Opinion ID: 858092
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The ATA Claims

Text: The ATA, which Congress enacted in 1992,2 provides, in relevant part: [a]ny national of the United States injured in his or her person, property, or business by reason of an act of international terrorism, or his or her estate, survivors, or heirs, may sue therefor in any appropriate district court of the United States and shall recover threefold the damages he or she sustains and the cost of the suit, including attorney’s fees. 18 U.S.C. § 2333(a) (emphasis supplied). Plaintiffs allege that the Rule 12(b)(6) defendants are both primarily and secondarily liable pursuant to § 2333(a) for: (1) knowingly providing financial support to purported charities that supported al Qaeda, see, e.g., Plaintiffs’ 12(b)(6) Br. 78; and (2) “knowingly and intentionally provid[ing] financial [and bank account] services” for certain front charities that benefitted al Qaeda as well, Joint App’x 2485; see also id. at 843-44, 1062-77, 1783, 4331. The Rule 12(b)(6) defendants respond that: (1) the ATA does not provide for secondary liability as the statute is silent on that issue, see Al Rajhi Bank Br. 41 (citing Cent. Bank of Denver, N.A. v. First Interstate Bank of Denver, N.A., 511 U.S. 164, 182, 184 (1994) (noting that “there is no general presumption that [a] plaintiff may . . . sue aiders and abettors” and that statutory silence regarding aiding and abetting liability “indicates a deliberate congressional choice with which the courts should not interfere”)); and (2) plaintiffs do not allege the actions of the Rule 12(b)(6) defendants proximately caused their injuries, 2In fact, § 2333 initially was apparently enacted in error in 1990, repealed in 1991, and reenacted in 1992. See S. Rep. No. 102-342, at 22 (1992). 6 see id. at 29 (citing Holmes v. Sec. Investor Prot. Corp., 503 U.S. 258, 267 (1992) (interpreting the “by reason of” language in the civil RICO statute as incorporating common-law principles of proximate causation)). In light of our recent decision in Rothstein, 708 F.3d at 82, we find the Rule 12(b)(6) defendants’ arguments persuasive. First, Rothstein specifically held that a defendant cannot be liable under the ATA on an aiding-and-abetting theory of liability. Id. at 97 (“[W]e are not persuaded that the district court erred in concluding that plaintiffs had not stated a claim on which relief could be granted against UBS on an aiding-and-abetting theory, because it does not appear to us that Congress intended § 2333(a) to permit recovery on such a theory.”); see also Boim v. Holy Land Found. for Relief & Dev., 549 F.3d 685, 689 (7th Cir. 2008) (en banc) (holding that “statutory silence on the subject of secondary liability means there is none; and section 2333(a) . . . does not mention aiders and abettors or other secondary actors”); cf. Cent. Bank of Denver, N.A., 511 U.S. at 185 (holding that “an implicit congressional intent to impose . . . aiding and abetting liability” could not plausibly be inferred from the “statutory silence” in § 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934). Second, we held in Rothstein that Congress did not “intend[ ] to permit recovery under § 2333 on a showing of less than proximate cause,” Rothstein, 708 F.3d at 95, based on the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the “well-understood meaning” of the phrase “by reason of” across multiple statutes, id.; see also Holmes, 503 U.S. at 266-67 (interpreting the “by reason of” language in the civil RICO statute and holding that proximate causation was required); id. at 268 (“[A] plaintiff’s right to sue under § 4 [of the Clayton Act] required a showing that the defendant’s violation not only was a ‘but for’ cause of his injury, but was the proximate cause as well.” (citing Associated Gen. Contractors of Cal., Inc. v. Cal. St. Counsel of Carpenters, 459 U.S. 519, 534 (1983))); Anza v. Ideal Steel Supply Corp., 547 U.S. 451, 457 (2006) (citing Holmes in the RICO context). 