Opinion ID: 187095
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Termination of Service Argument

Text: Appellants first argue that the FSIA does not apply to a foreign official who has left office between the time of the commission of the challenged acts and the bringing of the litigation. We need not ultimately decide the merits of this argument, as it is not properly before us. Appellants did not raise this issue in the district court. Absent exceptional circumstances, a party cannot raise legal issues on appeal that it failed to raise in the district court. Nemariam v. Fed. Democratic Republic of Eth., 491 F.3d 470, 483 (D.C.Cir.2007). As the issue is not properly before us, this is not a proper case for us to decide this question of statutory interpretation. While we will not decide the issue, we feel compelled to advise that our refusal to enter a holding on the question does not mean that we consider this novel argument to be a compelling one or the question to be difficult. Indeed, it is likely that we would reject the proposition were it before us on the merits. The argument relies on the undeniable proposition that General Ya'alon's status as an agency or instrumentality of a foreign state is the basis for his immunity. See 28 U.S.C. § 1603(a)-(b); El-Fadl, 75 F.3d at 671. Appellants note that section 1603(b), which defines an agency or instrumentality as any entity which is an organ of a foreign state or political subdivision, speaks in the present tense. 28 U.S.C. § 1603(b) (emphasis added). Appellants claim that because section 1603(b) of the FSIA uses the word is and not was, it fails to protect defendants who are no longer foreign officials at the time of suit. Because General Ya'alon served as Head of Army Intelligence from 1995 to 1998 and Plaintiffs did not bring suit until 2005, under their construction of the statute he does not qualify for foreign sovereign immunity. To support their statutory interpretation argument, appellants cite Dole Food Co. v. Patrickson, 538 U.S. 468, 123 S.Ct. 1655, 155 L.Ed.2d 643 (2003), which they argue settled this issue in their favor. Appellants ask us to hold that a public official protected by the sovereign immunity of his country at the time he performs acts on behalf of the government loses that protection on the day he resigns or reaches the expiration of his term. Aside from the fact that such a holding makes no practical sense, it would be a dramatic departure from the common law of foreign sovereign immunity, as codified in the FSIA. The Supreme Court recently reiterated that one well-recognized purpose of the FSIA was the codification of international law at the time of the FSIA's enactment. Permanent Mission of India, 548 U.S. at ___, 127 S.Ct. at 2356. In 1976, it was well settled that sovereign immunity existed for any other public minister, official, or agent of the state with respect to acts performed in his official capacity if the effect of exercising jurisdiction would be to enforce a rule of law against the state. RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF FOREIGN RELATIONS LAW OF THE UNITED STATES § 66(f) (1965). The common law of foreign sovereign immunity made no distinction between the time of the commission of official acts and the time of suit. When Congress codified the common law in the FSIA, it retained this same protection for foreign officials. See Chuidian, 912 F.2d at 1099-1100. In light of the above well-recognized purpose of the FSIA, it is unreasonable to assume that in enacting the FSIA, Congress intended to make such sweeping and counterintuitive changes to foreign sovereign immunity with the simple use of the word is. Dole Food does not appear to support the proposition advanced by appellants. It resolved only two questions, neither of which is relevant to this case  whether a corporate subsidiary can claim instrumentality status where the foreign state does not own a majority of its shares but does own a majority of the shares of a corporate parent one or more tiers above the subsidiary and whether a corporation's instrumentality status is defined as of the time an alleged tort or other actionable wrong occurred or, on the other hand, at the time suit is filed. Dole Food, 538 U.S. at 471, 123 S.Ct. 1655. Although the Court held that a corporation's instrumentality status is defined at the time of suit, id. at 478, 123 S.Ct. 1655, relying in part on the statute's use of the present tense of is owned, 28 U.S.C. § 1603(b)(2), the case never dealt with the acts of a government official. The status of a corporation at one time owned by a foreign state and an individual who was at one time an official of such a state are hardly the same. The corporation and the state have at all times been entities wholly separate and distinguishable from each other and able to act without the presence or even existence of the other. This does not define the relationship between the state and its officials. While it is true, indeed obvious, that the official has an existence independent of the state, the state does not act independently of its agents. Every act committed by a sovereign government is carried out by its officials and agents. While the state may own corporations that conduct some of these acts, it need not do so. Regardless of whether it creates or owns corporations, individual officials or agents must act as instrumentalities for anything actually to be done. To suppose that the sovereign's immunity protecting the individual official in the performance of his sovereign's business vanishes the moment he resigns, retires, or loses an election is to establish that he had no immunity at all. Even though the state's immunity survives his departure, it is difficult to say how it could act within its immunity without being able to extend that immunity to the individual officials who acted on its behalf. While Dole Food was not dealing with appellants' novel theory, the court did offer language in that case relevant to this argument. The Dole Food Court opined that a purpose of foreign sovereign immunity is to give foreign states and their instrumentalities some protection from the inconvenience of suit as a gesture of comity between the United States and other sovereigns. 538 U.S. at 479, 123 S.Ct. 1655. To allow the resignation of an official involved in the adoption of policies underlying a decision or in the implementation of such decision to repeal his immunity would destroy, not enhance that comity. This is especially true in a case like the present one where we would be engaging in the micro-management of military targeting decisions. All this is even assuming that appellants have alleged a claim for relief when all they seem to be able to support is the proposition that appellee was a high-ranking military official at the time the actions were undertaken.