Opinion ID: 78456
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Plaintiffs' Allegations of Murder and Torture

Text: Plaintiffs contend Colombia has experienced pervasive civil unrest stemming from a longstanding civil war involving armed leftist groups on one side and the Colombian military, as well as right-wing paramilitaries, on the other. Since 1986, when the largest trade union confederation in Colombia was formed, over 4,000 trade unionists have been murdered. Plaintiffs describe the violent persecution of trade unionists in Colombia as reaching epidemic proportions for many years. Plaintiffs also contend they do not have access to an independent or functioning legal system in Colombia, because they suggest the country is not governed by the rule of law. It is against this backdrop that Plaintiffs' claims arise. Plaintiffs do not allege any defendant caused or precipitated the violence; rather, Defendants are accused of capitalizing on the hostile environment and conspiring with paramilitaries, or the local police in the case of Garcia, to rid their respective bottling facilities of unions. Plaintiffs each brought claims under the ATS and TVPA. [14] Again, federal subject matter jurisdiction exists for an ATS claim when the following three elements are satisfied: (1) an alien (2) sues for a tort (3) committed in violation of the law of nations. Aldana, 416 F.3d at 1246. In this case, as in most ATS cases, the only issue is whether Plaintiffs have satisfactorily pled a violation of the law of nations. See Kadic, 70 F.3d at 238 (There is no federal subject-matter jurisdiction under the Alien Tort Act unless the complaint adequately pleads a violation of the law of nations (or treaty of the United States).). A TVPA claim requires the following three elements: (1) an individual (2) committed torture or extrajudicial killing (3) under actual or apparent authority, or color of law, of any foreign nation. 28 U.S.C. § 1350 note § 2(a). Failure to plead any of the elements of a TVPA claim results in a failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, Romero, 552 F.3d at 1315 ([D]efects in pleading claims under the Torture Act are not jurisdictional defects[, rather t]hese pleading issues involve stating claims on which relief can be granted and should be raised in motions filed under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6).), not a lack of subject matter jurisdiction. ATS claims generally require allegations of state action because the law of nations are the rules of conduct that govern the affairs of a nation, acting in its national capacity, in relations with another nation, Cohen, 634 F.2d at 319, whereas TVPA claims, by statutory definition, always require allegations of actual or apparent authority, or color of law. Compare ATS, 28 U.S.C. § 1350, with TVPA, 28 U.S.C. § 1350 note § 2(a); see also Aldana, 416 F.3d at 1247 (State-sponsored torture, unlike torture by private actors, likely violates international law and is therefore actionable under the Alien Tort Act.). [15]
For subject matter jurisdiction to entertain Plaintiffs' ATS claims, the complaints must sufficiently plead (1) the paramilitaries were state actors or were sufficiently connected to the Colombian government so they were acting under color of law (or that the war crimes exception to the state action requirement applies) [16] and (2) the Defendants, or their agents, conspired with the state actors, or those acting under color of law, in carrying out the tortious acts. A failure to allege either of these two relationships is fatal to Plaintiffs' ATS claims.
In Gil, Galvis, and Leal, paramilitary officers are alleged to have perpetrated murder and torture, which form the basis of their ATS claims. These plaintiffs allege the paramilitary are permitted to exist and are assisted by the Colombian government. Additionally, the plaintiffs allege [i]t is universally acknowledged that the regular military and the civil government authorities in Colombia tolerate the paramilitaries, allow them to operate, and often cooperate, protect and/or work in concert with them. These plaintiffs also contend the paramilitaries are state actors who had a symbiotic relationship with the Colombian military and thus operated under color of law. The plaintiffs' conclusory allegation that the paramilitary security forces acted under color of law is not entitled to be assumed true and is insufficient to allege state-sponsored action. See Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. at 1951. Colombia's mere registration and toleration of private security forces does not transform those forces' acts into state acts. Aldana, 416 F.3d at 1248. Allegations the Colombian government tolerated and permitted the paramilitary forces to exist are insufficient to plead the paramilitary forces were state actors. The plaintiffs make the naked allegation the paramilitaries were in a symbiotic relationship with the Colombian government and thus were state actors. Nevertheless, in testing the sufficiency of the plaintiff's allegations, we do not credit such conclusory allegations as true. See Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. at 1951. We demand allegations of a symbiotic relationship that involves the torture or killing alleged in the complaint to satisfy the requirement of state action. Romero, 552 F.3d at 1317. There is no suggestion the Colombian government was involved in, much less aware of, the murder and torture alleged in the complaints. The plaintiffs' formulaic recitation, Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555, 127 S.Ct. at 1965, that the paramilitary forces were in a symbiotic relationship and were assisted by the Colombian government, absent any factual allegations to support this legal conclusion, is insufficient to state an allegation of state action that is plausible on its