Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-15-07025/USCOURTS-caDC-15-07025-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 360
Nature of Suit: Other Personal Injury
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued September 14, 2016 Decided March 24, 2017

No. 15-7024

RIVKA LIVNAT, INDIVIDUALLY AND AS PERSONAL 

REPRESENTATIVE OF THE ESTATE OF BEN-YOSEF LIVNAT, ET 

AL.,

APPELLANTS

v.

PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY, A/K/A THE PALESTINIAN INTERIM 

SELF-GOVERNMENT AUTHORITY,

APPELLEE

Consolidated with 15-7025

Appeals from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:14-cv-00668)

(No. 1:14-cv-00669)

Jessica P. Weber argued the cause for appellants. With her 

on the briefs were Andrew D. Levy and Alan I. Baron.

Peter Raven-Hansen and David A. Reiser were on the 

brief for amici curiae Former Federal Law Enforcement 

Officials in support of appellants.

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Mitchell R. Berger argued the cause for appellee. With 

him on the brief were Pierre H. Bergeron, John Burlingame, 

Alexandra E. Chopin, and Gassan A. Baloul.

Before: GRIFFITH and WILKINS, Circuit Judges, and 

SILBERMAN, Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge GRIFFITH.

GRIFFITH, Circuit Judge: In 2011, Jewish worshippers 

were shot by armed gunmen at Joseph’s Tomb, a holy site in 

the West Bank believed by many to be the burial place of the 

biblical patriarch. Among the victims were Ben-Yosef Livnat, 

who was killed, and U.S. citizens Yitzhak Safra and Natan 

Safra, who were wounded in the gunfire. The Livnat and Safra 

families brought suit in federal district court seeking to hold the 

Palestinian Authority vicariously liable for the attack. For the 

reasons set forth below, we conclude that the suits may not be 

brought in the courts of the United States.

I

According to the Livnats and Safras, the perpetrators of 

the attack were the security guards hired to protect Joseph’s 

Tomb by the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian Authority

is a government headquartered in the West Bank city of 

Ramallah. Established following the 1993 Oslo Accords 

between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, the 

Palestinian Authority administers civilian and internal security 

services in parts of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. External 

security remains within Israel’s control. See Interim 

Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, Isr.-P.L.O., 

art. X, Sept. 28, 1995, 36 I.L.M. 551, 561 [hereinafter Oslo II]. 

The Oslo Accords also circumscribe the Palestinian 

Authority’s “powers and responsibilities in the sphere of 

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foreign relations.” Id. art. IX, 36 I.L.M. at 561. The Palestinian 

Authority has non-member observer status in the United 

Nations and receives foreign aid from the United States, the 

European Union, and other sources. The United States does not 

recognize the Palestinian Authority as a government of a 

sovereign state.

The families allege that the guards who perpetrated the 

attack at Joseph’s Tomb were acting within the scope of their 

employment by the Palestinian Authority, which knew that the 

commander of the guards had served time in Israeli prison on 

terrorism-related charges. The families claim that the attack 

was directed at the United States as “part and parcel of” the 

Palestinian Authority’s “general practice of using terrorism to 

influence United States public opinion and policy.” Compl. at 

5, Livnat v. Palestinian Auth., No. 1:14-cv-00668 (D.D.C. Apr. 

21, 2014); Compl. at 3, Safra v. Palestinian Auth., No. 

1:14-cv-00669 (D.D.C. Apr. 21, 2014).

The Livnats and Safras filed identical lawsuits against the 

Palestinian Authority in federal district court, bringing claims

under both the Antiterrorism Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2333, and

common-law tort. The Palestinian Authority moved to dismiss 

for lack of personal jurisdiction, among other grounds. The 

families opposed and filed cross-motions for leave to take 

jurisdictional discovery. The court denied the families’

cross-motions for jurisdictional discovery, reasoning that their 

proposed discovery would have been futile, and granted the 

motions to dismiss.

The district court addressed the issue of personal

jurisdiction under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4(k)(2), 

concluding that the Livnats and Safras had forfeited all other 

statutory bases for personal jurisdiction. Livnat v. Palestinian 

Auth., 82 F. Supp. 3d 19, 24-25 & n.9 (D.D.C. 2015); Safra v. 

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Palestinian Auth., 82 F. Supp. 3d 37, 43 & n.8 (D.D.C. 2015). 

Rule 4(k)(2) permits a federal court to exercise personal 

jurisdiction if the claim arises under federal law, process was 

properly served, the defendant is not subject to jurisdiction in 

any state court of general jurisdiction, and—the requirement at 

issue here—jurisdiction “is consistent with the United States 

Constitution and laws.” FED. R. CIV. P. 4(k)(2). The district 

court held that this last requirement was not met. Applying the 

Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment, the court found

that the Palestinian Authority was not “at home” in the United 

States and that the attack was not sufficiently directed at the 

United States. 

