A federal appeals court had barred victims from suing in domestic courts.
The U.S. Supreme Court on June 20 unanimously upheld a law that empowers Americans harmed by terrorist attacks abroad to sue in U.S. courts.
The majority opinion in the 9–0 decision was written by Chief Justice Roberts.
The decision reverses a federal appeals court that found U.S. courts lacked authority to hear cases based on terrorist attacks taking place outside the country.
The case is actually two cases—Fuld v. Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and United States v. PLO—that were heard together.
The legal issue is whether the extraterritoriality provisions of the federal Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism (PSJVTA) Act are consistent with the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, according to the petition filed on July 3, 2024.
In 2019, the PSJVTA amended the federal Anti-Terrorism Act, which had created a right for victims of terror attacks committed against Americans outside the United States to sue in U.S. courts.
The Anti-Terrorism Act was inspired by a lawsuit brought against the PLO for the 1985 killing of wheelchair-bound American cruise ship passenger Leon Klinghoffer “who was shot in the face and thrown into the sea by PLO hijackers,” the petition said.
The PSJVTA provides that the PLO and the Palestinian Authority are deemed to have consented to be sued in U.S. courts if they hand out payments “to terrorists for killing or injuring Americans.”
The Palestinian Authority operates a so-called martyrs’ fund that sends money to the families of Palestinians killed, imprisoned, or injured when committing acts of violence against Israel.
Mariam Fuld sued in federal district court in New York after her husband Ari Fuld was killed near a West Bank shopping mall in 2018 by a Palestinian terrorist allegedly incited by the PLO.
Other victims of terrorism and their families also sued in the same legal proceeding, the petition said.
After a seven-week trial, a jury held in January 2022 that PLO and Palestinian Authority employees were “acting within the scope of their employment, [and] had planned or participated in each of the attacks.”
The plaintiffs, including Fuld, were awarded $218.5 million for damages, a figure that was then tripled under federal law.
