The Supreme Court ruled that Sudan cannot avoid punitive damages related to terrorist bombings against U.S. embassies in 1998.
On Monday, the high court ruled 8-0 to overrule a lower court decision that exempted Sudan from paying punitive damages after families of victims sued the African nation for allegedly providing material support to al Qaeda, the terror group responsible for the bombings.
The case, Opati v. Republic of Sudan, stems from the targeted bombings against U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, by the terror group al Qaeda in 1998. The families of victims sued beginning in 2001 under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, which was made effective in 1977.
Sudan originally did not appear to defend itself in court in the case, emboldening District Judge John Bates to side with the victims in the case. The district court awarded $10.2 billion in damages, with approximately $4.3 billion consisting of punitive damages. Sudan appealed the decision on compensatory damages.
In 2017, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals also found Sudan liable for the attacks but determined that punitive damages could not be applied retroactively. The Supreme Court diverged from the decision by pointing to two amendments made to the law in 1996 and in 2008 that allow plaintiffs to sue countries that participate in or support acts of terrorism.
Conservative Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch, President Trump’s first nominee for the high court, delivered the opinion for the majority.
“Congress proceeded in two equally evident steps: (1) It expressly authorized punitive damages under a new cause of action; and (2) it explicitly made that new cause of action available to remedy certain past acts of terrorism,” Gorsuch wrote in the bench’s decision. “Neither step presents any ambiguity, nor is the NDAA fairly susceptible to any competing interpretation.”
In the decision, Gorsuch recognized that the high court’s decision on punitive damages will “raise serious constitutional questions” for future cases but maintained the law “clearly authorizes retroactive punitive damages.”
“How much clearer-than-clear should we require Congress to be when authorizing the retroactive use of punitive damages?” Gorsuch wrote.
Conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh did not participate in the case.
