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Nature of Suit Code: 890
Nature of Suit: Other Statutory Actions
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued October 20, 2014 Decided April 3, 2015 

No. 13-7109 

MANOUCHEHR MOHAMMADI, ET AL., 

APPELLANTS

v. 

ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN, ET AL., 

APPELLEES

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(No. 1:09-cv-01289) 

Larry Klayman argued the cause and filed the brief for 

appellant. 

Before: KAVANAUGH and SRINIVASAN, Circuit Judges, 

and EDWARDS, Senior Circuit Judge. 

 Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge SRINIVASAN. 

 SRINIVASAN, Circuit Judge: Plaintiffs, three Iranian 

émigré siblings and the estate of their deceased brother, seek 

recovery for imprisonment, torture, and extrajudicial killing 

they allegedly suffered at the hands of the Islamic Republic of 

Iran. The district court dismissed the complaint, finding that 

it lacked subject-matter jurisdiction, principally because of 

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defendants’ foreign sovereign immunity. The court also 

denied plaintiffs’ motion for reconsideration and their 

associated motion for leave to file a fourth amended 

complaint. We affirm the district court. 

I. 

 As college students in Tehran during the 1990s, plaintiff 

Manouchehr Mohammadi and his late brother, Akbar 

Mohammadi, became leaders in the Iranian pro-democracy 

movement. As part of their political activism, the brothers 

participated in the 1999 student protests.

Iranian officials arrested the brothers for their role in the 

protests and confined them in Evin prison in Tehran, where 

they allegedly suffered brutal physical and psychological 

abuse and torture. According to plaintiffs’ testimony, the 

brothers were repeatedly flogged, hung from the ceiling by 

their hands, beaten to the point of unconsciousness, burned on 

their genitalia, exposed to the elements, and subjected to 

mock executions. 

 Akbar’s and Manouchehr’s sisters, Nasrin Mohammadi 

and Simin Taylor, also allegedly suffered severe mistreatment 

at the hands of the Iranian regime. Nasrin testified that an 

Iranian agent attempted to murder her in Germany in 2002, 

and Simin claims to have been imprisoned and threatened 

with rape while living in Iran. 

 Akbar died in prison in 2006. Manouchehr fled Iran 

while on temporary release from prison to attend Akbar’s 

funeral. By late 2006, the three surviving siblings all had 

settled in the United States. Nasrin and Simin ultimately 

obtained United States citizenship, and Manouchehr became a 

lawful permanent resident. Plaintiffs contend that Iranian 

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agents continued to harass them in the United States, 

threatening them over the phone with murder, refusing to let 

their parents leave Iran, hacking their computers, and 

circulating doctored photographs of Nasrin depicted in an 

immodest light. 

 In 2009, plaintiffs brought an action to recover for their 

injuries. They named as defendants the Islamic Republic of 

Iran, the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution 

(the Revolutionary Guard), and two Iranian leaders, Ayatollah 

Sayid Ali Hoseyni Khamenei and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. 

Plaintiffs amended their complaint on three occasions. 

 Because defendants never appeared in court to contest the 

allegations against them, plaintiffs filed a motion for entry of 

default and a default judgment. The district court granted the 

motion for entry of default and scheduled an evidentiary 

hearing to establish damages. The court also directed 

plaintiffs to submit briefing addressing the basis for the 

court’s subject-matter jurisdiction. 

 Following several rounds of supplemental briefing, the 

district court dismissed plaintiffs’ complaint for lack of 

subject-matter jurisdiction. Mohammadi v. Islamic Republic 

of Iran, 947 F. Supp. 2d 48 (D.D.C. 2013). The court held 

that the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, 28 U.S.C. 

§§ 1602 et seq., afforded Iran and the Revolutionary Guard 

immunity from the court’s jurisdiction. Mohammadi, 947 F. 

Supp. 2d at 62-68. The court rejected plaintiffs’ reliance on 

the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act’s terrorism exception, 

28 U.S.C. § 1605A. Id. That exception abrogates immunity 

if, among other things, the complaint seeks damages for 

“torture” or “extrajudicial killing” and the victim was a 

“national of the United States” at the time of those acts. 28 

U.S.C. § 1605A(a). The district court held that plaintiffs 

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failed to qualify as United States “nationals” at the time of the 

relevant acts in Iran, and that any acts postdating plaintiffs’ 

relocation to the United States failed to constitute “torture” 

within the meaning of the statute. Mohammadi, 947 F. Supp. 