The Livnats and Safras timely appealed, and their cases 

are consolidated here. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1291. In both cases, we review de novo the district court’s 

dismissal for lack of personal jurisdiction, and we review for 

abuse of discretion the denial of jurisdictional discovery. FC 

Inv. Grp. LC v. IFX Mkts., Ltd., 529 F.3d 1087, 1091 (D.C. Cir. 

2008).

II

The question before us is whether the Fifth Amendment’s 

Due Process Clause permits personal jurisdiction over the 

Palestinian Authority in these disputes. We begin with the 

contention by the Livnats and Safras that the Clause imposes 

no limits at all on personal jurisdiction over the Palestinian 

Authority.

A

In International Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U.S. 310 

(1945), the Supreme Court gave the now-canonical 

explanation of what “due process requires” before a defendant 

outside a forum’s borders may be subject to suit: the defendant 

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must “have certain minimum contacts with [the forum] such 

that the maintenance of the suit does not offend ‘traditional 

notions of fair play and substantial justice.’” Id. at 316 (quoting 

Milliken v. Meyer, 311 U.S. 457, 463 (1940)). Accordingly, we 

have explained that the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process 

Clause protects defendants from “being subject to the binding 

judgments of a forum with which [they have] established no 

meaningful contacts, ties, or relations,” and requires “fair 

warning that a particular activity may subject them to the 

jurisdiction of a foreign sovereign.” Mwani v. bin Laden, 417 

F.3d 1, 11 (D.C. Cir. 2005) (quoting Burger King Corp. v. 

Rudzewicz, 471 U.S. 462, 472 (1985)).

This general rule, however, has a few narrow exceptions. 

Constitutional limits on the personal jurisdiction of the courts 

do not protect entities that are not covered by the Due Process 

Clause, and the language of the Clause speaks only of 

“persons.” U.S. CONST. amend. V (“No person shall . . . be 

deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of 

law . . . .”). The Supreme Court held in South Carolina v. 

Katzenbach, 383 U.S. 301 (1966), that States of the Union are 

not “persons” under the Clause. Id. at 323-24. And we held in 

Price v. Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, 294 F.3d 

82 (D.C. Cir. 2002), that neither are foreign states. Id. at 96.

Nor is the Palestinian Authority, according to the 

appellants, who urge us to extend Price to the Palestinian 

Authority by holding that Price applies not just to sovereign 

foreign states, but to any foreign entity that “functions as a 

government.” Appellants’ Br. 19.

We reject appellants’ reading of Price. To begin with, 

Price represents a rare exception to the general rule that the 

Due Process Clause protects all litigants in our courts, 

especially by limiting the power of courts to hale defendants 

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before them. We are reluctant to undermine this general rule by 

widening the Price exception. Indeed, we have previously 

assumed that Price is narrower than the appellants maintain, 

understanding its holding to be that “foreign sovereigns . . . are 

not ‘persons’ under the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process 

Clause.” GSS Grp. Ltd v. Nat’l Port Auth., 680 F.3d 805, 809

(D.C. Cir. 2012) (emphasis added); see also id. at 813

(describing Price’s reasoning as “put[ting] foreign sovereigns

in a separate constitutional category from ‘private entities’” 

(emphasis added) (quoting Price, 294 F.3d at 98)).

We confirm that measured interpretation of Price today. 

The rule in Price—that foreign states are not “persons” under 

the Due Process Clause—applies only to sovereign foreign 

states.1 Nothing in Price, other precedent, or the appellants’ 

arguments compels us to extend the rule in Price to all foreign 

government entities. And no party here argues that the 

Palestinian Authority is a sovereign foreign state.

B

In Price, we held that the federal courts had personal 

jurisdiction over Libya despite its lack of “minimum contacts” 

with the United States, because “foreign states are not 

‘persons’ protected by the Fifth Amendment.” 294 F.3d at 96.

We reached this conclusion for two principal reasons. First, in 

light of Katzenbach’s holding that States of the Union are not 

“persons” under the Due Process Clause, we decided that 

foreign states are similarly situated. Id. at 96-97. Observing

 1 We merely clarify what qualifies as a “foreign state” under 

Price. Our holding does not bear on the separate question of whether 

“an agency or instrumentality” of a foreign state “has a constitutional 

status different from that of” the foreign state itself under the Due 

Process Clause. TMR Energy Ltd. v. State Prop. Fund of Ukr., 411 

F.3d 296, 301 (D.C. Cir. 2005). 

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that “in common usage, the term ‘person’ does not include the 

sovereign,” id. at 96 (quoting Will v. Mich. Dep’t of State 

Police, 491 U.S. 58, 64 (1989)), and that “person” in the Due 

Process Clause had already been interpreted to exclude States 

of the Union, we asked whether there was any “compelling 

reason to treat foreign sovereigns more favorably,” id. We 

could identify none, because if anything the Constitution treats

foreign sovereigns less favorably. The States of the Union 

“derive important benefits” from the Constitution (such as 

protection against invasion, U.S. CONST. art IV, § 4) in 

exchange for “abid[ing] by significant limitations” (such as the 

supremacy of federal law, U.S. CONST. art. VI, cl. 2). Price, 

294 F.3d at 96. By contrast, foreign states “are entirely alien to 

our constitutional system,” and the Constitution neither confers 

benefits nor imposes limitations as it does for States of the 

Union. Id. at 97, 99. We concluded that “it would be highly 

incongruous to afford greater Fifth Amendment rights to 

foreign nations” than to States of the Union. Id. at 96.

