Opinion ID: 708054
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Service of Process and Personal Jurisdiction

Text: 72 Appellants aver that Karadzic was personally served with process while he was physically present in the Southern District of New York. In the Doe action, the affidavits detail that on February 11, 1993, process servers approached Karadzic in the lobby of the Hotel Intercontinental at 111 East 48th St. in Manhattan, called his name and identified their purpose, and attempted to hand him the complaint from a distance of two feet, that security guards seized the complaint papers, and that the papers fell to the floor. Karadzic submitted an affidavit of a State Department security officer, who generally confirmed the episode, but stated that the process server did not come closer than six feet of the defendant. In the Kadic action, the plaintiffs obtained from Judge Owen an order for alternate means of service, directing service by delivering the complaint to a member of defendant's State Department security detail, who was ordered to hand the complaint to the defendant. The security officer's affidavit states that he received the complaint and handed it to Karadzic outside the Russian Embassy in Manhattan. Karadzic's statement confirms that this occurred during his second visit to the United States, sometime between February 27 and March 8, 1993. Appellants also allege that during his visits to New York City, Karadzic stayed at hotels outside the headquarters district of the United Nations and engaged in non-United Nations-related activities such as fund-raising. 73 Fed.R.Civ.P. 4(e)(2) specifically authorizes personal service of a summons and complaint upon an individual physically present within a judicial district of the United States, and such personal service comports with the requirements of due process for the assertion of personal jurisdiction. See Burnham v. Superior Court of California, 495 U.S. 604, 110 S.Ct. 2105, 109 L.Ed.2d 631 (1990). 74 Nevertheless, Karadzic maintains that his status as an invitee of the United Nations during his visits to the United States rendered him immune from service of process. He relies on both the Agreement Between the United Nations and the United States of America Regarding the Headquarters of the United Nations, reprinted at 22 U.S.C. Sec. 287 note (1988) (Headquarters Agreement), and a claimed federal common law immunity. We reject both bases for immunity from service.
75 The Headquarters Agreement provides for immunity from suit only in narrowly defined circumstances. First, service of legal process ... may take place within the headquarters district only with the consent of and under conditions approved by the Secretary-General. Id. Sec. 9(a). This provision is of no benefit to Karadzic, because he was not served within the well-defined confines of the headquarters district, which is bounded by Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive, 1st Avenue, 42nd Street, and 48th Street, see id. annex 1. Second, certain representatives of members of the United Nations, whether residing inside or outside of the headquarters district, shall be entitled to the same privileges and immunities as the United States extends to accredited diplomatic envoys. Id. Sec. 15. This provision is also of no benefit to Karadzic, since he is not a designated representative of any member of the United Nations. 76 A third provision of the Headquarters Agreement prohibits federal, state, and local authorities of the United States from impos[ing] any impediments to transit to or from the headquarters district of ... persons invited to the headquarters district by the United Nations ... on official business. Id. Sec. 11. Karadzic maintains that allowing service of process upon a United Nations invitee who is on official business would violate this section, presumably because it would impose a potential burden--exposure to suit--on the invitee's transit to and from the headquarters district. However, this Court has previously refused to extend the immunities provided by the Headquarters Agreement beyond those explicitly stated. See Klinghoffer v. S.N.C. Achille Lauro, 937 F.2d 44, 48 (2d Cir.1991). We therefore reject Karadzic's proposed construction of section 11, because it would effectively create an immunity from suit for United Nations invitees where none is provided by the express terms of the Headquarters Agreement. 9 77 The parties to the Headquarters Agreement agree with our construction of it. In response to a letter from plaintiffs' attorneys opposing any grant of immunity to Karadzic, a responsible State Department official wrote: Mr. Karadzic's status during his recent visits to the United States has been solely as an 'invitee' of the United Nations, and as such he enjoys no immunity from the jurisdiction of the courts of the United States. Letter from Michael J. Habib, Director of Eastern European Affairs, U.S. Dept. of State, to Beth Stephens (Mar. 24, 1993) (Habib Letter). Counsel for the United Nations has also issued an opinion stating that although the United States must allow United Nations invitees access to the Headquarters District, invitees are not immune from legal process while in the United States at locations outside of the Headquarters District. See In re Galvao, [1963] U.N.Jur.Y.B. 164 (opinion of U.N. legal counsel); see also Restatement (Third) Sec. 469 reporter's note 8 (U.N. invitee is not immune from suit or legal process outside the headquarters district during his sojourn in the United States).
78 Karadzic nonetheless invites us to fashion a federal common law immunity for those within a judicial district as a United Nations invitee. He contends that such a rule is necessary to prevent private litigants from inhibiting the United Nations in its ability to consult with invited visitors. Karadzic analogizes his proposed rule to the government contacts exception to the District of Columbia's long-arm statute, which has been broadly characterized to mean that mere entry [into the District of Columbia] by non-residents for the purpose of contacting federal government agencies cannot serve as a basis for in personam jurisdiction, Rose v. Silver, 394 A.2d 1368, 1370 (D.C.1978); see also Naartex Consulting Corp. v. Watt, 722 F.2d 779, 785-87 (D.C.Cir.1983) (construing government contacts exception to District of Columbia's long-arm statute), cert. denied, 467 U.S. 1210, 104 S.Ct. 2399, 81 L.Ed.2d 355 (1984). He also points to a similar restriction upon assertion of personal jurisdiction on the basis of the presence of an individual who has entered a jurisdiction in order to attend court or otherwise engage in litigation. See generally 4 Charles A. Wright & Arthur R. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure Sec. 1076 (2d ed. 1987). 79 Karadzic also endeavors to find support for a common law immunity in our decision in Klinghoffer. Though, as noted above, Klinghoffer declined to extend the immunities of the Headquarters Agreement beyond those provided by its express provisions, the decision applied immunity considerations to its construction of New York's long-arm statute, N.Y.Civ.Prac.L. & R. 301 (McKinney 1990), in deciding whether the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was doing business in the state. Klinghoffer construed the concept of doing business to cover only those activities of the PLO that were not United Nations-related. See 937 F.2d at 51. 80 Despite the considerations that guided Klinghoffer in its narrowing construction of the general terminology of New York's long-arm statute as applied to United Nations activities, we decline the invitation to create a federal common law immunity as an extension of the precise terms of a carefully crafted treaty that struck the balance between the interests of the United Nations and those of the United States. 81 Finally, we note that the mere possibility that Karadzic might at some future date be recognized by the United States as the head of state of a friendly nation and might thereby acquire head-of-state immunity does not transform the appellants' claims into a nonjusticiable request for an advisory opinion, as the District Court intimated. Even if such future recognition, determined by the Executive Branch, see Lafontant, 844 F.Supp. at 133, would create head-of-state immunity, but see In re Doe, 860 F.2d 40, 45 (2d Cir.1988) (passage of Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act leaves scope of head-of-state immunity uncertain), it would be entirely inappropriate for a court to create the functional equivalent of such an immunity based on speculation about what the Executive Branch might do in the future. See Mexico v. Hoffman, 324 U.S. 30, 35, 65 S.Ct. 530, 532, 89 L.Ed. 729 (1945) ([I]t is the duty of the courts, in a matter so intimately associated with our foreign policy ..., not to enlarge an immunity to an extent which the government ... has not seen fit to recognize.). 82 In sum, if appellants personally served Karadzic with the summons and complaint while he was in New York but outside of the U.N. headquarters district, as they are prepared to prove, he is subject to the personal jurisdiction of the District Court.