Cisco Systems, Inc. v. Doe

Case background

The plaintiffs contend that the Chinese Government persecuted them because of their religious beliefs, and that Cisco Systems, Inc. enabled that persecution by developing surveillance technology that allowed China to identify and apprehend them. They allege that Cisco and its executives are liable under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) for aiding and abetting violations of international law, and one plaintiff also seeks to hold two Cisco executives liable for aiding and abetting torture under the Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991 (TVPA). The ATS grants federal district courts jurisdiction over “any civil action by an alien for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States.” In Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, the Court held that the ATS is a jurisdictional statute creating no new causes of action, while leaving open a narrow possibility of judicially created causes of action under a two-step framework; since Sosa, the Court has never created one. The District Court dismissed the plaintiffs’ complaint, but the Ninth Circuit reversed in relevant part, holding that aiding-and-abetting liability satisfies both steps of the Sosa framework and that the TVPA encompasses claims against those who aid and abet torture.

Questions Presented

(1) Whether the Alien Tort Statute (“ATS”), 28 U.S.C. § 1350, allows a judicially-implied private right of action for aiding and abetting.

(2) Whether the Torture Victim Protection Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1350 note, allows a judicially-implied private right of action for aiding and abetting.

Holding

Courts may not create new causes of action for violations of international norms under the ATS. Judicial authority under Sosa’s second step was narrow at the outset, because ATS cases by their nature implicate foreign policy and the power to create causes of action belongs to Congress, which the Constitution expressly empowers to “define and punish . . . Offences against the Law of Nations.” Since Sosa, the Court has committed to the view that judicially created causes of action offend the separation of powers in almost every circumstance, and in the ATS context there will always be at least one sound reason to defer to Congress. What Sosa made difficult, subsequent legal developments have made impossible, and because courts cannot create new rights of action to remedy violations of international law, there is necessarily no liability for aiding and abetting such violations. The TVPA, which provides a cause of action against someone who “subjects” another to torture, likewise does not provide for aiding-and-abetting liability: as in Central Bank of Denver, N. A. v. First Interstate Bank of Denver, N. A., the statute’s silence on aiding and abetting settles the issue. The judgment of the Ninth Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded.

The Court

Justice Barrett delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh joined. Justice Jackson filed an opinion concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part, in which Justice Kagan joined. Justice Sotomayor filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justices Kagan and Jackson joined as to Parts I, II, III, and V.

What this episode contains

This episode is an AI-narrated reading of the majority opinion in Cisco Systems, Inc. v. Doe, written by Justice Barrett.

AI disclosure: The voice in this episode is AI-generated, using a machine learning model styled to loosely resemble the authoring justice. Tone, inflection, pacing, and emphasis are artifacts of the model and should not be attributed to Justice Barrett. The text being read is the Court’s published majority opinion, lightly adapted to improve readability for the spoken format.