Opinion ID: 2502147
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Waiver of Execution Immunity

Text: Petitioners submit that the district court nevertheless erred in failing to recognize that China had waived execution immunity under § 1610(a)(1) both by the commercial and tortious conduct underlying the Missouri default judgment and by its failure to appear in this proceeding and to assert sovereign immunity. We reject both waiver theories as inconsistent with the terms of the FSIA specifically and the doctrine of waiver generally.
The contention that China waived immunity from execution through the same alleged commercial and tortious conduct relied on by the Missouri district court to exercise § 1330(a) subject matter jurisdiction is incompatible with the text of the FSIA. Notably, in entertaining the Walters' suit against China, the district court for the Western District of Missouri did not find any waiver of jurisdictional immunity by the foreign state. See 28 U.S.C. § 1605(a)(1). Rather, it relied upon the FSIA's specific exceptions to jurisdictional immunity based upon commercial activity and tortious act or omission. Id. § 1605(a)(2), (a)(5). [12] As detailed in Part II.B.3, supra, the FSIA provides no similar exceptions to execution immunity on these grounds. See id. § 1610. A comparison of the plain language of § 1605 with § 1610, see Part II.B.3, supra, together with application of the construction principle expressio unius est exclusio alterius, see, e.g., Cordiano v. Metacon Gun Club, Inc., 575 F.3d 199, 221 (2d Cir.2009) (referring to familiar principle that the mention of one thing implies the exclusion of the other (internal quotation marks omitted)), defeats petitioners' attempt to use commercial or tortious conduct as the basis for a waiver of execution immunity. Indeed, petitioners' unsupported assertion that China's commercial activities in the United States constitute[] a waiver of immunity not only from jurisdiction, but also of immunity from execution, Appellants' Br. at 31, mistakenly conflates jurisdiction and execution immunity, compare 28 U.S.C. §§ 1604-1607, with id. §§ 1609-1611. As previously discussed in Part II. B.3, supra, the FSIA's distinct treatment of these two types of immunity indicates that a waiver of immunity from suit does not imply a waiver of immunity from attachment of property, and vice versa. Restatement (Third) of Foreign Relations Law of the United States § 456(1)(b); see also Ministry of Def. & Support for Armed Forces of Islamic Republic of Iran v. Cubic Def. Sys., Inc., 385 F.3d at 1218-19. The narrower scope of jurisdictional immunity under §§ 1604-1607, relative to the scope of execution immunity under §§ 1609-1611, reinforces this point. See De Letelier v. Republic of Chile, 748 F.2d at 798-99. Petitioners identify no basis in law to conclude that any of China's U.S.-directed conduct should be deemed a waiver of execution immunity, as distinct from jurisdictional immunity. First City, Texas-Houston, N.A. v. Rafidain Bank, 281 F.3d 48 (2d Cir.2002), cited by petitioners, does not support their position. There, we held that a waiver [of jurisdictional immunity] by a foreign state under section 1605(a)(2), rendering it a party to an action, is broad enough to sustain the court's jurisdiction through proceedings to aid collection of a money judgment rendered in the case, including discovery pertaining to the judgment debtor's assets. Id. at 53-54. Petitioners contend that jurisdiction through proceedings to aid collection of a money judgment necessarily includes jurisdiction to enforce a judgment through attachment or execution. Whether or not that is correct, the existence of subject-matter jurisdiction alone does not entitle petitioners to execute upon sovereign assets. In First City we held that subject-matter jurisdiction, once established through the applicability of an exception to jurisdictional immunity under § 1605, continues through post-judgment enforcement proceedings, including discovery of assets that might be subject to attachment or execution. We did not, however, hold that a waiver of jurisdictional immunity reaches beyond the discovery of such assets to waive the execution immunity that might attach to the property itself. Indeed, the structure of the FSIA, clearly separating these two types of immunity, precludes reading First City to entail that jurisdiction over China for purposes of petitioners' underlying claims also entitles petitioners to execute against any property of China to enforce the Missouri default judgment. Accordingly, we reject this prong of petitioners' waiver argument.
The contention that China implicitly waived execution immunity by failing to appear in this turnover proceeding is equally unavailing. To be sure, the FSIA provides that immunity is lost if the foreign state has waived its immunity from attachment in aid of execution or from execution either explicitly or by implication.  28 U.S.C. § 1610(a)(1) (emphasis added). But such a waiver, whether explicit or implicit, requires the  intentional relinquishment of a known right. Schipani v. McLeod, 541 F.3d 158, 159 n. 3 (2d Cir.2008) (emphasis in original; internal quotation marks omitted). Nothing in the text of the FSIA signals that Congress intended any lesser standard for the waiver of sovereign immunity. To the contrary, the legislative history of § 1610(a)(1) indicates that Congress contemplated that waiver of execution immunity would be accomplished by some affirmative act of the foreign sovereign: A foreign state may have waived its immunity from execution, inter alia, by the provisions of a treaty, a contract, an official statement, or certain steps taken by the foreign state in the proceedings leading to judgment or to execution. H.R.Rep. No. 94-1487, at 28, 1976 U.S.C.C.A.N. 6604, 6632. A mere failure to appear is not a sufficiently affirmative act to indicate intentional relinquishment of immunity, particularly not in this case where China has consistently maintained its jurisdictional and execution immunity in diplomatic communications. See Rubin v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 637 F.3d at 800 n. 17 (noting in execution immunity context that Seventh Circuit had rejected the notion that a foreign state's failure to make an appearance before the court could itself constitute an implicit waiver of sovereign immunity). Comparison with decisions in the jurisdictional immunity context confirms this view. See H.R.Rep. No. 94-1487, at 28 (stating that waivers of execution immunity under § 1610(a)(1) are governed by the same principles that apply to waivers of immunity from jurisdiction under section 1605(a)(1)). In that area, our precedent instructs that the implied waiver provision of Section 1605(a)(1) must be construed narrowly. Smith v. Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, 101 F.3d 239, 243 (2d Cir.1996) (internal quotation marks omitted). Accordingly, we have been reluctant to identify a waiver of jurisdictional immunity in the absence of an affirmative indication of a conscious decision by the foreign sovereign. See, e.g., Shapiro v. Republic of Bolivia, 930 F.2d 1013, 1017 (2d Cir.1991) (noting that legislative history of § 1605(a)(1) provides examples of waiver involving circumstances in which the waiver was unmistakable, and that courts have been reluctant to find an implied waiver where the circumstances were not similarly unambiguous (citing H.R.Rep. No. 94-1487, at 18, 1976 U.S.C.C.A.N. 6604, 6623)); see also Rodriguez v. Transnave Inc., 8 F.3d 284, 287 (5th Cir.1993); Frolova v. U.S.S.R., 761 F.2d at 378. Indeed, we have declined to find waiver of jurisdictional immunity in much closer cases than the present one. See, e.g., Cabiri v. Gov't of Republic of Ghana, 165 F.3d 193, 201-03 (2d Cir.1999) (holding that foreign state's initiation of eviction action in United States did not impliedly waive jurisdictional immunity with respect to unrelated counterclaims); Canadian Overseas Ores Ltd. v. Compania de Acero del Pacifico S.A., 727 F.2d 274, 277-78 (2d Cir.1984) (finding no waiver of sovereign immunity where foreign state engaged in motion practice but had not yet filed responsive pleading). Accordingly, we also reject this prong of petitioners' waiver argument, and conclude that there is no merit to petitioners' claim that China waived execution immunity so as to require reversal of the challenged dismissal.