Mamani v. Berzain
| Decision Date | 29 August 2011 |
| Docket Number | Nos. 09–16246,10–13071.,s. 09–16246 |
| Parties | Eloy Rojas MAMANI, Etelvina Romas Mamani, Sonia Espejo Villalobos, Hernan Apaza Cutipa, Juan Patricio Quispe Mamani, et al., Plaintiffs–Appellees,v.Jose Carlos Sanchez BERZAIN, Defendant–Appellant.Eloy Royas Mamani, Warisata, Bolivia, Etelvina Ramos Mamani, Warisata, Bolivia, Sonia Espejo Villalobos, El Alto, Bolivia, Juan Patricio Quispe Mamani, El Alto, Bolivia, Teofilo Baltazar Cerro, El Alto, Bolivia, et al., Plaintiffs–Appellees,v.Gonzalo Daniel Sanchez de Lozada Sanchez Bustamante, Defendant–Appellant.Eloy Royas Mamani, Warisata, Bolivia, Etelvina Ramos Mamani, Warisata, Bolivia, Sonia Espejo Villalobos, El Alto, Bolivia, Hernan Apaza Cutipa, Juan Patricio Quispe Mamani, El Alto, Bolivia, et al., Plaintiffs–Appellees,v.Jose Carlos Sanchez Berzain, Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada Sanchez Bustamante, Defendants–Appellants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Kannon Kumar Shanmugam, Ana Cecilia Reyes, Kevin M. Downey, Williams & Connolly, LLP, Washington, DC, Jack Landman Goldsmith, III, Alan M. Dershowitz, Harvard Law School, Cambridge, MA, Eliot Pedrosa, Andres Nicholas Rubinoff, Mark Paul Schnapp, Greenberg Traurig, LLP, Miami, FL, for Defendants–Appellants.Michael C. Small, Jeremy Bollinger, Tobias Eli Zimmerman, Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, LLP, Los Angeles, CA, Tyler Richard Giannini, Susan Hannah Farbstein, Intern. Human Rights Clinic, James L. Cavallaro, Harvard Law School, Intern. Human Rights Clinic, Human Rights Program, Cambridge, MA, Judith B. Chomsky, Elkins Park, PA, Jennifer M. Green, Ctr. for Const. Rights, New York City, Paul L. Hoffman, Schonbrun, De Simone, Seplow, Harris & Hoffman, LLP, Venice, CA, Ira J. Kurzban, Kurzban, Kurzban, Weinger, Tetzeli & Pratt, PA, Miami, FL, David Rudovsky, Kairys, Rudovsky, Messing & Feinberg, LLP, Philadelphia, PA, Steven H. Schulman, Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, LLP, Washington, DC, Beth Stephens, Rutgers Law School, Camden, NJ, for Plaintiffs–Appellees.Appeals from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida.Before EDMONDSON and MARCUS, Circuit Judges, and FAWSETT,* District Judge.EDMONDSON, Circuit Judge:
Plaintiffs are the relatives of persons killed in Bolivia in 2003. All are citizens and residents of Bolivia. Plaintiffs bring suit under the Alien Tort Statute (“ATS”) against two of the former highest-level leaders of Bolivia—the former president of Bolivia, Gonzalo Daniel Sánchez de Lozada Sánchez Bustamante (“President”), and the former defense minister of Bolivia, José Carlos Sánchez Berzaín (“Defense Minister,” and together with the President, “defendants”)—for decisions these leaders allegedly made while in high office. Given the indefinite state of the pertinent international law and the conclusory pleadings, we decide that plaintiffs have failed to state a claim against these defendants.
Plaintiffs' claims arise out of a time of severe civil unrest and political upheaval in Bolivia—involving thousands of people, mainly indigenous Aymara people—which ultimately led to an abrupt change in government. Briefly stated, a series of confrontations occurred between military and police forces and protesters. Large numbers of protesters were blocking major highways, preventing travelers from returning to La Paz, and threatening the capital's access to gas and presumably other needed things. Over two months, during the course of police and military operations to restore order, some people were killed and more were injured. The President ultimately resigned his responsibilities, and defendants withdrew from Bolivia. The entire complaint is attached as an appendix to this opinion.
