Court Opinion

ID: 9429255
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:26:14.461506+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:18.400344
License: Public Domain

Justice Stevens,
with whom Justice Brennan and Justice Blackmun join,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
Today the Court correctly rejects the contention that American courts should readily “pierce the corporate veils” of separate juridical entities established by foreign governments to perform governmental functions. Accordingly, I join Parts I, II, III-A, and III-B of the Court’s opinion. But I respectfully dissent from Part III — C, in which the Court endeavors to apply the general principles it has enunciated. Instead I would vacate the judgment and remand the case to the Court of Appeals for further proceedings.
As the Court acknowledges, the evidence presented to the District Court did not focus on the factual issue that the Court now determines to be dispositive. Only a single witness testified on matters relating to Bancec’s legal status and operational autonomy. The record before the District Court also included English translations of various Cuban statutes and resolutions, but there was no expert testimony on the *635significance of those foreign legal documents. Finally, as the Court notes, the record includes a July 1961 stipulation of the parties and a May 1975 affidavit by counsel for respondent. Ante, at 616-617, n. 3. It is clear to me that the materials of record that have been made available to this Court are not sufficient to enable us to determine the rights of the parties.
The Court relies heavily on the District Court’s statement that “the devolution of [Bancec’s] claim, however viewed, brings it into the hands of the Ministry [of Foreign Trade], or Banco Nacional.” But that statement should not be given dispositive significance, for the District Court made no inquiry into the capacity in which either entity might have taken Bancec’s claim. If the Ministry of Foreign Trade held the claim on its own account, arguably the Cuban Government could be subject to Citibank’s setoff. But it is clear that the Ministry held the claim for six days at most, during the interval between the promulgation of Laws No. 930 and No. 934 on February 23, 1961, and the issuance of Resolution No. 1 on March 1. It is thus possible that these legal documents reflected a single, integrated plan of corporate reorganization carried out over a 6-day period, which resulted in the vesting of specified assets of Bancec in a new, juridically autonomous corporation, Empresa.1 Respondent argues *636that the Ministry played the role of a trustee, “entrusted and legally bound to transfer Bancec’s assets to the new empresa [foreign trade enterprise]. . . . The Republic having acted as a trustee, there could be no counterclaim based upon its acts in an individual capacity.” Brief for Respondent 57.
Of course, the Court may have reached a correct assessment of the transactions at issue. But I continue to believe that the Court should not decide factual issues that can be resolved more accurately and effectively by other federal judges, particularly when the record presented to this Court is so sparse and uninformative.2

 Law No. 930 provided, in part, that Bancec’s “trade functions will be assumed by the foreign trade enterprises or houses of the Ministry of Foreign Trade,” App. to Pet. for Cert. 16d; App. 104. Law No. 934, correspondingly, stated: “All the functions of a mercantile character heretofore assigned to said Foreign Trade Bank of Cuba are hereby transferred and vested in the foreign trade enterprises or houses set up hereunder, which are subrogated to the rights and obligations of said former Bank in pursuance of the assignment of those functions ordered by the Minister.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 24d. The preamble of Resolution No. 1 of 1961, issued on March 1,1961, explained that Law No. 934 had provided “that all functions of a commercial nature that were assigned to the former Cuban Bank for Foreign Trade are attributed to the enterprises or foreign trade houses which are subrogated in the rights and obligations of said Bank.” Nothing in the affidavit filed by respondent in May 1975 elucidates the precise nature of these transactions, or explains how Bancec’s former trading functions were exercised during the 6-day interval. App. 132-137.

 Nor do I agree that a contrary result “would cause such an injustice.” Ante, at 632. Petitioner is only one of many American citizens whose property was nationalized by the Cuban Government. It seeks to minimize its losses by retaining $193,280.30 that a purchaser of Cuban sugar had deposited with it for the purpose of paying for the merchandise, which was delivered in due course. Having won this lawsuit, petitioner will simply retain that money. If petitioner’s contentions in this case had been rejected, the money would be placed in a fund comprised of frozen Cuban assets, to be distributed equitably among all the American victims of Cuban nationalizations. Ante, at 632, n. 24. Even though petitioner has suffered a serious injustice at the hands of the Cuban Government, no special equities militate in favor of giving this petitioner a preference over all other victims simply because of its participation in a discrete, completed, commercial transaction involving the sale of a load of Cuban sugar.