US high court rejects Dirty War lawsuit
WASHINGTON — The US Supreme Court ruled yesterday that Daimler AG (formerly Mercedes Benz) cannot be sued in California over alleged abuses committed during the last Argentine dictatorship, a decision likely to further erode the reputation of the United States as a global venue for human rights claims.
In yesterday’s ruling, the justices said companies must do substantial business in the United States to be sued there. The fact that the German-based automaker owns a US-based subsidiary that does business in California was not enough for the lawsuit to proceed, the court said.
Victims who say they were kidnapped and tortured by the Argentine government in the late 1970s and relatives of those who disappeared sued in state court, alleging Mercedes-Benz was complicit in the killing, torture or kidnapping by the military of unionized auto workers.
In Argentina, Judge Alicia Vence is currently investigating the abductions of 14 workers but plaintiffs saw the possibility of filing a civil complaint in the US as an opportunity to obtain some justice and an economic compensation that they wanted to pour into a hospital in González Catán, where the plant is located, lawyer Eduardo Fachal explained to the Herald.
The 9-0 decision was the second by the high court in less than a year to make it harder for plaintiffs to sue foreign-based multinational corporations in US courts for alleged human rights violations.
The suit claims “the kidnapping, detention and torture of these plaintiffs were carried out by state security forces acting under the direction of and with material assistance” from the Mercedes-Benz plant in Gonzalez-Catan, in Buenos Aires province.
At the time, Juan Manuel Fangio, the Argentine Formula 1 racing-car legend, was the president of Mercedes-Benz Argentina, a post he took up in 1974.
The justices said Daimler’s connections with California, where the lawsuit was filed, were not sufficient for it to face a lawsuit there.
The court reversed a May 2011 San Francisco-based 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in favour of human rights plaintiffs.
Marco Simons, an attorney with Earthrights International, who represents plaintiffs in human rights cases, criticized the court’s reasoning. Simons said the court endorsed the idea that “it’s better for the economy of the US and the world to limit the ability to sue multinational corporations.”
For its part, Daimler said that “We have always regarded the accusations as groundless.”
Daimler is headquartered in Stuttgart, while its Mercedes-Benz USA subsidiary is incorporated in Delaware and does most of its business in New Jersey.
The high court’s ruling does not prevent companies from being sued for conduct that occurs in the United States but it would be more of an exception than a rule.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in yesterday’s majority opinion that there could be “exceptional case (where) a corporation’s operations in a forum other than its formal place of incorporation or principal place of business may be so substantial and of such a nature as to render the corporation at home in that state. But this case presents no occasion to explore that question, because Daimler’s activities in California plainly do not approach that level.”
A limited impact
A 2013 ruling also pared back the circumstances for suing multinational companies in US courts over human rights allegations. The justices held that a federal court in New York could not hear claims made by 12 Nigerians who accused Anglo-Dutch oil company Royal Dutch Shell of complicity in a crackdown on protesters in Nigeria from 1992 to 1995.
That ruling already brought an end to some lawsuits against foreign companies, limiting the impact of Tuesday’s decision.
In one case decided in August, the New York-based 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals held that lawsuits against Daimler, Ford Motor Company and International Business Machines Corp could not proceed. The companies were accused of facilitating decades of race-based crimes such as torture and extrajudicial killings in South Africa because their South African subsidiaries sold products to the government there.
The legal question in the Daimler case, which focused on when courts have jurisdiction over certain claims, is different from that in the Shell case, which focused on an obscure federal law called the Alien Tort Statute.
Corporate defence lawyers say yesterday’s ruling will further undermine the notion of the United States serving as a global court for human rights claims.
Dominic Perella, a lawyer at the Washington-based Hogan Lovells firm, said the court “is not closing the door on these lawsuits, but making it much harder to bring them.”
Human rights lawyers previously were eager to sue in US courts because of what defence lawyers describe as pro-plaintiff litigation rules that made it easier for plaintiffs to negotiate favourable settlements.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in yesterday’s majority opinion that neither Daimler nor Mercedes-Benz USA, also known as MBUSA, is incorporated in California.
“If Daimler’s California activities sufficed to allow adjudication of this Argentina-routed case in California, the same global reach would presumably be available in every other state in which MBUSA’s sales are sizable,” she wrote.
The claims had “nothing to do with anything that occurred or had its principal impact in California,” Ginsburg added.
Herald with Reuters, AP
Mercedes Benz was not the only company allegedly involved in the repression unleashed during the last Argentine dictatorship. Last year, Judge Alicia Vence — the same magistrate in charge of investigating the Mercedes Benz case — charged three former managers at Ford automakers for being responsible for the clandestine detention centre that operated in the back of the plant located in General Pacheco, in the northern part of Greater Buenos Aires.
One of the best-known cases involves the repression inside Ledesma sugar mill. In July, 1976 several blackouts took place at night. That darkness helped the dictatorship’s death squads to abduct dozens of people, 30 of whom remain disappeared. Ledesma’s owner Carlos Pedro Blaquier is currently awaiting trial. In another emblematic case, 60 workers were abducted from the Astarsa shipyard, 16 of whom are still missing.
Source http://www.buenosairesherald.com/article/149690/us-high-court-rejects-dirty-war-lawsuit
Comments