Second, we explained that foreign states, as “the juridical 

equals of the government that seeks to assert jurisdiction over 

them,” can rely on “mechanisms in the international arena,” 

instead of domestic law, to protect themselves. Id. at 98. 

Therefore, foreign states can rely on those other protections 

against U.S. government power, and do not need the Due 

Process Clause. Id. at 97-99.

We also mentioned that it was “worth noting” that “serious 

practical problems might arise” if foreign states enjoyed 

due-process rights. Id. at 99. For example, foreign states might 

challenge economic sanctions as violations of due process. Id.

We avoided such problems by holding that the Due Process 

Clause does not protect foreign states.

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The appellants contend that Price’s reasoning applies 

equally in this case. But in Price, we had a particular type of 

entity in mind. When addressing whether the Due Process 

Clause applies to “foreign states,” we used that term 

interchangeably with foreign “nations,” “governments,” and 

“sovereigns.” See id. at 95-100. Libya was a “sovereign 

nation” fairly described by all of those terms. Id. at 98. This 

case is different. Both parties acknowledge that the Palestinian 

Authority is not recognized by the United States as a 

government of a sovereign state. And the appellants—even 

though they seek to apply Price’s holding here—concede that 

the Palestinian Authority is not sovereign in “law” or “fact,” 

apparently referring to the Palestinian Authority’s limited 

powers and incomplete independence from Israel. Appellants’ 

Br. 17 & n.3 (citing Ungar v. Palestine Liberation Org., 402 

F.3d 274 (1st Cir. 2005), which held that the “reserved powers” 

that Israel retained under the Oslo Accords “are incompatible 

with the notion that the [Palestinian Authority] had 

independent governmental control over the defined territory,” 

and therefore the Palestinian Authority was not a foreign 

“state” entitled to sovereign immunity, id. at 291). The 

question, then, is whether Price’s rationales depended on the 

fact that Libya was sovereign, or whether they extend to any 

foreign government entity, even if not recognized as sovereign 

by the United States and potentially lacking ultimate, 

independent governing authority in key respects.

We think the former is correct: Price’s primary rationales

hinge on sovereignty. First, Price’s rationale that foreign states 

have the same status as States of the Union under the Due 

Process Clause is based on the notion that both are sovereign.

Indeed, our whole discussion of foreign states and States of the 

Union was a comparison of two sets of sovereign entities. After 

all, we started that discussion by observing that “in common 

usage, the term ‘person’ does not include the sovereign.” Id. at 

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96 (quoting Will, 491 U.S. at 64). The analysis that followed 

that observation considered whether the settled law that the 

term “person” in the Due Process Clause excludes one set of 

sovereigns—States of the Union—meant that the term also 

excluded another set of sovereigns—foreign states. And in 

considering that question, we compared how the Constitution 

governs States of the Union and foreign states with respect to 

attributes of sovereignty like sovereign immunity, territorial 

security, and judicial power. Id. at 96, 99. These are attributes 

that non-sovereign foreign governments might lack—for 

instance, the Palestinian Authority lacks power to secure its 

territory against external threats. See Oslo II, art. X, 36 I.L.M. 

at 561. Thus, in Price, we compared foreign states and States 

of the Union not as run-of-the-mill entities, or even just as 

governments, but rather as sovereigns.

Ignoring the underlying premise that States of the Union 

and foreign states are both sovereigns, the appellants instead 

focus on a different aspect of Price’s comparison of the two. 

They note that Price described foreign states, unlike States of 

the Union, as “alien to our constitutional system,” 294 F.3d at 

96, and argue that Price’s rule for foreign states must also 

apply to non-sovereign foreign governments because they are 

also “alien.” 

That is wrong several times over. For one, we have already 

rejected the notion that “alien” entities are disqualified from 

due-process protection. “Both the Supreme Court and this 

court have repeatedly held that foreign corporations may 

invoke due process protections to challenge the exercise of 

personal jurisdiction over them,” even though those entities are 

“just as ‘alien to our constitutional system’ as the Libyan 

government was in Price.” GSS, 680 F.3d at 813 (quoting 

Price, 294 F.3d at 96). Furthermore, “alien” status became 

relevant in Price only after we began comparing foreign states 

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to States of the Union. Once we recognized that foreign states 

were comparable to States of the Union in that both are 

sovereign, we considered whether there was any “compelling 

reason to treat foreign sovereigns more favorably.” 294 F.3d at

96. Because foreign states are “alien to our constitutional 

system” while the States are “integral” to the “Constitution’s 

infrastructure,” we found implausible the notion that the 

Constitution would treat foreign states more favorably. Id. But 

for entities that are not sovereign, the initial analogy to States 

of the Union never gets off the ground; whether they are 

“alien” does not matter.

