Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/16-1094
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 10:33:15+00:00

Document:
802 F. 3d 399, reversed and remanded.
(b) Several related provisions in §1608 support this reading. Section 1608(b)(3)(B) contains similar “addressed and dispatched” language, but also says that service by its method is permissible “if reasonably calculated to give actual notice.” Respondents’ suggestion that §1608(a)(3) embodies a similar standard runs up against well-settled principles of statutory interpretation. See Department of Homeland Security v. MacLean, 574 U. S. ___, ___, and Mackey v. Lanier Collection Agency & Service, Inc., 486 U. S. 825, 837. Section 1608(b)(2) expressly allows service on an agent, specifies the particular individuals who are permitted to be served as agents of the recipient, and makes clear that service on the agent may occur in the United States. Congress could have included similar terms in §1608(a)(3) had it intended the provision to operate in this manner. Section 1608(c) deems service to have occurred under all methods only when there is a strong basis for concluding that the service packet will very shortly thereafter come into the hands of a foreign official who will know what needs to be done. Under §1608(a)(3), that occurs when the person who receives it from the carrier signs for it. Interpreting §1608(a)(3) to require that a service packet be sent to a foreign minister’s own office rather than to a mailroom employee in a foreign embassy better harmonizes the rules for determining when service occurs. Pp. 9–13.
Alito, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J., and Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan, Gorsuch, and Kav-anaugh, JJ., joined. Thomas, J., filed a dissenting opinion.
REPUBLIC OF SUDAN, PETITIONER v.RICK HARRISON, et al.
Respondents in this case are victims of the USS Cole bombing and their family members. In 2010, respondents sued petitioner, the Republic of Sudan, alleging that Sudan had provided material support to al Qaeda for the bombing. See 28 U. S. C. §§1605A(a)(1), (c). Because respondents brought suit under the FSIA, they were required to serve Sudan with process under §1608(a). It is undisputed that service could not be made under §1608(a)(1) or §1608(a)(2), and respondents therefore turned to §1608(a)(3). At respondents’ request, the clerk of the court sent the service packet, return receipt requested, to: “Republic of Sudan, Deng Alor Koul, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Embassy of the Republic of Sudan, 2210 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20008.” App. 172. The clerk certified that the service packet had been sent and, a few days later, certified that a signed receipt had been returned. 1 After Sudan failed to appear in the litigation, the District Court for the District of Columbia held an evidentiary hearing and entered a $314 million default judgment against Sudan. Again at respondents’ request, the clerk of the court mailed a copy of the default judgment in the same manner that the clerk had previously used. See §1608(e).
The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit rejected this argument and affirmed the orders of the District Court. 802 F. 3d 399 (2015). The Second Circuit reasoned that, although §1608(a)(3) requires that a service packet be mailed “to the head of the ministry of foreign affairs of the foreign state concerned,” the statute “is silent as to a specific location where the mailing is to be addressed.” Id., at 404. In light of this, the court concluded that “the method chosen by plaintiffs—a mailing addressed to the minister of foreign affairs at the embassy—was consistent with the language of the statute and could reasonably be expected to result in delivery to the intended person.” Ibid.
Sudan filed a petition for rehearing, and the United States filed an amicus curiae brief in support of Sudan’s petition. The panel ordered supplemental briefing and heard additional oral argument, but it once again affirmed, reiterating its view that §1608(a)(3) “does not specify that the mailing be sent to the head of the ministry of foreign affairs in the foreign country.” 838 F. 3d 86, 91 (CA2 2016). The court thereafter denied Sudan’s petition for rehearing en banc.
Subsequent to the Second Circuit’s decision, the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held in a similar case that §1608(a)(3) “does not authorize delivery of service to a foreign state’s embassy even if it correctly identifies the intended recipient as the head of the ministry of foreign affairs.” Kumar v. Republic of Sudan, 880 F. 3d 144, 158 (2018), cert. pending, No. 17–1269.
The most natural reading of this language is that service must be mailed directly to the foreign minister’s office in the foreign state. Although this is not, we grant, the only plausible reading of the statutory text, it is the most natural one. See, e.g., United States v. Hohri, 482 U. S. 64, 69–71 (1987) (choosing the “more natural” reading of a statute); ICC v. Texas, 479 U. S. 450, 456–457 (1987) (same); see also Florida Dept. of Revenue v. Piccadilly Cafeterias, Inc., 554 U. S. 33, 41 (2008) (similar).
