Case ID: f-appx_577/html/0022-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Shimon ROSENBERG, individually, as Legal Guardian of Moshe Tzvi Holtzberg and as Personal Representative of the Estates of Rivka Holtzberg and Gavriel Noach Holtzberg, Nachman Holtzberg, individually and on behalf of other family members, as Surviving Father of Gavriel Noach Holtzberg, Moses Shvarzblat, individually and as Personal Representative of the Estate of Norma Shvarzblat-Rabinovich, Maribeth Jeswani, individually and as Personal Representative of the Estate of Sandeep Jeswani, Andreina Varago-na, Kia Scherr, individually and as Personal Representative of the Estates of Naomi Scherr and Alan Scherr, Emunah Chroman, Individually and as Personal Representative of the Estate of Ben Zion Chroman, Linda Ragsdale, Autumn R. Gilles, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Ahmed Shuja PASHA, Nadeem Taj, Defendants-Appellees, Dara Lashkar-E-Taiba, aka Khidmat-e-Khalq, aka Jamat ud Dawa, aka Markaz ud Dawa, aka Tehrik-e-Ta-haffuz-e-Awal, Sajid Majid, aka Sajid Mir, Azam Cheema, Major Iqbal, Major Samir Ali, Inter-Services Intelligence of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, Mohamaed Hafiz Sayeed, Zaki Ur Rehman Lakhvi, Defendants.
    No. 13-4334-cv.
    United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.
    Aug. 27, 2014.
    James P. Kreindler (Andrew J. Maloney III, on the brief), Kreindler & Kreindler LLP, New York, NY, for Plaintiffs-Appellants.
    Allen C. Wasserman (Kevin John Walsh, on the brief), Locke Lord LLP, New York, NY, for Defendants-Appellees.
    PRESENT: JOSÉ A. CABRANES, CHESTER J. STRAUB, RAYMOND J. LOHIER, JR., Circuit Judges.
   SUMMARY ORDER

Appellants are survivors and families of the victims of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, carried out by the Pakistani terrorist organization Lashkar-e-Taiba. They filed suit under the Antiterrorism Act, 18 U.S.C § 2331 et seq., the Torture Victim Protection Act, note following 28 U.S.C. § 1350, and the Alien Tort Statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1350, against appellees Ahmed Shuja Pasha and Nadeem Taj, two former directors of the Pakistani intelligence agency known as Inter-Services Intelligence (“ISI”). Plaintiffs alleged that ap-pellees coordinated the Mumbai attacks with Lashkar-e-Taiba. The District Court granted appellees’ motion to dismiss pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1), holding that Pasha and Taj were protected from suit by common law sovereign immunity. The District Court based its determination on the Statement of Interest provided by the United States Department of State, which advised that Pasha and Taj were indeed foreign officials acting within the scope of their official positions and should be subject to sovereign immunity. We assume the parties’ familiarity with the underlying facts and the procedural history of the case.

In reviewing dismissal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction pursuant to Rule 12(b)(1), we review legal conclusions de novo and factual findings for clear error. Tandon v. Captain’s Cove Marina of Bridgeport, Inc., 752 F.3d 239, 243 (2d Cir.2014). A case is properly dismissed under Rule 12(b)(1) when the district court “lacks the statutory or constitutional power to adjudicate it.” Makarova v. United States, 201 F.3d 110, 113 (2d Cir.2000). “A plaintiff asserting subject matter jurisdiction has the burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that it exists.” Id.

Appellants argue that common law sovereign immunity cannot protect foreign officials from suit for jus cogens violations, which are “norm[s] accepted and recognized by the international community of states as a whole as a norm from which no derogation is permitted and which can be modified only by a subsequent norm of general international law having the same character.” Belhas v. Ya’alon, 515 F.3d 1279, 1286 (D.C.Cir.2008) (quoting Siderman de Blake v. Repub. of Arg., 965 F.2d 699, 714 (9th Cir.1992)). They also argue that formal suggestions of immunity submitted by the State Department should not be dispositive in a court’s immunity determination. They base their claim upon the decision of the Fourth Circuit in Yousuf v. Samantar, 699 F.3d 763 (4th Cir.2012) (“Samantar III ”), in which the Court of Appeals held that foreign officials “are not entitled to foreign official immunity for jus cogens violations, even if the acts were performed in the defendant’s official capacity,” id. at 777, and that Statements of Interest provided by the State Department were given “considerable, but not controlling, weight” in the immunity determination, id. at 773.

In so arguing, appellants acknowledge that their position is in tension with the precedent of this Court, expressed in Matar v. Dichter, 563 F.3d 9, 15 (2d Cir.2009). There, we addressed the question of common law immunity for foreign officials accused of jus cogens violations, and explicitly held that “in the common-law context, we defer to the Executive’s determination of the scope of immunity” and that “[a] claim premised on the violation of jus co-gens does not withstand foreign sovereign immunity.” Id. at 15. However, appellants assert that: (1) we should instead adopt a “cogent litmus test similar to the Fourth Circuit,” Appellants’ Br. at 14; and (2) our holding in Matar was called into question by the Supreme Court’s decision in Samantar v. Yousuf, 560 U.S. 305, 130 S.Ct. 2278, 176 L.Ed.2d 1047 (2010) (“Sa-mantar II”) (affirming a Fourth Circuit opinion, Yousuf v. Samantar, 552 F.3d 371 (4th Cir.2009) (“Samantar I ”), which held that an individual foreign officer is not protected by the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, 28 U.S.C. §§ 1602-1611).

We reject both of these arguments. First, Matar was a decision of a panel of this Court. We are bound to follow that precedent, unless and until it is overruled implicitly or expressly by the Supreme Court, or by this Court sitting in banc. See United States v. Santiago, 268 F.3d 151, 154 (2d Cir.2001). Appellants do not suggest that the Matar holding has been overruled by an in banc proceeding of this Court, so we turn to the Supreme Court’s opinion in Samantar II.

We disagree with appellants’ assertion that the Supreme Court’s opinion in Sa-mantar II constitutes intervening Supreme Court precedent that requires us to alter our clear precedent. The question before the Supreme Court in Samantar II was whether the Fourth Circuit correctly determined in Samantar I that “the [Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act] does not govern [a foreign official’s] claim of immunity.” Samantar II, 560 U.S. at 325, 130 S.Ct. 2278. The Supreme Court’s opinion did not address common law immunity in any significant way, and certainly did not overrule — either explicitly or implicitly— our holding in Matar. Rather, in affirming the Fourth Circuit, the Supreme Court noted at the end of its opinion that “[w]hether [the foreign official] may be entitled to immunity under the common law ... [is a] matter[ ] to be addressed in the first instance by the District Court on remand.” Id. at 325-26, 130 S.Ct. 2278.

Upon remand, the Fourth Circuit held in Samantar III that common law foreign official immunity did not apply to alleged violations of jus cogens norms, and the Fourth Circuit’s holding there is what appellants ask us to adopt. However, we are bound by our own precedent, not that of the Fourth Circuit, and we conclude that nothing in the Supreme Court’s opinion even suggests, let alone mandates, that we abandon our clear precedent in Matar. Matar remains binding precedent in this Circuit, and in applying it, the District Court correctly determined that, in light of the Statement of Interest filed by the State Department recommending immunity for Pasha and Taj, the action must be dismissed.

CONCLUSION

We have considered all of appellants’ arguments and find them to be without merit. Accordingly, we AFFIRM the judgment of the District Court.