Price’s second rationale, that international mechanisms 

displace domestic law for foreign states, also does not work for

non-sovereign entities. Comity and international law “set the 

terms by which sovereigns relate to one another.” Id. at 98 

(emphasis added). By contrast, an entity that is not the 

“juridical equal” of the United States—such as a 

non-sovereign—lacks the “panoply of mechanisms in the 

international arena” that a sovereign state like Libya can use to 

resolve disputes with the United States. Id. Significantly, direct 

dispute-resolution mechanisms are generally available only to 

entities that are juridical equals in the eyes of the United States, 

because political recognition “is a precondition of regular 

diplomatic relations.” Zivotofsky v. Kerry, 135 S. Ct. 2076, 

2084 (2015). Moreover, further underscoring that Price’s 

rationale depends on sovereignty, the United States recognizes 

special privileges, based on comity and international-law 

principles, for sovereigns alone. See, e.g., Banco Nacional de 

Cuba v. Sabbatino, 376 U.S. 398, 408-09 (1964) (“Under 

principles of comity governing this country’s relations with 

other nations, sovereign states are allowed to sue in the courts 

of the United States.”); id. at 401 (describing the “act of state 

doctrine,” which “precludes the courts of this country from 

inquiring into the validity of the public acts a recognized 

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foreign sovereign power committed within its own territory”); 

F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd. v. Empagran S.A., 542 U.S. 155, 

164 (2004) (“[T]his Court ordinarily construes ambiguous 

statutes to avoid unreasonable interference with the sovereign 

authority of other nations.”); cf. Foreign Sovereign Immunities 

Act, 28 U.S.C. §§ 1602 et seq.

To be sure, even non-sovereigns can participate in some 

forms of international relations. But that participation is 

limited. See 1 OPPENHEIM’S INTERNATIONAL LAW § 35 (9th ed. 

2008) (recognizing that “there is no doubt” that non-sovereign 

entities “cannot be full, perfect, and normal subjects of 

international law”); JAMES CRAWFORD, BROWNLIE’S

PRINCIPLES OF PUBLIC INTERNATIONAL LAW 448 (8th ed. 2012) 

(explaining that “sovereignty” includes a state’s “capacity to 

act on the international plane, representing that territory and its 

people”); LOUIS HENKIN ET AL., INTERNATIONAL LAW 241-42

(3d ed. 1993) (“[D]espite the dogma that only sovereign states 

could be subjects of international law, many other entities” can 

be “regarded as international legal persons for certain purposes 

and in some respects,” but “these developments should not 

obscure the primary and predominant role of the state as the 

subject of international law.” (emphasis added)). Because they 

lack the full range of rights and obligations that sovereigns

have under international law, non-sovereigns—unlike the 

defendant in Price—cannot rely on comity and 

international-law protections to the exclusion of domestic law.

Finally, Price’s concern that recognizing due-process 

rights might pose “practical problems,” 294 F.3d at 99, does 

not change our conclusion that Price’s holding applies to 

sovereigns alone. The appellants argue that problems might 

arise if non-sovereigns raised due-process challenges to

foreign-policy decisions regarding foreign aid, for instance. 

But no such problems have arisen thus far, even though courts 

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have assumed that non-sovereign governments have 

due-process rights. Cf., e.g., Livnat v. Palestinian Auth., 82 F. 

Supp. 3d 19, 26 (D.D.C. 2015) (collecting district-court cases 

recognizing the Palestinian Authority’s due-process rights).

And in any event, our decision today does not define the 

content of any due-process rights outside the narrow context of 

personal jurisdiction.

C

This is not the first time that we have applied 

personal-jurisdiction protections under the Due Process Clause 

to a non-sovereign foreign government. In Toumazou v. 

Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, No. 14-7170 (D.C. Cir. 

Jan. 15, 2016), an unpublished judgment, plaintiffs invoked 

Rule 4(k)(2) to establish personal jurisdiction over the Turkish 

Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), a self-declared state 

that the United States does not recognize as sovereign, see U.S. 

Relations with Cyprus, U.S. DEP’T OF STATE (Sept. 29, 2016), 

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/5376.htm. We did not apply 

the rule from Price. Instead, we conducted the usual 

due-process inquiry, examining “the defendant’s contacts with 

the forum,” and ultimately concluding that personal 

jurisdiction was inconsistent with due process. Toumazou, slip

op. at 2 (citing Goodyear Dunlop Tires Operations, S.A. v. 

Brown, 131 S. Ct. 2846, 2851 (2011)).

