Quinn Emanuel Wins Sweeping Cisco Case as High Court Sharply Narrows ATS Litigation Against Corporations
Quinn Emanuel capped a 15-year battle for its client Cisco Systems Inc. with a sweeping victory at the U.S. Supreme Court, which sharply curbed the application of the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) – a 1789 law that plaintiffs have been using for decades to sue corporations for doing business in countries with poor human rights records.
Plaintiffs who allege they suffered violations of international law abroad generally can’t sue the foreign governments in U.S. courts due to sovereign immunity. As a result, many have invoked the ATS to allege that private companies aided and abetted those foreign governments’ human rights violations. In this case, Cisco was sued by Chinese nationals who practice Falun Gong, who alleged that while in China they were subjected to acts of brutality, torture, forced labor, and other human rights abuses by Chinese security forces.
They brought their suit in U.S. federal court under the theory that Cisco allegedly aided and abetted the Chinese government’s persecution of Falun Gong members by selling it networking equipment that enabled Chinese security forces to locate, monitor and imprison them.
A 2004 Supreme Court decision, Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, had held that the ATS was written with the intent to provide a U.S. forum for the three original torts envisioned by Congress in 1789: piracy, violation of safe conducts, and infringement of the rights of ambassadors. But Sosa left the door “ajar” for additional ATS claims, generating a raft of litigation against U.S. corporations for aiding and abetting violations of international law, ranging from IBM to Coca-Cola to the U.S. auto industry – and tech companies like Cisco.
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court firmly closed that door in a six-justice opinion written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett. The court held that the ATS doesn’t permit the judicial creation of new private causes of action for torts in violation of international law, and is limited to the three original torts envisioned by Congress more than two centuries ago. It noted that ATS suits beyond those three torts implicate foreign policy concerns and infringe the separation of powers, as the creation of private causes of action is a legislative, not a judicial, task. The court ordered the dismissal of the plaintiffs’ ATS claims.
In addition, one plaintiff brought claims against two former Cisco executives, in their individual capacities, under the Torture Victim Protection Act (TVPA) for allegedly aiding and abetting Chinese government torture of Falun Gong members. On this claim, the Supreme Court, in an 8-1 decision, again ruled in Cisco’s favor and dismissed the claims, holding that the TVPA by its own terms doesn’t recognize TVPA claims premised on aiding-and-abetting allegations.
Quinn Emanuel partners Chris Michel and Todd Anten filed the successful cert petition that led to Tuesday’s Supreme Court ruling, after the firm (and retired partner Kathleen Sullivan) had litigated the case for Cisco in the Northern District of California and at the Ninth Circuit. Notably, the cert petition was granted even though there was no circuit split on the ATS or TVPA issues, highlighting the breadth and importance of Tuesday’s decision.