Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-1566_l5gm.pdf
Page Number: 11.0

8 

CASSIRER v. THYSSEN-BORNEMISZA COLLECTION 
FOUNDATION 
Opinion of the Court 

must  be  “necessary  to  protect  uniquely  federal  interests.” 
Texas Industries, Inc. v. Radcliff Materials, Inc., 451 U. S. 
630, 640 (1981).  Foreign relations is of course an interest 
of that kind.  But even the Federal Government, participat-
ing here in support of the Cassirers’ position, disclaims any 
necessity for a federal choice-of-law rule in FSIA suits rais-
ing non-federal claims.  See Brief for United States as Ami-
cus Curiae 9, 20–23.  As the Government notes, such FSIA 
suits arise only when a foreign state has lost its broad im-
munity and become subject to standard-fare legal claims in-
volving property, contract, or the like.  See id., at 9.  No one 
would  think  federal  law  displaces  the  substantive  rule  of
decision in those suits; and we see no greater warrant for 
federal law to supplant the otherwise applicable choice-of-
law rule.  See id., at 21 (State choice-of-law rules do not “or-
dinarily  pose  a  greater  threat  to  foreign  relations  than”
state-law principles determining “the rights and liabilities
of the parties”).  Courts outside the Ninth Circuit have long
applied state choice-of-law rules in FSIA suits.  See supra, 
at 4, and n. 2.  Yet the Government says it knows of no case
in  which  that  practice  has  created  foreign  relations  con-
cerns.  See Tr. of Oral Arg. 20–21.3  So the Ninth Circuit’s 
use of a federal choice-of-law rule in FSIA cases has been a 
solution in search of a problem, rejecting without any rea-
son the usual role of state law. 

* 

* 

* 

The path of our decision has been as short as the hunt for 
Rue Saint-Honoré was long; our ruling is as simple as the 
—————— 

3 Were such an unusual case to occur, the Government states that it 
would be “best addressed by applying limits on the application of state
law derived from the Constitution, applicable treaties or statutes, inter-
national comity, the Act of State doctrine, or other sources reflecting dis-
tinctly federal interests—rather than displacing state choice-of-law rules 
across the board.”  Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 21; see Tr. 
of Oral Arg. 20–23, 25–26.  We express no view on whether or when im-
posing such limits on state law would be proper.