The Second Circuit likewise applies due-process standards 

for personal jurisdiction when the defendant is a non-sovereign 

foreign government. In Waldman v. Palestine Liberation 

Organization, 835 F.3d 317 (2d Cir. 2016), a case substantially 

similar to the case before us, the Second Circuit held that the 

Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation 

Organization are both “persons” under the Fifth Amendment’s 

Due Process Clause. Id. at 329. The Second Circuit explained 

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that only “separate sovereigns, recognized by the United States 

government as sovereigns,” are foreign states left unprotected 

by the Due Process Clause. Id. Both the Palestinian Authority 

and the Palestine Liberation Organization remain protected by 

the Due Process Clause under that rule, because neither is so 

recognized. Id. We agree, at least to the extent that only 

sovereign entities are excluded from due-process protection as 

foreign states. As explained below, however, while the Second 

Circuit uses political recognition as the sole definition of 

sovereignty for due-process purposes, we leave open whether 

additional considerations could be relevant in future cases.

D

The appellants offer several other arguments why 

non-sovereign governments like the Palestinian Authority are 

not entitled to due-process protection. None is persuasive. 

First, they argue that our decisions in TMR Energy Ltd. v. State 

Property Fund of Ukraine, 411 F.3d 296 (D.C. Cir. 2005), and 

GSS Group Ltd v. National Port Authority, 680 F.3d 805 (D.C. 

Cir. 2012), support their position. Those cases held that

“[w]henever a foreign sovereign controls an instrumentality to 

such a degree that a principal-agent relationship arises between 

them,” then the instrumentality, like the sovereign, receives no 

due-process protection. GSS, 680 F.3d at 815; see also TMR, 

411 F.3d at 301. That is, if an instrumentality is sufficiently 

close to its government, then the Price rule applies. The 

appellants insist that under this principle, the Price rule applies 

here too, because the Palestinian Authority “is not merely a 

state-owned corporation,” it “is the government.” Appellants’ 

Br. 21. That is a non sequitur. Whether government 

instrumentalities receive the same due-process protection as 

their government (the question in TMR and GSS) has nothing 

to do with whether a government receives due-process 

protection in the first place (the question here).

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Next, the appellants suggest that other non-sovereign 

government entities, such as municipalities, do not receive 

due-process protections, demonstrating a general principle that 

governments cannot be “persons” under the Due Process 

Clause. But the only appellate decision they cite, City of East

St. Louis v. Circuit Court, 986 F.2d 1142 (7th Cir. 1993), is 

inapposite. In that case, the Seventh Circuit held that 

municipalities are not “persons” under the Due Process 

Clauses. See id. at 1144. But the court did not reason, as the 

appellants do, that no government can receive due-process 

protection. Rather, the court relied on the unrelated principle 

that municipalities are creatures of a State and therefore lack 

any constitutional rights against the State. See id. (citing Vill. of 

Arlington Heights v. Reg’l Transp. Auth., 653 F.2d 1149, 1152 

(7th Cir. 1981) (citing City of Newark v. New Jersey, 262 U.S. 

192, 196 (1923) (“The city cannot invoke the protection of the 

Fourteenth Amendment against the state.”))); see also City of 

Trenton v. New Jersey, 262 U.S. 182, 187 (1923) (“[A 

municipality is] the creature of the state exercising and holding 

powers and privileges subject to the sovereign will.”).2, 3

Finally, the appellants argue that applying due-process 

protections to limit personal jurisdiction in Antiterrorism Act 

 2 It is not even clear whether political subdivisions of a state 

lack due-process rights. See South Dakota v. U.S. Dep’t of Interior, 

665 F.3d 986, 990 n.4 (8th Cir. 2012) (describing the circuits as split 

on the issue). We take no position on the matter, but simply observe 

that the cases that address the issue do not resolve the question here.

3 The appellants also cite a smattering of trial-court cases

denying due-process rights to government entities such as political 

subdivisions of states, U.S. territories, and other Palestinian 

organizations. None of those cases explains why being a government 

would disqualify an entity from the protections of due process.

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cases would thwart Congress’s intent to provide redress in U.S. 

courts for terrorism abroad. But there is no indication that 

Congress thought ordinary due-process requirements would 

not apply here. And regardless, Congress cannot wish away a 

constitutional provision.

* * *

We conclude that Price’s narrow exception to the general 

due-process personal-jurisdiction rule applies only to foreign 

sovereigns. Here, no party argues that the Palestinian Authority

is sovereign by any definition. Appellants’ Br. 17 (denying the 

Palestinian Authority’s sovereignty “in fact, in law, and as 

reflected in the official positions of the United States and other 

countries”); Appellee’s Br. 20-21 (“[I]t is undisputed that the 

PA is not sovereign in the view of the United States.” 

(emphasis in original)).

4 Accordingly, Price does not apply, 

and therefore the district court had personal jurisdiction over 

the Palestinian Authority only if consistent with due-process

limits.

III

Our analysis of constitutional limits on personal 

jurisdiction is governed by the Due Process Clause of the Fifth 

 4 We therefore have no occasion in this case to define the 

precise limits of what constitutes a “sovereign” excluded from 

personhood under the Due Process Clauses. At the very least, any 

such definition must be consistent with Price’s twin rationales, 

which are limited to entities that (1) are analogous to States of the 

Union, and (2) have recourse to comity and international-law 

protections as do “juridical equals” of the United States. In the mine 

run of cases, whether the United States recognizes the entity as 

sovereign will determine whether those rationales apply. But we do 

not attempt to address today the full range of considerations that may 

arise on different facts in future cases.

