Opinion ID: 2451
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: tvpa

Text: I cannot join the Court in concluding that the facts of Arar's complaint are insufficient to state a claim under the TVPA. Section 2(a) of the TVPA provides that a defendant is liable only if he acted under actual or apparent authority, or color of law, of any foreign nation ... 28 U.S.C. 1350 (note). In construing this requirement, we look to principles of agency law and to jurisprudence under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Kadic v. Karadzic, 70 F.3d 232, 245 (2d Cir.1995). Under Section 1983, [t]he traditional definition of acting under color of state law requires that the defendant... have exercised power possessed by virtue of state law and made possible only because the wrongdoer is clothed with the authority of state law. West v. Atkins, 487 U.S. 42, 49, 108 S.Ct. 2250, 101 L.Ed.2d 40 (1988) (quotation marks omitted). I agree with the majority that there is no litmus test for determining whether a Section 1983 defendant is acting under color of state law. Maj. Op. at 568 (The determination as to whether a non-state party acts under color of state law requires an intensely fact-specific judgment unaided by rigid criteria as to whether particular conduct may be fairly attributed to the state.) (citing Brentwood Acad. v. Tenn. Secondary Sch. Ath. Ass'n, 531 U.S. 288, 295, 121 S.Ct. 924, 148 L.Ed.2d 807 (2001)). This is a wise departure from the test set forth by the panel opinion, which interpreted Section 1983 case law to require that when the defendant is a federal official, he must be under the control or influence of the state actor to act under color of state law. Arar, 532 F.3d at 175-76. Our Circuit has consistently recognized several bases for liability under Section 1983, control or influence being just one: For the purposes of section 1983, the actions of a nominally private entity are attributable to the state when: (1) the entity acts pursuant to the coercive power of the state or is controlled by the state (the compulsion test); (2) when the state provides significant encouragement to the entity, the entity is a willful participant in joint activity with the [s]tate, or the entity's functions are entwined with state policies (the joint action test or close nexus test); or (3) when the entity has been delegated a public function by the [s]tate, (the public function test). Sybalski v. Indep. Group Home Living Program, Inc., 546 F.3d 255, 257 (2d Cir. 2008) (per curiam) (quoting Brentwood Acad., 531 U.S. at 296, 121 S.Ct. 924). As the majority now recognizes, [a] federal officer who conspires with a state officer may act under color of state law. Maj. Op. at 568 (citing Beechwood Restorative Care Ctr. v. Leeds, 436 F.3d 147, 154 (2d Cir.2006)). The majority concludes that Arar's pleading was deficient because he alleged only that United States officials encouraged and facilitated the exercise of power by Syrians in Syria, not that defendants possessed power under Syrian law which they used to remove him to Syria to be tortured. Maj. Op. at 603. I disagree. In the Section 1983 context, the Supreme Court has held that private individuals may be liable for joint activities with state actors even where those private individuals had no official power under state law. Dennis v. Sparks, 449 U.S. 24, 27-28, 101 S.Ct. 183, 66 L.Ed.2d 185 (1980). In Sparks, the private individuals conspired with a state judge to enjoin the plaintiff's mining operation. The Court held: [T]o act `under color of state law for § 1983 purposes does not require that the defendant be an officer of the State. It is enough that he is a willful participant in joint action with the State or its agents. Private persons, jointly engaged with state officials in the challenged action, are acting `under color' of law for purposes of § 1983 actions. Id. ; see also Khulumani v. Barclay Nat. Bank Ltd., 504 F.3d 254, 315 (2d Cir.2007) (Korman, J., concurring in part). Arar alleges that U.S. officials, recognizing that Syrian law was more permissive of torture that U.S. law, contacted an agent in Syria to arrange to have Arar tortured under the authority of Syrian law. Specifically, Arar alleges that U.S. officials sent the Syrians a dossier containing questions, identical to those questions he was asked while detained in the U.S., including one about his relationship with a particular individual wanted for terrorism. He also alleges the Syrian officials supplied U.S. officials with information they extracted from him, citing a public statement by a Syrian official. Assuming the truth of these allegations, defendants' wrongdoing was only possible due to the latitude permitted under Syrian law and their joint action with Syrian authorities. The torture may fairly be attributed to Syria. Because the majority's holding in this case is not required by controlling law from the Section 1983 context, [4] the decision must turn on the unique features of this casebrought under the TVPA alleging joint action by federal agents with Syrian officials. The majority cites Harbury v. Hayden, 444 F.Supp.2d 19, 42-43 (D.D.C.2006), aff'd on other grounds, 522 F.3d 413 (D.C.Cir.2008). In that case, as well as one other, district judges concluded that U.S. officials pursuing federal policy under federal statutes act under color of U.S., not foreign, law. Id. (holding that CIA officers cooperating with the Guatemalan military acted under color of U.S. law because they were within the scope of their employment serving the United States and carrying out the policies and directives of the CIA); Schneider v. Kissinger, 310 F.Supp.2d 251, 267 (D.D.C. 2004) (Dr. Kissinger was most assuredly acting pursuant to U.S. law ... despite the fact that his alleged foreign co-conspirators may have been acting under color of Chilean law.), aff'd on other grounds, 412 F.3d 190 (D.C.Cir.2005). But the majority does not adopt this questionable reasoningthat a federal official can act under color of only one sovereign's authority at a time. The majority simply observes that because federal officials typically act under color of federal law, they are rarely deemed to have acted under color of state law. Maj. Op. at 568 (quotation marks omitted). Rather, where the alleged torture was carried out by foreigners in a foreign land, the majority draws a line between the actual exercise of power under foreign law and the encouragement, facilitation, or solicitation of that exercise of power. Id. at 568-69. This distinction is unprincipled. Under agency law, when two persons engage jointly in a partnership for some criminal objective, the law deems them agents for one another. Each is deemed to have authorized the acts and declarations of the other undertaken to carry out their joint objective. United States v. Russo, 302 F.3d 37, 45 (2d Cir.2002). It is of no matter that only one member of the conspiracy carried out the torture. If we carry the majority's logic to its extreme, federal agents could never be responsible for torture inflicted under color of foreign law, even if they were in the room with the foreign torturers orchestrating the techniques. Arar Reply Br. at 36. [5] Under Section 1983, non-state actors who willfully participate in joint action with state officials, acting under state law, themselves act under color of state law. By analogy, under the TVPA, non-Syrian actors who willfully participate in joint action with Syrian officials, acting under Syrian law, themselves act under color of Syrian law. In Aldana v. Del Monte Fresh Produce, 416 F.3d 1242, 1249, 1265 (11th Cir.2005), the Eleventh Circuit sustained a TVPA claim where plaintiffs alleged that a U.S. corporation hir[ed] and direct[ed] its employees and/or agents, including a Guatemalan mayor, to torture the Plaintiffs and threaten them with death. 416 F.3d at 1265. The allegation that the corporation participated in joint action with the Guatemalan official was sufficient. [6] I see no principled reason to apply different rules to the TVPA context than the Section 1983 context, to federal agent defendants than corporate defendants, or to actors in the United States than actors on foreign soil. [7] Arar alleges that defendants, acting in concert with Syrian officials, interrogated him through torture under color of Syrian law, which they could not have accomplished under color of U.S. law alone. Thus, I cannot agree that the panel correctly determined the TVPA question on the color of law question. I must therefore respectfully dissent.