Bank Markazi v. Peterson (578 U.S. 212)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided April 20, 2016 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 578 U.S. 212 · 136 S. Ct. 1310
- