ludicrous to claim that the specifics of the attacks wouldn’t put al-Qaeda, in terms of liability for the attacks, under the specific jurisdiction of a U.S. court.
To go back to running someone over in Italy, let’s flip that the other way. Let’s say an Italian tourist runs over someone here in the United States. A U.S. court would certainly find that the injured party could sue here in the United States, because the action happened within the jurisdiction of the United States. Further, while here you’re subject to our laws/regulations. So an Italian driver who is accused of committing a tort while controlling a motor vehicle in America would really need to be sued in an American court, where there is expertise in analyzing the rules and regulations of the road as they relate to properly operating a motor vehicle and establishing liability and things of that nature. Italian’s probably have different motor vehicle rules than us, so an Italian court would lack the expertise to even know if their national was driving in an inappropriate manner and thus committing a tort, or whether he was driving perfectly fine and thus not legally liable for say, a pedestrian madly leaping in front of his car. Further, with the incident having happened thousands of miles away, and in a different country, an Italian court would face certain procedural and practical hurdles in being able to adequately hear this civil case.
For that reason I hold it is “obvious” that for specific torts that happen in U.S. jurisdiction, and given the cites already presented, it really seems pretty straight forward that “if you do something here, you can be sued for it in a court here.” If not, then you need to have some strong association with this country to be subject to its forums.
Ok, let’s go back to basics. It was claimed that this suit was a farce. A precedent or Supreme Court decision would lend credence to the legitimacy of this suit if it shows that an organization like Al Qaeda can be sued in a tort case. Otherwise appealing to the authority of the judge himself who accepted to preside over the case is not enough. I mean, there must be a cackle of judges falling all over themselves trying to be the ones presiding over the lawsuit to extract a brazillion dollars from Al Qaeda.
So far it has not been shown in this thread that it is lawful to sue Al Qaeda or the Taliban as codified in law, or established in precedent or Supreme Court opinions.
The Italian guy analogy breaks down after a bit, since an Italian guy is fundamentally not the same as Al Qaeda.