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Page Number: 24

18 

JESNER v. ARAB BANK, PLC 

Opinion of the Court 

imposes  liability  on  corporations.    There  is  at  least  suffi-
cient  doubt  on  the  point  to  turn  to  Sosa’s  second  ques-
tion—whether  the  Judiciary  must  defer  to  Congress,
allowing it to determine in the first instance whether that
universal norm has been recognized and, if so, whether it 
is prudent and necessary to direct its enforcement in suits
under the ATS. 

B 
1 

Sosa  is  consistent  with  this  Court’s  general  reluctance 
to  extend  judicially  created  private  rights  of  action.  The 
Court’s  recent  precedents  cast  doubt  on  the  authority  of
courts to extend or create private causes of action even in
the realm of domestic law, where this Court has “recently
and  repeatedly  said  that  a  decision  to  create  a  private 
right of action is one better left to legislative judgment in
the great majority of  cases.”   542 U. S., at 727 (citing Cor-
rectional Services Corp. v. Malesko, 534 U. S. 61, 68 (2001); 
Alexander  v.  Sandoval,  532  U. S.  275,  286–287  (2001)).
That is because “the Legislature is in the better position to
consider if the public interest would be served by imposing
a  new  substantive  legal  liability.”  Ziglar  v.  Abbasi,  582 
U. S.  ___,  ___  (2017)  (slip  op.,  at  12)  (internal  quotation 
marks omitted).  Thus, “if there are sound reasons to think 
Congress  might  doubt  the  efficacy  or  necessity  of  a  dam-
ages  remedy,  . . .  courts  must  refrain  from  creating  the 
remedy  in  order  to  respect  the  role  of  Congress.”    Id.,  at 
___ (slip op., at 13). 

This caution extends to the question whether the courts
should  exercise  the  judicial  authority  to  mandate  a  rule 
that  imposes  liability  upon  artificial  entities  like  corpora-
tions.  Thus,  in  Malesko  the  Court  held  that  corporate 
defendants  may  not  be  held  liable  in  Bivens  actions.  See 
Bivens  v.  Six  Unknown  Fed.  Narcotics  Agents,  403  U. S. 
388 (1971).  Allowing corporate liability would have been a