2d at 68. With regard to the individual defendants, Khamenei 

and Ahmadinejad, the court held that the claims against them 

would be treated as claims against Iran itself and thus would 

likewise be dismissed based on foreign sovereign immunity. 

Id. at 72-73. Because the court concluded that it lacked 

subject-matter jurisdiction, it also denied plaintiffs’ motion 

for default judgment. 

 Plaintiffs filed a motion for reconsideration and an 

accompanying motion for leave to file a fourth amended 

complaint. The district court denied both motions. 

Mohammadi v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 947 F. Supp. 2d 48, 

74 (D.D.C. 2013), recons. denied (D.D.C. Jul. 12, 2013). 

Plaintiffs now appeal the dismissal of their third amended 

complaint for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction and the 

denial of their motions for reconsideration and for leave to file 

a fourth amended complaint. 

II. 

 The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA), 28 

U.S.C. §§ 1602 et seq., affords the “sole basis for obtaining 

jurisdiction over a foreign state” in United States courts. 

Argentine Republic v. Amerada Hess Shipping Corp., 488 

U.S. 428, 434 (1989). While the FSIA establishes a general 

rule granting foreign sovereigns immunity from the 

jurisdiction of United States courts, 28 U.S.C. § 1604, that 

grant of immunity is subject to a number of exceptions, see id.

§§ 1605-1607. In their third amended complaint, plaintiffs 

asserted subject-matter jurisdiction based solely on the 

FSIA’s terrorism exception, 28 U.S.C. § 1605A. Reviewing 

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the matter de novo, see National Air Traffic Controllers Ass’n 

v. Federal Service Impasses Panel, 606 F.3d 780, 786 (D.C. 

Cir. 2010), we agree with the district court’s conclusion that 

the terrorism exception is inapplicable here.

 The terrorism exception abrogates immunity in cases in 

which a plaintiff seeks damages for personal injury or death 

caused by “torture, extrajudicial killing, aircraft sabotage, 

hostage taking, or the provision of material support or 

resources for such an act,” if “engaged in by an official, 

employee, or agent” of a foreign country. 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1605A(a)(1). The exception further requires that (i) the 

foreign country was designated a “state sponsor of terrorism 

at the time [of] the act,” (ii) the “claimant or the victim was” a 

“national of the United States” at that time, and (iii) the 

“claimant has afforded the foreign state a reasonable 

opportunity to arbitrate the claim.” Id. § 1605A(a)(2). 

 Because Iran has been designated a state sponsor of 

terrorism since 1984, plaintiffs satisfy the first of those 

conditions. See Heiser v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 735 F.3d 

934, 937 (D.C. Cir. 2013); Roeder v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 

646 F.3d 56, 58 n.1 (D.C. Cir. 2011). Plaintiffs, however, fail 

to satisfy the second condition with regard to the torture and 

extrajudicial killing allegedly committed against them while 

in Iran, because none of them was a “national of the United 

States” at the time of those acts. 

The terrorism exception assigns the term “national of the 

United States” the “meaning given that term in section 

101(a)(22) of the Immigration and Nationality Act” (INA), 8 

U.S.C. § 1101(a)(22). 28 U.S.C. § 1605A(h)(5). The 

referenced provision of the INA, in turn, generally describes 

“national of the United States” to mean either a “citizen of the 

United States” or a “person who, though not a citizen of the 

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United States, owes permanent allegiance to the United 

States.” 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(22). 

Here, it is undisputed that none of the plaintiffs was a 

United States citizen between 1999 and 2006, when the 

central alleged acts of torture and extrajudicial killing 

occurred in Iran. Instead, plaintiffs argue that they qualified 

as United States nationals during that time because they 

“owe[d] permanent allegiance to the United States.” They 

assert that Manouchehr, Akbar, and Nasrin had personally 

pledged permanent allegiance to the United States and 

disclaimed their loyalty to Iran following the “first signs of 

persecution” in Iran, and that Nasrin exhibited her allegiance 

by applying for and attaining United States permanent 

resident status before Akbar’s death in 2006. Mohammadi, 

947 F. Supp. 2d at 64. 

Plaintiffs’ argument is foreclosed by our precedent. We 

have held that “manifestations of ‘permanent allegiance’ do 

not, by themselves, render a person a U.S. national.” Lin v. 

United States, 561 F.3d 502, 508 (D.C. Cir. 2009). That is 

because the “phrase ‘owes permanent allegiance’” in 8 U.S.C. 

