Opinion ID: 175877
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Heading: FSIA Tortious Activity Exception

Text: The tortious activity exception permits courts to exercise jurisdiction over foreign sovereigns where the plaintiff seeks money damages for personal injury or death, or damage to or loss of property, occurring in the United States and caused by the tortious act or omission of [the] foreign state or of any official or employee of that foreign state while acting within the scope of his office or employment. 28 U.S.C. § 1605(a)(5) (emphasis added); see also Argentine Republic v. Amerada Hess Shipping Corp., 488 U.S. 428, 439, 109 S.Ct. 683, 102 L.Ed.2d 818 (1989) (stating that the tortious activity exception is limited to those cases in which the damage to or loss of property occurs in the United States (emphasis omitted)). In determining whether an alleged action is a tort, we have applied the law of the state in which the locus of injury occurredhere, New York law. [12] See Robinson, 269 F.3d at 142 & n. 11. Under New York law, although an employee's tortious acts are imputable to the employer if done while the servant was doing his master's work, no matter how irregularly, or with what disregard of instructions, Riviello v. Waldron, 47 N.Y.2d 297, 302, 418 N.Y.S.2d 300, 391 N.E.2d 1278 (1979) (internal quotation marks omitted), an employer is not liable for torts committed by the employee for personal motives unrelated to the furtherance of the employer's business, Tomka v. Seiler Corp., 66 F.3d 1295, 1317 (2d Cir. 1995), abrogated on other grounds by Burlington Indus., Inc. v. Ellerth, 524 U.S. 742, 118 S.Ct. 2257, 141 L.Ed.2d 633 (1998), and Faragher v. City of Boca Raton, 524 U.S. 775, 118 S.Ct. 2275, 141 L.Ed.2d 662 (1998). Thus, for example, New York courts have rejected respondeat superior claims that a church was liable for its priest's sexual assault of a child, Paul J.H. v. Lum, 291 A.D.2d 894, 736 N.Y.S.2d 561, 562 (2002), that a hospital was liable for its attendant's sexual assault on a patient, N.X. v. Cabrini Medical Cent., 97 N.Y.2d 247, 251, 739 N.Y.S.2d 348, 765 N.E.2d 844 (2002); see also Cornell v. New York, 60 A.D.2d 714, 401 N.Y.S.2d 107, 108 (1977), that a school was liable for its volunteer-teacher's molestation of a student, Koran I. v. N.Y.C. Bd. of Educ., 256 A.D.2d 189, 683 N.Y.S.2d 228, 229-30 (1998), and that a mall was liable for its security guard's rape of a girl in the mall security office, Heindel v. Bowery Savings Bank, 138 A.D.2d 787, 525 N.Y.S.2d 428, 428-29 (1988). New York courts consistently have held that sexual misconduct and related tortious behavior arise from personal motives and do not further an employer's business, even when committed within the employment context. Ross v. Mitsui Fudosan, Inc., 2 F.Supp.2d 522, 531 (S.D.N.Y.1998). Swarna argues that Kuwait is not entitled to sovereign immunity under the FSIA because the individual defendants were acting within the scope of their employment as diplomats for Kuwait when they subjected her to slavery and slavery-like practices, including forced labor, involuntary servitude, and sexual slavery. But, as the District Court found, rape and other inhumane acts allegedly committed by the individual defendants are not related to the furtherance of Kuwait's purposes in the United States. Swarna's claim of forced labor is based on services she provided to the individual defendants to meet their private needs. Also, it is beyond question that Al-Awadi did not rape Swarna to further Kuwait's purposes in the United States. Swarna's ATCA claims arise from personal motives and are outside the diplomats' scope of employment with Kuwait. Thus, we reject Swarna's attempt at piercing Kuwait's sovereign immunity through the alleged tortious conduct of Kuwait's diplomats. To the extent Swarna suggests that Kuwait committed a tort because [a]n official at the Kuwait Mission opened and translated Swarna's correspondence with her family on behalf of the Individual Defendants; Swarna's passport was held by the Kuwait Mission for the duration of her employment; employees of the Kuwait Mission periodically provided an escort for Swarna when she was permitted to leave the Individual Defendants' home ... reinforc[ing] the ... restriction on Swarna's interaction with outsiders; and Kuwait failed to monitor its diplomats to ensure that they were complying with the laws and regulations of the United States, these acts either do not plausibly constitute an imputable tort or are discretionary functions which are accorded sovereign immunity under the FSIA. See 28 U.S.C. § 1605(a)(5)(A). The tortious activity exception remains inapplicable if the tort is based upon the exercise or performance or the failure to exercise or perform a discretionary function regardless of whether the discretion be abused. Id. The language of this discretionary function rule is closely replicated in the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), and