Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/17pdf/16-499_1a7d.pdf
Page Number: 50.0

Cite as:  584 U. S. ____ (2018) 

7 

Opinion of GORSUCH, J. 

§1350,  the  original  text  of  the  ATS  did  not  expressly  call
for  a  U. S.  defendant.    But  I  think  it  likely  would  have
been  understood  to  contain  such  a  requirement  when
adopted.

That is because the First Congress passed the Judiciary 
Act in the shadow of the Constitution.  The Act created the 
federal courts and vested them with statutory authority to
entertain  claims  consistent  with  the  newly  ratified  terms
of  Article  III.  Meanwhile,  under  Article  III,  Congress 
could  not  have  extended  to  federal  courts  the  power  to
hear just any suit between two aliens (unless, for example,
one  was  a  diplomat).    Diversity  of  citizenship  was  re-
quired.  So,  because  Article  III’s  diversity-of-citizenship 
clause calls for a U. S. party, and because the ATS clause 
requires  an  alien  plaintiff,  it  follows  that  an  American
defendant was needed for an ATS suit to proceed. 

Precedent  confirms  this  conclusion. 

In  Mossman  v. 
Higginson, 4 Dall. 12, 14 (1800), this Court addressed the 
meaning  of  a  neighboring  provision  of  the  Judiciary  Act.
Section  11  gave  the  circuit  courts  power  to  hear,  among
other  things,  civil  cases  where  “an  alien  is  a  party.”  1 
Stat. 78.  As with §9, you might think §11’s language could 
be  read  to  permit  a  suit  between  aliens.  Yet  this  Court 
held  §11  must  instead  be  construed  to  refer  only  to  cases
“where,  indeed,  an  alien  is  one  party,  but  a  citizen  is  the 
other.”  Mossman, 4 Dall., at 14 (internal quotation marks 
omitted).  That was necessary, Mossman explained, to give
the statute a “constructio[n] consistent” with the diversity-
jurisdiction clause of Article III.  Ibid.  And as a matter of 
precedent,  I  cannot  think  of  a  good  reason  why  we  would 
now  read  §9  differently  than  Mossman  read  §11.  Like 
—————— 

courts of the several States, of all suits against consuls or vice-consuls,
except  for  offences  above  the  description  aforesaid.    And  the  trial  of 
issues in fact, in the district courts, in all causes except civil causes of 
admiralty  and  maritime  jurisdiction,  shall  be  by  jury.”    1  Stat.  76–77 
(some emphasis added; footnotes omitted).