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Amendment. That is unusual, because most cases in the courts 

of the United States concern Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 

4(k)(1), which directs courts to determine whether a state court 

would have personal jurisdiction, an analysis governed by the 

Fourteenth Amendment. But the families assert personal 

jurisdiction under Rule 4(k)(2), which examines the federal 

court’s jurisdiction, an analysis governed by the Fifth 

Amendment.

According to the Livnats, Safras, and amici, the Fifth 

Amendment’s Due Process Clause imposes 

personal-jurisdiction restrictions that are less protective of 

defendants than those imposed by the Fourteenth Amendment.

Therefore, they argue, we should ignore the standards 

announced in Daimler AG v. Bauman, 134 S. Ct. 746 (2014), 

and other Supreme Court personal-jurisdiction cases decided 

under the Fourteenth Amendment. Instead, they urge us simply 

to balance the interests favoring and disfavoring jurisdiction.

Under that approach, contacts with the United States that 

would be insufficient under the Fourteenth Amendment might 

justify personal jurisdiction under the Fifth.

In support of their newly devised theory of the Fifth 

Amendment, the Livnats, Safras, and amici argue that the Fifth 

Amendment is less concerned with circumscribing the power 

of courts than is the Fourteenth Amendment. The Fourteenth 

Amendment limits the power of state courts so as to “prevent[] 

states from encroaching upon each other’s sovereignty.” 

Stabilisierungsfonds Fur Wein v. Kaiser Stuhl Wine Distribs. 

Pty. Ltd., 647 F.2d 200, 203 n.4 (D.C. Cir. 1981). These 

federalism concerns do not apply, however, in the Fifth 

Amendment context, because that Amendment limits only the 

federal government, not the states. Accordingly, Fifth 

Amendment jurisdictional limits should be more 

permissive—or so the argument goes.

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That argument buckles under the weight of precedent. No 

court has ever held that the Fifth Amendment permits personal 

jurisdiction without the same “minimum contacts” with the 

United States as the Fourteenth Amendment requires with 

respect to States. To the contrary, both the Supreme Court and 

this court have applied Fourteenth Amendment 

personal-jurisdiction standards in Fifth Amendment cases. See 

Republic of Argentina v. Weltover, Inc., 504 U.S. 607, 620

(1992) (concluding that the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process 

Clause did not foreclose personal jurisdiction because the 

defendant had “purposefully availed itself of the privilege of 

conducting activities within the United States” (alterations 

omitted) (quoting Burger King Corp. v. Rudzewicz, 471 U.S. 

462, 475 (1985))); Mwani v. bin Laden, 417 F.3d 1, 11-14

(D.C. Cir. 2005); Gilson v. Republic of Ireland, 682 F.2d 1022, 

1028-29 (D.C. Cir. 1982). To be sure, neither the Supreme 

Court nor this court has expressly analyzed whether the Fifth 

and Fourteenth Amendment standards differ. But the Second, 

Sixth, Seventh, Eleventh, and Federal Circuits have, and all 

agree that there is no meaningful difference in the level of 

contacts required for personal jurisdiction. 5 The only 

 5 See Waldman, 835 F.3d at 330 (“[The Second Circuit’s] 

precedents clearly establish the congruence of due process analysis 

under both the Fourteenth and Fifth Amendments.”); Carrier Corp. 

v. Outokumpu Oyj, 673 F.3d 430, 449 (6th Cir. 2012) (holding that 

the Fifth Amendment personal-jurisdiction analysis “parallels” the 

Fourteenth Amendment analysis); Abelesz v. OTP Bank, 692 F.3d 

638, 660 (7th Cir. 2012) (finding “no merit” in the argument that 

invoking the Fifth Amendment “relaxes the minimum-contacts 

inquiry”); Oldfield v. Pueblo De Bahia Lora, S.A., 558 F.3d 1210, 

1219 n.25 (11th Cir. 2009) (using Fourteenth Amendment cases to 

“guide” the Fifth Amendment personal-jurisdiction analysis because 

“the language and policy considerations of [the two clauses] are 

virtually identical”); Deprenyl Animal Health, Inc. v. Univ. of 

Toronto Innovations Found., 297 F.3d 1343, 1350 (Fed. Cir. 2002) 

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difference in the personal-jurisdiction analysis under the two 

Amendments is the scope of relevant contacts: Under the 

Fourteenth Amendment, which defines the reach of state 

courts, the relevant contacts are state-specific. Under the Fifth 

Amendment, which defines the reach of federal courts, 

contacts with the United States as a whole are relevant.

6 That 

difference is not at play in this case.