A similar understanding underlies the venerable “mailbox rule.” As first-year law students learn in their course on contracts, there is a presumption that a mailed acceptance of an offer is deemed operative when “dispatched” if it is “properly addressed.” Restatement (Second) of Contracts § 66, p. 161 (1979) (Restatement); Rosenthal v. Walker, 111 U. S. 185, 193 (1884). But no acceptance would be deemed properly addressed and dispatched if it lacked, and thus was not sent to, the offer-or’s address (or an address that the offeror held out as the place for receipt of an acceptance). See Restatement § 66, Comment b.
Several related provisions in §1608 support this reading. See Davis v. Michigan Dept. of Treasury, 489 U. S. 803, 809 (1989) (“It is a fundamental canon of statutory construction that the words of a statute must be read in their context and with a view to their place in the overall statutory scheme”).
Respondents read §1608(a)(3) as embodying a similar requirement. See Brief for Respondents 34. At oral argument, respondents’ counsel stressed this point, arguing that respondents’ interpretation of §1608(a)(3) “gives effect” to the “familiar” due process standard articulated in Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co., 339 U. S. 306 (1950), which is “the notion that [service] must be reasonably calculated to give notice.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 37–38.
This argument runs up against two well-settled principles of statutory interpretation. First, “Congress generally acts intentionally when it uses particular language in one section of a statute but omits it in another.” Department of Homeland Security v. MacLean, 574 U. S. ___, ___ (2015) (slip op., at 7). Because Congress included the “reasonably calculated to give actual notice” language only in §1608(b), and not in §1608(a), we resist the suggestion to read that language into §1608(a). Second, “we are hesitant to adopt an interpretation of a congressional enactment which renders superfluous another portion of that same law.” Mackey v. Lanier Collection Agency & Service, Inc., 486 U. S. 825, 837 (1988). Here, respondents encounter a superfluity problem when they argue that the “addressed and dispatched” clause in §1608(a)(3) gives effect to the Mullane due process standard. They fail to account for the fact that §1608(b)(3)(B) contains both the “addressed and dispatched” and “reasonably calculated to give actual notice” requirements. If respondents were correct that “addressed and dispatched” means “reason-ably calculated to give notice,” then the phrase “reasonably calculated to give actual notice” in §1608(b)(3) would be superfluous. Thus, as the dissent agrees, §1608(a)(3) “does not deem a foreign state properly served solely because the service method is reasonably calculated to provide actual notice.” Post, at 2 (opinion of Thomas, J.).
If Congress had contemplated anything similar under §1608(a)(3), there is no apparent reason why it would not have included in that provision terms similar to those in §1608(b)(2). Respondents would have us believe that Congress was content to have the courts read such terms into §1608(a)(3). In view of §1608(b)(2), this seems un-likely. 2 See also post, at 2 (“Nor does the FSIA authorize service on a foreign state by utilizing an agent designated to receive process for the state”).
It is easy to see why Congress could take that view with respect to a person designated for the receipt of process in a “special arrangement for service between the plaintiff and the foreign state or political subdivision,” §1608(a)(1), and a person so designated under “an applicableinternational convention,” §1608(a)(2). But what about §1608(a)(3), the provision now before us? Who is more comparable to those who sign for mail under §§1608(a)(1) and (2)? A person who works in the office of the foreign minister in the minister’s home country and is authorized to receive and process the minister’s mail? Or a mailroom employee in a foreign embassy? We think the answer is obvious, and therefore interpreting §1608(a)(3) to require that a service packet be sent to a foreign minister’s own office better harmonizes the rules for determining when service is deemed to have been made.
Our interpretation of §1608(a)(3) avoids concerns regarding the United States’ obligations under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. We have previously noted that the State Department “helped to draft the FSIA’s language,” and we therefore pay “special attention” to the Department’s views on sovereign immunity. Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela v. Helmerich & Payne Int’l Drilling Co., 581 U. S. ___, ___ (2017) (slip op., at 9). It is also “well settled that the Executive Branch’s interpretation of a treaty ‘is entitled to great weight.’ ” Abbott v. Abbott, 560 U. S. 1, 15 (2010) (quoting Sumitomo Shoji America, Inc. v. Avagliano, 457 U. S. 176, 185 (1982)).