§ 1101(a)(22) is “a term of art that denotes a legal status for 

which individuals have never been able to qualify by 

demonstrating permanent allegiance, as that phrase is 

colloquially understood.” Marquez-Almanzar v. INS, 418 

F.3d 210, 218 (2d Cir. 2005); see Lin, 561 F.3d at 508 

(relying on Marquez-Almanzar). The reference in 8 U.S.C. 

§ 1101(a)(22) to a United States national as a person who 

“owes permanent allegiance to the United States” is 

descriptive of someone who has attained the status of United 

States nationality through other statutory provisions; it does 

not itself set forth an independent basis by which to obtain 

that status. The language, that is, “describes, rather than 

confers, U.S. nationality.” Marquez-Almanzar, 418 F.3d at 

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218; see Lin, 561 F.3d at 508. The conferral of United States 

nationality must come from elsewhere. 

The sole such statutory provision that presently confers 

United States nationality upon non-citizens is 8 U.S.C. 

§ 1408. See Lin, 561 F.3d at 508; Marquez-Almanzar, 418 

F.3d at 219. Plaintiffs make no claim that they qualify as 

United States nationals under that provision, much less that 

they did so at the time of the alleged torture and extrajudicial 

killing in Iran. Section 1408 describes four categories of 

persons who “shall be nationals, but not citizens, of the 

United States at birth.” 8 U.S.C. § 1408. Those categories 

generally consist of persons born in, or possessing a specified 

personal or parental connection with, an “outlying possession 

of the United States,” id. § 1408(1)-(4), presently defined as 

American Samoa and Swains Island, id. § 1101(a)(29). See 

Lin, 561 F.3d at 508; see also Hashmi v. Mukasey, 533 F.3d 

700, 703 n.1 (8th Cir. 2008) (noting that the category of those 

who owe “permanent allegiance to the United States . . . [is] 

apparently limited to residents of American Samoa and 

Swains Island”). 

The courts of appeals to consider the issue thus have 

overwhelmingly concluded that the status of non-citizen 

United States nationality is limited to those persons described 

in 8 U.S.C. § 1408, and that, apart from that provision, an 

effort to demonstrate “permanent allegiance to the United 

States” does not render a person a United States national. See 

United States v. Sierra-Ledesma, 645 F.3d 1213, 1224-26 

(10th Cir. 2011); Abou-Haidar v. Gonzales, 437 F.3d 206, 

207 (1st Cir. 2006); Omolo v. Gonzales, 452 F.3d 404, 409 

(5th Cir. 2006); Sebastian-Soler v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 409 F.3d 

1280, 1285-87 (11th Cir. 2005); Marquez-Almanzar, 418 F.3d 

at 218-19; Perdomo-Padilla v. Ashcroft, 333 F.3d 964, 972 

(9th Cir. 2003); Salim v. Ashcroft, 350 F.3d 307, 309-10 (3d 

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Cir. 2003) (per curiam). While one court of appeals has 

indicated otherwise, see United States v. Morin, 80 F.3d 124, 

126 (4th Cir. 1996), we specifically “join[ed] the majority” 

approach in Lin, 561 F.3d at 508. (And the continuing 

practical force of the Fourth Circuit’s decision in Morin

within that circuit appears unclear. See Fernandez v. Keisler, 

502 F.3d 337, 348 (4th Cir. 2007).) Plaintiffs likewise err in 

relying on certain district court decisions attributing United 

States nationality to non-citizens based on unique 

circumstances indicating a “permanent allegiance to the 

United States.” See Peterson v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 515 

F. Supp. 2d 25, 39 n.4 (D.D.C. 2007); Asemani v. Islamic 

Republic of Iran, 266 F. Supp. 2d 24, 26 (D.D.C. 2003). 

Those decisions predate ours in Lin. 

After Lin, in short, plaintiffs’ professed “attitudes of 

permanent allegiance do not help” them establish United 

States nationality. 561 F.3d at 508. Plaintiffs thus fail to 

satisfy the terrorism exception’s nationality requirement for 

the 1999-2006 time period, when the central alleged acts of 

torture and extrajudicial killing took place in Iran. 