face. See Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. at 1950. [17] Our inquiry does not stop here, however, because, under the ATS, the plaintiffs need not plead state action for claims of torture and murder perpetrated in the course of war crimes. See Kadic, 70 F.3d at 242-43 (holding war crimes committed in the course of hostilities violated fundamental international law and thus were actionable under the ATS). [18] Some acts, such as torture and murder committed in the course of war crimes, violate the law of nations regardless of whether the perpetrator acted under color of law of a foreign nation or only as a private individual. Romero, 552 F.3d at 1316; Kadic, 70 F.3d at 239, 243 ([T]orture and summary executionwhen not perpetrated in the course of genocide or war crimesare proscribed by international law only when committed by state officials or under color of law.). The war crimes exception dispenses with the state action requirement for claims under the ATS. Having failed to connect the paramilitaries with the Colombian government, the plaintiffs advance a second theory and argue the alleged murder and torture occurred during the course of an armed civil conflict, thereby constituting war crimes that negate the need for state action. The plaintiffs suggest the war crimes exception should apply to plaintiffs' murder and torture because, as non-combatants in a civil war, they were targeted for violence to further Defendants' business interests in becoming union-free, and the use of open violence to accomplish this end occurred as a result of a raging civil war. We conclude the war crimes exception to the state action requirement is not applicable to the plaintiffs because the alleged murder and torture was not committed in the course of a civil war. We reject the plaintiffs' argument that it is sufficient for the purposes of ATS jurisdiction that the violation perpetrated by a non-state actor merely occur during an armed civil conflict. If the war crimes exception to the state action requirement permitted all non-state torture claims occurring during a period of civil disorder, federal courts would be open to lawsuits occurring during any period of civil unrest in a foreign country. The Supreme Court's reminder to exercise vigilant doorkeeping persuades us the war crimes exception applies only to claims of non-state torture that were perpetrated in the course of hostilities. See Sosa, 542 U.S. at 729, 124 S.Ct. at 2764; Kadic, 70 F.3d at 242-43. In this case there is no suggestion the plaintiffs' murder and torture was perpetrated because of the ongoing civil war or in the course of civil war clashes. The civil war provided the background for the unfortunate events that unfolded, but the civil war did not precipitate the violence that befell the plaintiffs. In sum, the war crimes exception is not applicable to the plaintiffs; thus they must sufficiently allege state action. And as discussed above, the plaintiffs have not sufficiently pled state action. Accordingly, we conclude the district court did not err in dismissing the ATS claims in the Gil, Galvis, and Leal complaints for lack of federal subject matter jurisdiction.
In Garcia, the complaint alleges a conspiracy between the local police, rather than paramilitary officers, and the bottling facility's management. Plaintiffs Luis Eduardo Garcia, Alvaro Gonzalez, and José Domingo Flores are three members of the local union executive board. In 1995, plaintiffs participated in a 120-hour strike against the Panamco Colombia bottling facility in Bucaramanga, after Panamco reneged on its obligations under a labor agreement with the union. Shortly after the strike, the plaintiffs allege the chief of security for the Bucaramanga facility, José Alejo Aponte, falsely told the local police he found a bomb in the facility, and he accused five members of the local union executive board, including Garcia, Gonzalez, and Flores, of planting the bomb. On March 6, 1996, the police arrested the three men. While in transit to the jail, Flores was repeatedly and brutally beaten by police and was threatened at gun point. As a result of the false charges filed by Aponte, the plaintiffs were incarcerated in a filthy and dangerous Colombian prison for six months. They were released after a regional prosecutor found the charges to be completely without basis. The plaintiffs allege Aponte's plan necessarily required the cooperation and complicity of the arresting police officers, since the officers had to be willing to arrest and imprison the union leaders without any evidence of the non-existent bomb. Therefore, [b]ased on information and belief, the plaintiffs allege Aponte conspired with the arresting police officers to unlawfully arrest, detain, and imprison the plaintiffs. We reiterate that to state a plausible claim for relief, the plaintiffs must plead factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged. Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. at 1949. Rule 8(a)(2) requires a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief, in order to give the defendant fair notice of what the ... claim is and the grounds upon which it rests. Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555, 127 S.Ct. at 1964. At the same time, however, the complaint must plead more than an unadorned, the-defendant-unlawfully-harmed-me. Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. at 1949. Furthermore, unwarranted deductions of fact in a complaint are not admitted as true for the purpose of testing the sufficiency of the allegations. Aldana, 416 F.3d at 1248, and the facts as pled must state a claim for relief that is plausible on its face, see Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. at 1950. Here, the Garcia plaintiffs' attenuated chain of conspiracy fails to nudge their claims across the line from conceivable to plausible. Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570, 127 S.Ct. at 1974. First, while the plaintiffs allege Aponte's plan necessarily required the cooperation and complicity of the arresting police officers, we are not required to admit as true this unwarranted deduction of fact. Second, the plaintiffs' allegations of conspiracy are based on information and belief, and fail to provide any factual content that allows us to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged. Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. at 1949. Specifically, these plaintiffs allege [t]he basis for the conspiracy was either that Aponte arranged to provide payment to the officers for their participation, or that the officers had a shared purpose with Aponte to unlawfully arrest and detain Plaintiffs because they were union officials and had been branded by Panamco officials as leftist guerillas. The premise for the conspiracy is alleged to be either payment of money or a shared ideology. The vague and conclusory nature of these allegations is insufficient to state a claim for relief, and will not do. Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555, 127 S.Ct. at 1965. Furthermore, the complaint fails to allege when or with whom Aponte entered into a conspiracy to arrest, detain, and harm the plaintiffs. The scope of the conspiracy and its participants are undefined. There are no allegations the treatment the plaintiffs received at the hands of the local police and in prison was within the scope of the conspiracy. Additionally, assuming Aponte even conspired with the local police to arrest the plaintiffs, this action alone is insufficient to form the basis of an ATS claim, see Sosa, 542 U.S. at 738, 124 S.Ct. at 2769 (holding a single illegal detention of less than a day, followed by the transfer of custody to lawful authorities and a prompt arraignment, violates no norm of customary international law so well defined as to support the creation of a federal remedy), and there is no allegation the subsequent six-month imprisonment and mistreatment was part of the conspiracy. The Garcia plaintiffs, thus, fail to state a plausible claim for relief against the Panamco Defendants for a violation of the law of nations. See 28 U.S.C. § 1350. We conclude the district court did not err in dismissing the ATS claims in the Garcia complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.
Plaintiffs allege the same operative facts that gave rise to ATS violations also gave rise to TVPA violations. It is not uncommon for plaintiffs to assert ATS and TVPA claims together. See, e.g., Romero, 552 F.3d at 1309 (asserting ATS and TVPA claims based on the same operative facts); Aldana, 416 F.3d at 1246 (same); Khulumani v. Barclay Nat. Bank Ltd., 504 F.3d 254 (2d Cir.2007) (same); Beanal v. Freeport-McMoran, Inc., 197 F.3d 161 (5th Cir.1999) (same). The district court determined there was no subject matter jurisdiction for the ATS claims, and because ATS jurisdiction was lacking, the court concluded the TVPA claims also failed for want of subject matter jurisdiction. Sinaltrainal II, 474 F.Supp.2d at 1301 (Claims for torture may be entertained [under the TVPA] only if they fall within the jurisdiction conferred by the AT[S].). We conclude the district court erred in dismissing the TVPA claims for want of subject matter jurisdiction because jurisdiction over the TVPA claims is conferred by 28 U.S.C. § 1331 in this case. See Romero, 552 F.3d at 1315. Therefore our inquiry is not whether subject matter jurisdiction is lacking, but whether the TVPA claims state a claim for relief. [19] In other words, relief from a complaint that fails to sufficiently plead the elements of a TVPA claim should be raised in a motion filed under Rule 12(b)(6), rather than 12(b)(1). See Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Env't, 523 U.S. 83, 96, 118 S.Ct. 1003, 1013, 140 L.Ed.2d 210 (1998) (explaining the nonexistence of a cause of action was no proper basis for a jurisdictional dismissal); see also Williamson v. Tucker, 645 F.2d 404, 415 (5th Cir. May 20, 1981) (Judicial economy is best promoted when the existence of a federal right is directly reached and, where no claim is found to exist, the case is dismissed on the merits.). To survive a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted on the TVPA claims, Plaintiffs must sufficiently allege (1) the paramilitaries were state actors or were sufficiently connected to the Colombian government so they were acting under color of law and (2) the Defendants, or their agents, conspired with the state actors, or those acting under color of law, in carrying out the state-sponsored torture. See 28 U.S.C. § 1350 note § 2(a). Plaintiffs failed to do so. As discussed above, the Gil, Galvis, and Leal plaintiffs fail to sufficiently plead the paramilitary forces were acting under color of law. Mere toleration of the paramilitary forces does not transform such forces' acts into state acts, Aldana, 416 F.3d at 1248; moreover there are no allegations the Colombian government was aware of, much less complicit in, the murder and torture Plaintiffs allege in their complaints. Additionally, the Garcia plaintiffs fail to sufficiently allege the Panamco Defendants, or their agents, conspired with the local police in carrying out the alleged torture. The Garcia plaintiffs' vague and conclusory allegations of a conspiracy do not state a claim for relief that is plausible on its face, see Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. at 1950, and they fail to detail any factual allegations to raise a right to relief above the speculative level, Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555, 127 S.Ct. at 1965. We, therefore, vacate the district court's dismissal of the TVPA claims for want of jurisdiction and instruct the court to dismiss the TVPA claims for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.