The U.S. Supreme Court on Aug. 3 declined to pause a $655.5 million judgment that Palestinian authorities were ordered to pay plaintiffs in a U.S. lawsuit arising from attacks in Israel on Americans from 2002 to 2004.
The order denying the emergency application in Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) v. Sokolow was issued by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who did not explain her ruling.
The Palestinian Authority, a co-petitioner in the case, filed the application along with the PLO. The authority is an interim self-governing body that administers some parts of the West Bank. The respondents, led by Mark Sokolow, the lead plaintiff in the underlying lawsuit, are affected U.S. citizens or representatives of deceased U.S. citizens killed or injured as a result of acts of terrorism.
The petitioners asked the nation’s highest court to place the 2015 verdict by a federal jury in New York on hold while they appeal a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit to reinstate that verdict years after it was dismissed.
The Supreme Court did not ask the respondents to reply to the application.
The respondents have long taken the position that the judgment should be enforced when the jurisdiction—or authority—of the courts over the Palestinian entities had been established. They argue that the enactment of the federal Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act in 2019 created that jurisdiction.
Sotomayor’s ruling means enforcement of the judgment may proceed in the federal district court where the jury verdict was rendered, unless the Palestinian petitioners obtain further court relief. The denial of the application on the high court’s emergency docket does not appear to finally resolve the legal question of whether a once-void judgment can be resurrected.
The plaintiffs sued under the federal Anti-Terrorism Act for attacks that took place between 2002 and 2004. A jury returned a $218.5 million verdict against the Palestinian defendants in 2015, and under federal law, the damages figure was tripled, rising to $655.5 million.
When the Second Circuit acted, “this was the first time an American court has ever held that a money judgment made without jurisdiction may be resurrected years after all appeals were exhausted,” the application said.
Congress then approved a statute that created jurisdiction over the Palestinian entities in 2019, and the Supreme Court upheld that law last year.
The lawsuit then returned to the Second Circuit, which decided in March of this year to restore the verdict, citing Fuld. In other words, the appeals court found that the Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act gave it jurisdiction over the entities.
The Second Circuit said the original judgment in favor of the plaintiffs should be reinstated and that this decision was “consistent with the plain import of the Supreme Court’s decision.”
Under Supreme Court rules, the unsuccessful parties could apply again, submitting the application to another justice. They could also file an ordinary petition for certiorari, or review, on a non-emergency basis, asking the court to look at the case.
