U.S. appeals court throws out terror verdict against PA

Arutz Sheva ^ | 31/8/16 | Ben Ariel

[Eleutheria5]

A federal appeals court in New York on Wednesday threw out a multimillion-dollar judgment awarded to a group of U.S. terrorism victims, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The court determined that the United States lacked jurisdiction over a lawsuit brought by the victims against the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

The ruling is a significant setback for the 10 American families who sued over terrorist attacks in Israel during the Second Intifada in the early 2000s that left 33 dead and more than 400 injured.

After a trial in Manhattan federal court last year, jurors found the PLO and Palestinian Authority liable for the attacks and ordered the groups to pay the families $218.5 million, which was automatically tripled to $655.5 million under a U.S. anti-terrorism law.

The PA subsequently appealed the verdict while the PLO later said it “lacks the funds” to pay the compensation.

But on Wednesday, three judges for the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the case, saying there wasn't enough of a connection between the U.S. and the Israel attacks.

There is no U.S. jurisdiction in this case, “no matter how horrendous the underlying attacks or morally compelling the plaintiffs’ claims,” wrote Judge John Koetl, according to The Wall Street Journal.

One test of jurisdiction was whether the Palestinian Authority and the PLO could be considered “at home” in the U.S. Despite the groups’ office and lobbying efforts in Washington, the appeals panel said that was insufficient to establish a substantial presence in the U.S. The groups are clearly “at home in Palestine”, the opinion said.

The victims who brought the lawsuit were U.S. citizens, but the judges said that during the Israel attacks, the shooters “fired indiscriminately” at large groups of people, meaning they weren’t expressly targeting Americans.

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[Eleutheria5]

But it is still there, and it fits this case, provided it can pass all the constitutional hurdles.

Plus there’s the fact that they have a diplomatic presence in the US. Back in the day when I worked in a law office in NY, we once sued France for something or other, and served papers on their consulate. If a foreign power or entity with a New York diplomatic presence shoots people indiscriminately in Israel, and injures a New York resident, my gut tells me that this power or entity is subject to US jurisdiction in New York state and federal courts.

Finally, New York jurisdiction in Products Liability cases is based on even flimsier tenets. So long as the product is made by a company with ties to interstate commerce and hurts a New York resident, there you are. I submit to you that terrorist organizations have ties to international commerce, and in fact exist to disrupt it. They did so, by harming Americans who were visiting Jerusalem. Ergo, they are liable for the faulty guns they used that do not misfire when pointed at a human being, such as those used in West World.

[Lurking Libertarian]

So long as the product is made by a company with ties to interstate commerce and hurts a New York resident, there you are.

Not at all; at least not any more. I don't know when you worked for a New York law firm, but the Supreme Court (over the dissents of its liberal judges) has vastly reduced the scope of personal jurisdiction over the past 5 years or so. Now, for a company to be subject to jurisdiction in New York, it has to injure a New York resident in New York, and the defendant needs ties to New York, not just ties to interstate commerce. See, e.g., Walden v. Fiore, 134 S.Ct. 1115 (2014); J. Mcintyre Co. v. Nicastro, 131 S.Ct. 2780 (2011).

As the Second Circuit noted in its decisions, the federal courts in D.C. and elsewhere have reached the same conclusion about tort suits against the PLO. This decision, as much as it sucks in its real-world consequences (and I am speaking as a Jew with nephews and nieces in Tzahal), is absolutely in the mainstream of current personal-jurisdiction law.

[Eleutheria5]

I’ve been happily away from law and lawyers for more than five years. The money’s not as good, but the life is way better. But, it appears, I’m no longer up-to-date. Anyway, in this case, I’d say the plaintiffs ought to try any rusty old jurisdictional trick that there is, including RICO prosecution, and also go to Israeli courts and the Hague. And of course have Mossad take out the “tortfeasors” on the side. Of course, I’m prejudiced, too, having lost a few friends in this last “intifada”.