Finally, respondents contend that it would be “the height of unfairness to throw out [their] judgment” based on the highly technical argument belatedly raised by petitioner. See Brief for Respondents 35. We understand respondents’ exasperation and recognize that enforcing compliance with §1608(a)(3) may seem like an empty formality in this particular case, which involves highly publicized litigation of which the Government of Sudan may have been aware prior to entry of default judgment. But there are circumstances in which the rule of law demands adherence to strict requirements even when the equities of a particular case may seem to point in the opposite direction. The service rules set out in §1608(a)(3), which apply to a category of cases with sensitive diplo-matic implications, clearly fall into this category. Under those rules, all cases must be treated the same.
To serve a foreign state by certified mail under the FSIA, the service packet must be “addressed and dispatched by the clerk of the court to the head of the ministry of foreign affairs of the foreign state concerned.” Ibid. In many respects, I approach this statutory text in the same way as the Court. I have no quarrel with the major-ity’s definitions of the relevant statutory terms, ante, at 6–7, and I agree that the FSIA does not deem a foreign state properly served solely because the service method is reasonably calculated to provide actual notice, ante, at 9–10, 15–16. Nor does the FSIA authorize service on a foreign state by utilizing an agent designated to receive process for the state. Ante, at 10–11. At the same time, the FSIA stops short of requiring that the foreign minister person-ally receive or sign for the service packet: As long as the service packet is “addressed and dispatched . . . to” the foreign minister, §1608(a)(3), the minister’s subordinates may accept the packet and act appropriately on his behalf. Ante, at 8.
In short, I agree with the majority that §1608(a)(3) requires that the service packet be dispatched to an address for the foreign minister. The relevant question, in my view, is whether a foreign state’s embassy in the United States can serve as a place where the minister of for-eign affairs may be reached by mail. Unlike the majority, I conclude that it can.
The capability of an embassy to route service papers to the sending state is confirmed by the State Department regulation implementing §1608(a)(4), which provides for service on the foreign state through diplomatic channels. Under this regulation, the Department may deliver the service packet “to the embassy of the foreign state in the District of Columbia” “[i]f the foreign state so requests or if otherwise appropriate.” 22 CFR §93.1(c)(2) (2018). Al-though the service packet under §1608(a)(4) need not be addressed and dispatched to the foreign minister, the regulation implementing it nevertheless demonstrates that embassies do in fact provide a channel of communication between the United States and foreign countries.
It was against this backdrop that respondents requested that their service packet be “addressed and dispatched by the clerk of the court to the head of the ministry of foreign affairs of [Sudan],” §1608(a)(3), at the address of its embassy in Washington, D. C. Because an embassy serves as a channel through which the U. S. Government can communicate with the sending state’s minister of foreign affairs, this method of service complied with the ordinary meaning of §1608(a)(3) on this record. There is—and this is critical—no evidence in the record showing that Sudan’s foreign minister could not be reached through the em-bassy. As the majority acknowledges, the clerk received a signed return receipt and a shipping confirmation stating that the package had been delivered. Ante, at 3. Nothing on the receipt or confirmation indicated that the package could not be delivered to its addressee, and both the clerk and the District Judge determined that service had been properly effectuated.
First, the Court offers a series of hypotheticals to suggest that the term “dispatched” not only contemplates a prompt shipment, but also connotes sending the letter directly to a place where the person is likely to be physically located. Ante, at 7–8. In my opinion, these hypotheticals are inapt. The unique role of an embassy in facilitating communications between sovereign governments does not have an analog in the hypotheticals offered by the majority. 1 And to the extent the statute emphasizes speed and directness, as the majority suggests, dispatching a letter to a Washington-based embassy with a direct line of communication to the foreign minister—including the ability to communicate electronically—seems at least as efficient as dispatching the letter across the globe to a foreign country, particularly if that country has recently experienced armed conflict or political instability.
2 Even if there were, the FSIA postdates the VCDR and thus “ ‘renders the treaty null’ ” “ ‘to the extent of conflict.’ ” Breard v. Greene, 523 U. S. 371, 376 (1998) (per curiam) (quoting Reid v. Covert, 354 U. S. 1, 18 (1957) (plurality opinion)).

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