Plaintiffs filed suit in federal district court against the President and Defense Minister personally but on account of their alleged acts as highest-level military and police officials. Plaintiffs do not contend that defendants personally killed or injured anyone. In their corrected amended consolidated complaint (“Complaint”), plaintiffs brought claims under the ATS, asserting that defendants violated international law by committing extrajudicial killings; by perpetrating crimes against humanity; and by violating rights to life, liberty, security of person, freedom of assembly, and freedom of association.1 Plaintiffs sought compensatory and punitive damages.
Defendants moved to dismiss, asserting that the Complaint raised political questions; that the act-of-state doctrine barred resolution of the suit; and that defendants were immune from suit under common law head-of-state immunity and the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. Defendants also argued that plaintiffs failed to state a claim under the ATS and that plaintiffs' state law claims failed under both Maryland and Florida law.
The United States government notified the district court that it had received a diplomatic note from the current government of Bolivia in which the government of Bolivia formally waived any immunity that defendants might otherwise enjoy. The United States government accepted the waiver but took no official position on the litigation.
The district court granted in part and denied in part defendants' motion to dismiss.2 Defendants petitioned this Court for permission to bring an interlocutory appeal. We granted defendants' petition and allowed them to appeal the issue of the applicability of the political question doctrine and the issue of whether plaintiffs had stated a claim under the ATS.3 We now reverse and conclude that plaintiffs have failed to state a plausible claim for relief against these defendants.
On appeal, defendants argue that plaintiffs' suit is barred by the political question doctrine, that plaintiffs have failed to state a claim under the ATS, and that defendants are immune from suit. We conclude that plaintiffs have failed to plead facts sufficient to state a claim under the ATS against these defendants.4
The ATS is no license for judicial innovation. Just the opposite, the federal courts must act as vigilant doorkeepers and exercise great caution when deciding either to recognize new causes of action under the ATS or to broaden existing causes of action. See Sosa v. Alvarez–Machain, 542 U.S. 692, 124 S.Ct. 2739, 2764, 159 L.Ed.2d 718 (2004). “[C]ourts should require any claim based on the present-day law of nations to rest on a norm of international character accepted by the civilized world and defined with a specificity comparable to [violation of safe conducts, infringement of the rights of ambassadors, and piracy].” Id. at 2761–62 (emphasis added). This standard is a high one.
For a violation of international law to be actionable under the ATS, the offense must be based on present day, very widely accepted interpretations of international law: the specific things the defendant is alleged to have done must violate what the law already clearly is. High levels of generality will not do.
To determine whether the applicable international law is sufficiently definite, we look to the context of the case before us and ask whether established international law had already defined defendants' conduct as wrongful in that specific context. See id. at 2768 n. 27. Claims lacking sufficient specificity must fail. See id. at 2769 ().
We do not look at these ATS cases from a moral perspective, but from a legal one. We do not decide what constitutes desirable government practices. We know and worry about the foreign policy implications of civil actions in federal courts against the leaders (even the former ones) of nations. And we accept that we must exercise particular caution when considering a claim that a former head of state acted unlawfully in governing his country's own citizens. “It is one thing for American courts to enforce constitutional limits on our own State and Federal Governments' power, but quite another to consider suits under rules that would go so far as to claim a limit on the power of foreign governments over their own citizens, and to hold that a foreign government or its agent has transgressed those limits.” Id. at 2763. Although “modern international law is very much concerned with just such questions, and apt to stimulate calls for vindicating private interests in [ATS] cases,” the Supreme Court instructs us that federal courts are to exercise “great caution” when deciding ATS claims. Id.
Broadly speaking, this Court has decided that “crimes against humanity” and “extrajudicial killings” may give rise to a cause of action under the ATS. See, e.g., Romero v. Drummond Co., 552 F.3d 1303, 1316 (11th Cir.2008) (); Cabello v. Fernandez–Larios, 402 F.3d 1148, 1151–52 (11th Cir.2005) (). But general propositions do not take us far in particular ATS cases. Allegations amounting to labels are different from well-pleaded facts, and we must examine whether what this Complaint says these defendants did—in non-conclusory factual allegations—amounts to a violation of already clearly established and specifically defined international law.
To state a claim for relief under the ATS, a plaintiff must (1) be an alien (2) suing for a tort (3) committed in violation of the law of nations. Sinaltrainal v. Coca–Cola Co., 578 F.3d 1252, 1261 (11th Cir.2009).5 To avoid dismissal of an ATS claim, a “complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’ ” See Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 1949, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (20...
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