The justifications offered by the Livnats, Safras, and amici 

for their novel theory do not persuade us to depart from this 

uniform precedent. They observe that Fifth Amendment 

personal-jurisdiction standards do not safeguard federalism 

like Fourteenth Amendment standards do. But personal 

jurisdiction is not just about federalism. A “vital” purpose of 

personal-jurisdiction standards is to “ensure[] fairness to the 

defendant.” Stabilisierungsfonds Fur Wein, 647 F.2d at 203 

 

(“Although it was developed in the context of the due process clause 

of the Fourteenth Amendment, we apply the standard articulated in 

International Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U.S. 310 (1945), and its 

progeny to Fifth Amendment due process cases . . . .”).

6 Some courts have also suggested that under the Fifth 

Amendment, even if the defendant has sufficient nationwide 

contacts, a plaintiff must additionally justify jurisdiction in the 

particular state. See, e.g., Peay v. BellSouth Med. Assistance Plan, 

205 F.3d 1206, 1211 (10th Cir. 2000) (“[D]ue process requires 

something more” than permitting jurisdiction “as long as 

[defendants] have minimum contacts with the United States as a 

whole.”); Republic of Panama v. BCCI Holdings (Lux.) S.A., 119 

F.3d 935, 947 (11th Cir. 1997) (“[E]ven when a defendant resides 

within the United States, courts must ensure that requiring a 

defendant to litigate in plaintiff’s chosen forum is not 

unconstitutionally burdensome.”). Because we hold that, for 

purposes of this case, the Palestinian Authority lacks minimum 

contacts with the United States as a whole, we express no view on 

that issue.

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n.4. Another purpose is to protect “the sovereign concerns of 

other nations” whose courts might otherwise adjudicate the 

claims. Id.; see also Daimler, 134 S. Ct. at 763 (warning that 

courts should consider “risks to international comity” before 

extending jurisdiction). Those considerations weigh at least as 

heavily in the Fifth Amendment context. In federal and state 

courts alike, defendants should face suit only under fair 

circumstances. And just as Fourteenth Amendment 

personal-jurisdiction standards in many cases govern state 

courts’ power relative to other states’ courts (thus raising 

federalism concerns), Fifth Amendment standards often 

govern federal courts’ power relative to other nations’ courts, 

bringing international-comity concerns to the fore. Because

strong justifications for personal-jurisdiction limits apply 

equally in Fifth Amendment cases, we decline to devise new 

standards for those cases that are less stringent than those under 

the Fourteenth Amendment.

Applying consistent personal-jurisdiction standards under 

the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments is also easier to 

administer. Jurisdictional rules should be “‘[s]imple,’” “easily 

ascertainable,” and “‘predictab[le].’” Daimler, 134 S. Ct. at 

760 (quoting Hertz Corp. v. Friend, 559 U.S. 77, 94 (2010)). It 

is hardly clear what separate Fifth Amendment 

personal-jurisdiction standards would consist of, and how 

exactly they would differ from Fourteenth Amendment 

standards. Without any compelling justification for developing 

a new personal-jurisdiction doctrine, we decline to send courts 

and litigants on that journey.

Finally, we disagree that applying the usual 

personal-jurisdiction doctrine in Fifth Amendment cases will, 

as the Livnats, Safras, and amici suggest, threaten 

extraterritorial law enforcement. This case concerns personal 

jurisdiction in civil cases alone; we do not address Congress’s 

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power to legislate extraterritorially or the personal jurisdiction

the federal courts have over criminal defendants. Moreover, 

our holding merely adheres to the status quo of 

personal-jurisdiction doctrine; we do not diminish any 

law-enforcement tools that currently exist. In any event, 

although congressional interests may be relevant to whether 

personal jurisdiction comports with due-process standards, cf. 

Asahi Metal Indus. Co. v. Superior Court, 480 U.S. 102, 113 

(1987) (directing courts to “consider . . . the interests of the 

forum” as part of the inquiry into “the reasonableness of the 

exercise of jurisdiction”), they cannot change the standards 

themselves.

IV

Under the usual due-process standards, the appellants fail 

to establish personal jurisdiction over the Palestinian Authority 

in these cases. There are two types of personal jurisdiction, 

either of which can suffice. The first, general jurisdiction,

“permits a court to assert jurisdiction over a defendant based on 

a forum connection unrelated to the underlying suit.” Walden 

v. Fiore, 134 S. Ct. 1115, 1121 n.6 (2014). Due process permits 

general jurisdiction based on “only a limited set of affiliations 

with a forum,” all analogous to an individual’s domicile. 

Daimler AG v. Bauman, 134 S. Ct. 746, 760 (2014). For 

example, the “equivalent place” to a domicile for a 

corporation—“one in which the corporation is fairly regarded 

as at home”—can be the place of incorporation or the principal 

place of business. Id. (quoting Goodyear Dunlop Tires 

Operations, S.A. v. Brown, 131 S. Ct. 2846, 2853-54 (2011)).

The appellants do not argue that the Palestinian Authority

may be “fairly regarded as at home” in the United States, and 

for good reason. Its headquarters, officials, and primary 

activities are all in the West Bank. The Palestinian Authority is 

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therefore not subject to general jurisdiction in the United 

States.

