Opati v. Republic of Sudan

In 1998, al Qaeda operatives detonated truck bombs outside the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, killing over 200 people and injuring more than a thousand. Victims and their families sued the Republic of Sudan under the state-sponsored terrorism exception to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA), alleging that Sudan had assisted al Qaeda. The district court awarded approximately $10.2 billion in damages, including roughly $4.3 billion in punitive damages. However, the D.C. Circuit held that the plaintiffs were not entitled to punitive damages because Congress had not clearly authorized them for pre-enactment conduct. The Supreme Court granted certiorari and unanimously ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, holding that the 2008 FSIA amendments expressly authorized punitive damages for certain past acts of state-sponsored terrorism.

The Supreme Court, in an 8-0 decision authored by Justice Gorsuch (Justice Kavanaugh took no part), vacated the D.C. Circuit's ruling and remanded the case. The Court held that plaintiffs in a federal cause of action under §1605A(c) may seek punitive damages for pre-enactment conduct, thereby reviving the $4.3 billion punitive damages award against Sudan.

Whether the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA), as amended in 2008, applies retroactively to permit plaintiffs to seek punitive damages against a foreign state for terrorist activities that occurred prior to the amendment's enactment.

The decision allows victims of state-sponsored terrorism to recover punitive damages from foreign governments for acts committed before the 2008 FSIA amendments, affecting dozens of other lawsuits seeking damages for terrorist acts in the 1990s and early 2000s. It underscores the critical importance of holding state sponsors of terrorism accountable and provides a pathway for compensation for victims and their families.