Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/19-416_i4dj.pdf
Page Number: 10.0

8 

NESTLE USA, INC. v. DOE 

Opinion of the Court
Opinion of THOMAS, J. 

“[i]n later years, we came to appreciate more fully the ten-
sion  between  this  practice  and  the  Constitution’s  separa-
tion of legislative and judicial power,” Hernández, 589 U. S., 
at ___ (slip op., at 5).  Because Erie denied the existence of 
a federal general common law, “a federal court’s authority 
to  recognize  a  damages  remedy  must  rest  at  bottom  on  a 
statute  enacted  by  Congress.”  Hernández,  589  U. S.,  at 
___–___ (slip op., at 5–6).  It follows that any judicially cre-
ated cause of action risks “upset[ting] the careful balance of 
interests struck by the lawmakers.”  Ibid. 

To limit this stress on the separation of powers, our prec-
edents have made clear that the second step of Sosa—which 
applies in any context where a plaintiff asks a court to cre-
ate  a  cause  of  action—is  extraordinarily  strict.   A  court 
“ ‘must’ ” not create a private right of action if it can identify 
even  one  “ ‘sound  reaso[n]  to  think  Congress  might  doubt 
the efficacy or necessity of [the new] remedy.’ ”  Jesner, 584 
U. S., at ___ (majority opinion) (slip op., at 18) (quoting Ab-
basi, 582 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 13)); see also Hernández, 
589 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 8) (same).  This test is demand-
ing by design, and we have yet to find it satisfied.  See Jes-
ner, 584 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 27) (no judicially created 
causes of action against foreign corporations); see also Sosa, 
542  U. S., at 725 (no  judicially created cause  of  action for 
illegal detention even under the less-demanding standard 
initially created by Sosa). 

B 

Regardless  of  whether  respondents  have  satisfied  the 
first step of the Sosa test, it is clear that they have not sat-
isfied the second.  Our decisions since Sosa, as well as con-
gressional  activity,  compel  the  conclusion  that  federal 
courts should not recognize private rights of action for vio-
lations of international law beyond the three historical torts 
identified in Sosa. 

We recently identified a sound reason to think Congress