Source: https://1attorneys.net/republic-of-sudan-v-harrison-decided-03-26-2019/
Timestamp: 2019-07-23 14:18:33
Document Index: 85151692

Matched Legal Cases: ['§1608', '§1608', '§1608', '§1608', '§1608', '§1608', '§1608', '§1608', '§1608', '§1608', '§1608', '§1963', '§1610', '§1608', '§1608', '§ 66', '§ 66', '§1608', '§1608', '§1608', '§1608', '§1608', '§1608', '§1608', '§1608', '§1608', '§1608', '§1608', '§1608']

REPUBLIC OF SUDAN v. HARRISON. Decided 03/26/2019 | 1 Attorneys
REPUBLIC OF SUDAN v. HARRISON. Decided 03/26/2019
(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.
This case concerns the requirements applicable to a particular method of serving civil process on a foreign state. Under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 (FSIA), a foreign state may be served by means of a mailing that is “addressed and dispatched . . . to the head of the ministry of foreign affairs of the foreign state concerned.”
28 U. S. C. §1608(a)(3). The question now before us is whether this provision is satisfied when a service packet that names the foreign minister is mailed to the foreign state’s embassy in the United States. We hold that it is not. Most naturally read, §1608(a)(3) requires that a mailing be sent directly to the foreign minister’s office in the minister’s home country.
Section 1608(a) governs service of process on “a foreign state or political subdivision of a foreign state.” §1608(a); Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 4(j)(1). In particular, it sets out in hierarchical order the following four methods by which “[s]ervice . . . shall be made.”
28 U. S. C. §1608(a). The first method is by delivery of a copy of the summons and complaint “in accordance with any special arrangement for service between the plaintiff and the foreign state or political subdivision.” §1608(a)(1). “[I]f no special arrangement exists,” service may be made by the second method, namely, delivery of a copy of the summons and complaint “in accordance with an applicable international convention on service of judicial documents.” §1608(a)(2). If service is not possible under either of the first two methods, the third method, which is the one at issue in this case, may be used. This method calls for
With their default judgment in hand, respondents turned to the District Court for the Southern District of New York, where they sought to register the judgment and satisfy it through orders requiring several banks to turn over Sudanese assets. See
28 U. S. C. §1963 (providing for registration of judgments for enforcement in other districts). Pursuant to §1610(c), the District Court entered an order confirming that a sufficient period of time had elapsed following the entry and notice of the default judgment, and the court then issued three turnover orders.
The question before us concerns the meaning of §1608(a)(3), and in interpreting that provision, “[w]e begin ‘where all such inquiries must begin: with the language of the statute itself.’ ” Caraco Pharmaceutical Laboratories, Ltd. v. Novo Nordisk A/S,
566 U. S. 399, 412 (2012) (quoting United States v. Ron Pair Enterprises, Inc.,
489 U. S. 235, 241 (1989)). As noted, §1608(a)(3) requires that service be sent “by any form of mail requiring a signed receipt, to be addressed and dispatched by the clerk of the court to the head of the ministry of foreign affairs of the foreign state concerned.”
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.).
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)).
The Court holds that service on a foreign state by certified mail under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) is defective unless the packet is “addressed and dispatched to the foreign minister at the minister’s office in the foreign state.” Ante, at 17 (emphasis added). This bright-line rule may be attractive from a policy perspective, but the FSIA neither specifies nor precludes the use of any particular address. Instead, the statute requires only that the packet be sent to a particular person—“the head of the ministry of foreign affairs.”
28 U. S. C. §1608(a)(3).