Supreme Court Upholds Law for Terrorism Victims

On Friday, the Supreme Court confirmed a law allowing Americans injured by terrorist acts in the Middle East to sue Palestinian leadership groups in U.S. courts for damages.

The unanimous ruling indicated that the promotion of security and justice for the Terrorist Victims Act (PSJVTA) does not infringe upon the due-process rights of the Palestinian Authorities (PA) and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), despite requiring their acknowledgment of federal court jurisdiction.

This decision enables lawsuits from U.S. victims of terrorist attacks in Israel to proceed within American legal systems.

The ruling reversed a decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, which had found that the law denied fair legal proceedings for the Palestinian groups, instructing the lower court to handle future cases in line with this ruling.

Judge John Roberts noted, “The PSJVTA involves the United States and reasonably links federal jurisdiction claims over the PLO and PA, encompassing sensitive foreign policy matters.”

He added that the jurisdictional provisions of the statute are consistent with the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment.

Congress introduced this law in 2019, aimed at allowing victims to advance their cases against the PA and PLO, following a series of court decisions that had previously deemed the victims’ families lacked jurisdiction to pursue their lawsuits.

Two Justice Department appeals and a case from the family of Ali Fuld, an Israeli-American fatally attacked in a West Bank shopping mall in 2018, were consolidated for discussion in April.

The Justice Department suggested that should Congress compensate terrorist representatives responsible for harming Americans or maintain specific presences in the U.S., it would open the PA and PLO to civil lawsuits.

Elizabeth Pleger, a former U.S. attorney involved in the Biden administration, stated in court documents that they identified deficiencies in the strict application of this law.

The Biden administration initially got involved in the Fuldo case, which saw support from both parties, including a friend’s brief endorsed by Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), alongside another case initiated by 11 Americans against Palestinian leadership in 2015.

In April, Deputy Attorney General Edwin Needler contended that under the Trump administration, both the legislative and administrative branches had concurred that acknowledging federal court jurisdiction would discourage terrorism and not enable the PLO to evade justice. He emphasized that the judiciary should respect this assessment.

Lawyers for the PA and PLO argued that individual jurisdiction exceeds what Congress can dictate. They referenced copyright infringement as an example, asserting that it was never assumed that pirates would escape legal action in the U.S. simply due to Congressional absence.

“That was never the law,” attorney Mitchell Berger remarked.