 Since 2006, however, two of the plaintiffs have 

unquestionably become “nationals” within the meaning of 8 

U.S.C. § 1101(a)(22): Nasrin and Simin obtained United 

States citizenship in 2009 and 2011, respectively. Plaintiffs 

therefore contend that they can establish jurisdiction under the 

terrorism exception with respect to events occurring after 

Nasrin and Simin became United States citizens. That 

argument could have merit, however, only if, after Nasrin 

became a citizen in 2009, the Iranian regime engaged in 

conduct against plaintiffs constituting “torture, extrajudicial 

killing, aircraft sabotage, hostage taking, or the provision of 

material support or resources for such an act.” See 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1605A(a)(1), (a)(2). According to plaintiffs, the Iranian 

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regime continued to “torture” them in the United States by 

making threatening phone calls, hacking certain of plaintiffs’ 

online accounts, and disseminating doctored, sexually explicit 

photographs of Nasrin. We conclude that those alleged acts, 

while certainly harassing and objectionable, fail to amount to 

“torture” within the meaning of the terrorism exception. 

 The terrorism exception defines “torture” by reference to 

the definition of that term contained in the Torture Victim 

Protection Act (TVPA), 106 Stat. 73, note following 28 

U.S.C. § 1350. See 28 U.S.C. § 1605A(h)(7). The TVPA, in 

turn, defines torture as “any act, directed against an individual 

in the offender’s custody or physical control, by which severe 

pain or suffering . . . is intentionally inflicted on that 

individual.” 28 U.S.C. § 1350 (note). It is doubtful that 

plaintiffs could be considered to have been in the Iranian 

regime’s “custody or physical control” after their relocation to 

the United States. 

Even assuming otherwise, the challenged acts postdating 

plaintiffs’ settlement in the United States fail to satisfy the 

statute’s severity requirement. Plaintiffs’ allegations did not 

involve physical acts against them. And the non-physical acts 

alleged—viz., threatening phone calls made from Iran, 

hacking of Facebook and email accounts, and circulation of 

explicit photographs—fall short of anything previously held 

to constitute “torture” within the meaning of the TVPA. See

Simpson v. Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, 326 

F.3d 230, 234 (D.C. Cir. 2003). 

 In addition to claiming that they have been subjected to 

continuing torture after their settlement in the United States, 

plaintiffs argue that Iran has engaged in “hostage taking” 

within the meaning of the FSIA’s terrorism exception because 

the Iranian regime refuses to permit their parents to leave 

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Iran. The district court found that argument to have been 

waived on the ground that plaintiffs failed to press it until 

their post-judgment motion for reconsideration. We find no 

abuse of discretion in that ruling. See GSS Grp. Ltd. v. Nat’l 

Port Auth., 680 F.3d 805, 811 (D.C. Cir. 2012). 

In any event, a prohibition on international travel of the 

kind alleged by plaintiffs would not constitute “hostage 

taking.” The statute’s definition of “hostage taking” 

incorporates the definition from Article 1 of the International 

Convention Against the Taking of Hostages, see 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1605A(h)(2), and that definition applies to a person who 

“seizes or detains and threatens to kill, to injure or to continue 

to detain another person,” Simpson, 326 F.3d at 234 (internal 

quotation marks omitted). Even if plaintiffs’ parents are 

barred from traveling abroad from Iran, there is no allegation 

that they have been “seized or detained” within Iran under any 

ordinary understanding of those terms. Courts thus have 

found “hostage taking” in cases involving physical capture 

and confinement, not restrictions on international travel. See, 

e.g., Simpson v. Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, 

470 F.3d 356, 358 (D.C. Cir. 2006); Anderson v. Islamic 

Republic of Iran, 90 F. Supp. 2d 107, 109-111, 113 (D.D.C. 

2000). 

 Because plaintiffs fail to satisfy the statutory 

requirements of the terrorism exception, Iran, as a “foreign 

state,” is “immune from the jurisdiction” of federal courts. 

See 28 U.S.C. § 1604. The district court concluded that it also 

lacked jurisdiction over the Revolutionary Guard because the 

FSIA defines “foreign state” to include “a political 

subdivision of a foreign state or an agency or instrumentality 

of a foreign state,” id. § 1603(a). Plaintiffs have forfeited any 

challenge to that conclusion by failing to contest it on appeal. 

See, e.g., World Wide Minerals, Ltd. v. Republic of 

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Kazakhstan, 296 F.3d 1154, 1160 (D.C. Cir. 2002). Plaintiffs 

also raise no challenge to the district court’s determination 

that foreign sovereign immunity extended to the individual 

defendants, Khamenei and Ahmadinejad. Immunity under the 

FSIA therefore applies to all defendants. 

 In a final effort to establish subject-matter jurisdiction, 

plaintiffs invoke the Alien Tort Statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1350. 

The Alien Tort Statute, however, does not confer any waiver 

of foreign sovereign immunity. See Amerada Hess, 488 U.S. 

at 438-39; Enahoro v. Abubakar, 408 F.3d 877, 883 (7th Cir. 