therefore we consider the jurisprudence of other Courts of Appeals in considering FTCA case law when interpreting the FSIA's discretionary function provision. See Thermtron Prods., Inc. v. Hermansdorfer, 423 U.S. 336, 345-46, 96 S.Ct. 584, 46 L.Ed.2d 542 (1976) (provisions that are in pari materia must be construed together), superseded by statute on other grounds by 28 U.S.C. § 1447; see also, e.g., Doe v. Holy See, 557 F.3d 1066, 1083 (9th Cir.2009) (per curiam) (The language of the discretionary function exclusion closely parallels the language of a similar exclusion in the [FTCA], so we look to case law on the FTCA when interpreting the FSIA's discretionary function exclusion.); O'Bryan v. Holy See, 556 F.3d 361, 383-84 (6th Cir.2009) ([N]ot only does the language of the FSIA discretionary function exception replicate that of the [FTCA], 28 U.S.C. § 2680(a), but the legislative history of the FSIA, in explaining section 1605(a)(5)(A), directs us to the FTCA. (internal quotation marks omitted; second alteration in original)). In the context of the FTCA, the Supreme Court has broadly outlined the contours of discretionary function as (1) determined by the nature of the conduct rather than the status of the actor and (2) plainly ... encompass[ing] the discretionary acts of the Government acting in its role as a regulator of the conduct of private individuals. United States v. S.A. Empresa de Viacao Aerea Rio Grandense (Varig Airlines), 467 U.S. 797, 813-14, 104 S.Ct. 2755, 81 L.Ed.2d 660 (1984). According to the Supreme Court, the discretionary function rule is designed to prevent judicial `second-guessing' of ... decisions grounded in social, economic, and political policy through the medium of an action in tort. Id. at 814, 104 S.Ct. 2755; accord In re World Trade Ctr. Disaster Site Litig., 521 F.3d 169, 190 (2d Cir.2008) (The FTCA discretionary function exception is ... a form of retained sovereign immunity.). Here, Swarna's claim that Kuwait failed to institute procedures or a system to monitor its employees implicates a discretionary function. Any failure to monitor employees was a systemic failure that occurred at the planning level of government. Indeed, the United States Department of State had requested the implementation of such monitoring in a memorandum dated May 20, 1996, addressing, inter alios, the Kuwait government. Even if Kuwait's failure to implement monitoring of its employees constitutes a tort in light of this prior notice, such failure to fulfill a regulatory function is not included in those acts which qualify under the tortious activity exception to Kuwait's sovereign immunity. See In re World Trade Ctr., 521 F.3d at 190. Swarna's remaining claims, as to specific operational acts committed by individual employees at the Kuwait Mission, are essentially a restatement of her claim that Kuwait failed to adequately monitor its employees. And, in any event, her claim that the individual employees aided and abetted the individual defendants' tortious acts is not adequately pleaded. Swarna does not allege that she confronted these employees; she does not allege that these employees were aware of the State Department's memorandum of May 20, 1996; she does not identify these employees; and she does not draw a plausible connection between the employees' acts and a coexisting awareness of the individual defendants' unlawful acts. See Bardere v. Zafir, 102 A.D.2d 422, 477 N.Y.S.2d 131, 134 (1984) (Intentionally tortious conduct connotes conduct engaged in with the desire to bring about the consequences of the injurious act.); Murphy v. Am. Home Prods. Corp., 58 N.Y.2d 293, 303, 461 N.Y.S.2d 232, 448 N.E.2d 86 (1983) (explaining that [l]iability [for severe emotional distress] has been found only where the conduct has been so outrageous in character, and so extreme in degree, as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency, and to be regarded as atrocious, and utterly intolerable in a civilized community. (internal quotation marks omitted)); Beardsley v. Kilmer, 236 N.Y. 80, 89, 140 N.E. 203 (1923) (explaining that the motive which will make a lawful act unlawful must be a malicious one, unmixed with any other, and exclusively directed to the injury and damage of another); Dalton v. Union Bank of Switz., 134 A.D.2d 174, 520 N.Y.S.2d 764, 767 (App. Div. 1987) (In order to properly plead a cause of action for prima facie tort, it is necessary to allege that the action complained of was solely motivated by malice or `disinterested malevolence.' (citations omitted)). Moreover, even if these employees aided and abetted the tortious acts committed by the individual defendants, the employees would have only furthered activities that are unrelated to the diplomatic mission and arise from personal motiveswhich, as explained above, are non-imputable acts. We therefore reject Swarna's claim that the tortious activity exception to sovereign immunity applies here.