The second type of personal jurisdiction, specific 

jurisdiction, requires an “affiliation between the forum and the 

underlying controversy.” Walden, 134 S. Ct. at 1121 n.6

(alteration omitted) (quoting Goodyear, 131 S. Ct. at 2851). 

The appellants’ theory of specific jurisdiction is that the attack 

at Joseph’s Tomb was “part of” the “policy and practice” of the 

Palestinian Authority to “us[e] terrorism to influence United 

States public opinion and policy,” of a piece with the 

Palestinian Authority’s lobbying and fundraising activities 

inside the United States. Appellants’ Br. 45. 

We need not reach the legal sufficiency of this theory, 

because the appellants failed to “make a prima facie showing 

of the pertinent jurisdictional facts” to survive a motion to 

dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction. First Chicago Int’l v. 

United Exch. Co., 836 F.2d 1375, 1378 (D.C. Cir. 1988). 

“Conclusory statements” or a “bare allegation of conspiracy or 

agency” do not satisfy this burden. Id. at 1378-79 (citation 

omitted). When deciding personal jurisdiction without an 

evidentiary hearing—as here—the “court must resolve factual 

disputes in favor of the plaintiff,” Helmer v. Doletskaya, 393 

F.3d 201, 209 (D.C. Cir. 2004), but it “need not accept 

inferences drawn by plaintiffs if such inferences are 

unsupported by the facts,” id. (quoting Kowal v. MCI 

Commc’ns Corp., 16 F.3d 1271, 1276 (D.C. Cir. 1994)).

In their complaints, the families allege that the attack was 

“part and parcel of” the Palestinian Authority’s “general 

practice of using terrorism to influence United States public 

opinion and policy” and was “intended, through intimidation 

and coercion, to influence the Israeli and United States 

government’s policies.” Compl. at 5, 16, Livnat v. Palestinian 

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Auth., No. 1:14-cv-00668 (D.D.C. Apr. 21, 2014); Compl. at 3, 

14, Safra v. Palestinian Auth., No. 1:14-cv-00669 (D.D.C. 

Apr. 21, 2014). But those assertions are conclusory. They 

merely state the plaintiffs’ theory of specific jurisdiction. The 

Livnats and Safras presented a declaration from a professor 

asserting that the Palestinian Authority encourages terrorism 

against Jews and Israelis in order to influence U.S. policy in the 

Palestinian Authority’s favor. Even if true, that evidence 

establishes no link between that practice and the Joseph’s 

Tomb attack. Indeed, the declaration does not even mention the

attack. The families do no more than infer that because some 

attacks against Jews and Israelis have been aimed to influence 

U.S. policy, the Joseph’s Tomb attack was, too. The record 

before us does not support that inference. The appellants

therefore have not carried their burden to show specific 

personal jurisdiction.

7

Finally, the appellants argue in the alternative that the 

district court should have permitted jurisdictional discovery.

We review denials of jurisdictional discovery for abuse of 

discretion. FC Inv. Grp. LC v. IFX Mkts., Ltd., 529 F.3d 1087, 

1091 (D.C. Cir. 2008). A district court acts well within its 

discretion to deny discovery when no “facts additional 

discovery could produce . . . would affect [the] jurisdictional 

analysis.” Goodman Holdings v. Rafidain Bank, 26 F.3d 1143, 

1147 (D.C. Cir. 1994).

 7 The appellants also argue that the district court should have 

deferred its resolution of disputed issues of jurisdictional facts to the 

merits stage of the litigation. Appellants’ Br. 54. We do not reach 

that argument, however, because we conclude that their evidence, 

standing alone, does not make a prima facie showing of their 

personal-jurisdiction theory. They therefore failed to carry their 

burden regardless of any factual dispute the Palestinian Authority

raises.

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The district court did not abuse its discretion here, because 

the additional discovery requested by the appellants would not 

change our analysis. As to general jurisdiction, the appellants

do not even claim that they meet Daimler’s “at home” test. As 

to specific jurisdiction, they failed to link this particular attack 

to the alleged plan to influence opinion and policy in the 

United States. But the additional discovery is not directed at 

that defect. None of the additional facts that the families seek 

relate to the attack at Joseph’s Tomb. Instead, their requested 

discovery concerns only the Palestinian Authority’s general 

political and financial activities in the United States, such as its 

lobbying contracts and U.S. investments. See Appellants’ Br. 

56-57. We do not see how any of that information would cure

the appellants’ failure to tie their jurisdictional theory to the 

attack at Joseph’s Tomb with specific facts.

V

The Livnats and Safras failed to carry their burden of 

demonstrating that personal jurisdiction over the Palestinian 

Authority in this case would meet the requirements of the Fifth 

Amendment’s Due Process Clause. We therefore affirm both 

the district court’s denial of the Livnats’ and Safras’ motions 

for jurisdictional discovery and its grant of the Palestinian 

Authority’s motions to dismiss for lack of personal 

jurisdiction.

So ordered.

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