7 As Rothstein holds that proximate cause is required to state a claim under § 2333, our next task is to determine whether plaintiffs allege that the actions of the Rule 12(b)(6) defendants proximately caused their injuries. After reviewing the record, we conclude that they do not. In Rothstein, we determined that plaintiffs’ allegations―which are strikingly similar to those alleged against these Rule 12(b)(6) defendants―were insufficient for the purposes of establishing proximate causation. In particular, the Rothstein plaintiffs alleged that UBS, the defendant in that case, “provided Iran with hundreds of millions of dollars in cash” knowing that: (1) Iran “promot[ed] terrorism to injure and intimidate the Jewish residents of Israel”; (2) Iran “provided Hamas and Hizbollah with hundreds of millions of dollars to fund terrorist attacks”; and (3) Iran “conditioned that funding on agreement by those organizations to conduct terrorist attacks on Israel and its residents.” Rothstein, 708 F.3d at 92. In other words, UBS allegedly provided funding to a known state sponsor of terrorism that, in turn, provided funding to Hizbollah and Hamas. The complaint in Rothstein also alleged that “the bombings and rocket attacks between July 1997 and July 2006, in which plaintiffs and/or their family members were injured, were conducted by Hizbollah or Hamas.” Id. at 92-93. Similarly, the Rule 12(b)(6) defendants are alleged to have provided funding to purported charity organizations known to support terrorism that, in turn, provided funding to al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations. These allegations are insufficient for proximate causation purposes for the same reasons the allegations in Rothstein fell short. See id. at 94-96. Simply put, plaintiffs do not allege that the Rule 12(b)(6) defendants participated in the September 11, 2001 attacks or that they provided money directly to al Qaeda; nor are there factual allegations that the money allegedly donated by the Rule 12(b)(6) defendants to the purported charities actually was transferred to Al Qaeda and aided in the September 11, 2001 attacks. See id. at 96-97; see also Al Rajhi Bank Br. 31. 8 We also are not persuaded that providing routine banking services to organizations and individuals said to be affiliated with al Qaeda―as alleged by plaintiffs―proximately caused the September 11, 2001 attacks or plaintiffs’ injuries. See Burnett v. Al Baraka Inv. & Dev. Corp., 274 F. Supp. 2d 86, 109 (D.D.C. 2003) (“Plaintiffs offer no support, and we have found none, for the proposition that a bank is liable for injuries done with money that passes through its hands in the form of deposits, withdrawals, check clearing services, or any other routine banking service.”). The allegations, moreover, against the Rule 12(b)(6) defendants on this score are conclusory, see, e.g., Joint App’x 3829 (“The September 11th Attack was a direct, intended and foreseeable product of [the Rule 12(b)(6) defendants’] participation in al Qaida’s jihadist campaign.”), and similar to the allegations rejected in Rothstein, 708 F.3d at 97 (“And while the Complaint alleges that UBS knew full well that the cash dollars it was providing to a state-sponsor of terrorism such as Iran would be used to cause and facilitate terrorist attacks by Iranian-sponsored terrorist organizations such as Hamas, Hizbollah and PIJ, these are conclusory allegations that do not meet Twombly’s plausibility standard with respect to the need for a proximate causal relationship between the cash transferred by UBS to Iran and the terrorist attacks by Hizbollah and Hamas that injured plaintiffs.” (citation and internal quotation marks omitted)). For these reasons, we conclude that plaintiffs have failed to state a claim under the ATA upon which relief can be granted against the Rule 12(b)(6) defendants. Although Congress clearly intended to create impediments to terrorism by “the imposition of liability at any point along the causal chain of terrorism,” S. Rep. No. 102-342, at 22 (1992), the “by reason of” language of the statute restricts the imposition of such liability to situations where plaintiffs plausibly allege that defendants actions proximately caused their injuries, Rothstein, 708 F.3d at 95 (“[H]ad [Congress] intended to allow recovery upon a showing lower than proximate cause, we think it either would have so stated expressly or would at least have chosen language that had not commonly been 9 interpreted to require proximate cause for the prior 100 years.”). As plaintiffs do not make such allegations in this case, we affirm the District Court’s dismissal of the ATA claims.