Foreign Terror Has a Price in US Courts
The Supreme Court’s decision allowing lawsuits by victims of overseas attacks to move forward is likely to have consequences for both future suits and the law.
Americans’ right to seek justice doesn’t end at the border.
Photographer: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images North AmericaI doubt that anyone was surprised on Friday when the US Supreme Court voted unanimously to reinstate lawsuits against the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization by victims and families of victims injured in terror attacks in Israel. The lower courts dismissed the cases on the ground that they lacked jurisdiction over the defendants. The Supreme Court disagreed — a disagreement that has an important constitutional dimension, and which, in the current fraught international atmosphere, is likely to have consequences both for lawsuits and future statutes.
To cut through the procedural complexity of the case, the plaintiffs in the two consolidated cases sued the PLO and the PA under the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1990, which grants treble damages to those harmed by “an act of international terror.” More important to the case, under the Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act (PSJVTA), which was passed by Congress in 2019, both the PLO and the PA would be “deemed” to have consented to the jurisdiction of US courts if they made payments to families or other designees of those who were imprisoned for or died while committing an act of terrorism “that injured or killed a national of the United States,” if the payment was in connection with the act or the death.