2005); Siderman de Blake v. Republic of Argentina, 965 F.2d 

699, 713 n.13 (9th Cir. 1992). The Alien Tort Statute affords 

jurisdiction for suits against private defendants, not against 

foreign sovereigns. The FSIA provides the “sole basis for 

obtaining jurisdiction over a foreign state.” Amerada Hess, 

488 U.S. at 439. We therefore affirm the district court’s 

dismissal of plaintiffs’ third amended complaint for lack of 

subject-matter jurisdiction. 

III. 

 After the district court granted dismissal, plaintiffs filed 

motions for reconsideration and for leave to file a fourth 

amended complaint. The only basis for jurisdiction under the 

FSIA asserted in the third amended complaint was the 

terrorism exception, 28 U.S.C. § 1605A. In the proposed 

fourth amended complaint, plaintiffs sought to invoke 28 

U.S.C. § 1605(a)(5), the FSIA’s noncommercial torts 

exception, as an additional basis for jurisdiction. The district 

court denied plaintiffs’ motion for reconsideration and 

consequently denied as moot plaintiffs’ motion to file a fourth 

amended complaint. Mohammadi, 947 F. Supp. 2d at 84. We 

review the district court’s ruling for abuse of discretion, see 

GSS Group Ltd., 680 F.3d at 811; In re InterBank Funding 

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Corp. Securities Litigation, 629 F.3d 213, 218 (D.C. Cir. 

2010), and we perceive no basis for overturning it. 

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(a) provides that leave 

to amend shall be “freely give[n]” when “justice so requires.” 

But after entry of judgment, a court has no obligation to grant 

leave to amend unless a plaintiff first satisfies “Rule 59(e)’s 

more stringent standard for setting aside that judgment.” 

Ciralsky v. CIA, 355 F.3d 661, 673 (D.C. Cir. 2004) (internal 

quotation marks omitted). “[R]econsideration of a judgment 

after its entry is an extraordinary remedy which should be 

used sparingly.” 11 Charles Alan Wright et al., Federal 

Practice & Procedure § 2810.1 (3d ed. 2012). A district court 

need not grant a Rule 59(e) motion unless there is an 

“intervening change of controlling law, the availability of new 

evidence, or the need to correct a clear error or prevent 

manifest injustice.” Patton Boggs LLP v. Chevron Corp., 683 

F.3d 397, 403 (D.C. Cir. 2012) (internal quotation marks 

omitted). 

Plaintiffs do not allege any change in applicable law, new 

evidence, or clear error. Rather, they contend that the district 

court’s failure to consider the fourth amended complaint 

constituted a “manifest injustice” because they had included 

the noncommercial torts exception as a jurisdictional basis in 

the initial complaint and first two amended complaints, but 

omitted it—allegedly inadvertently—from the third amended 

complaint. 

“[W]hen a plaintiff files a complaint in federal court and 

then voluntarily amends the complaint,” however, “courts 

look to the amended complaint to determine jurisdiction.” 

Rockwell Int’l Corp. v. United States, 549 U.S. 457, 473-74 

(2007). The district court thus had no obligation to consider 

jurisdictional bases set forth in prior iterations of the 

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complaint. Moreover, plaintiffs made no reference to the 

noncommercial torts exception at the evidentiary hearing or in 

their supplemental briefing addressing jurisdiction. In those 

circumstances, the district court acted comfortably within its 

discretion in relying on the sole jurisdictional basis set forth in 

the third amended complaint and associated supplemental 

briefing. There could be no “manifest injustice” where, as 

here, plaintiffs could have “easily avoided the outcome” but 

either failed to “exercise[] due diligence,” Fox v. American 

Airlines, Inc., 389 F.3d 1291, 1296 (D.C. Cir. 2004), or 

“elected not to act” until after the entry of judgment, Ciralsky, 

355 F.3d at 673. 

Having concluded that the district court did not abuse its 

discretion in denying plaintiffs’ motion for reconsideration 

under Rule 59(e), we likewise find that the court did not err in 

denying plaintiffs’ Rule 15(a) motion for leave to file a fourth 

amended complaint. “Since the court declined to set aside the 

judgment under Rule 59(e), it properly concluded that 

[plaintiffs’] motion to amend under Rule 15(a) was moot.” 

Ciralsky, 355 F.3d at 673. 

* * * * * 

We affirm the district court’s dismissal for lack of 

subject-matter jurisdiction and its denial of plaintiffs’ motions 

for reconsideration and for leave to file a fourth amended 

complaint. 

So ordered. 

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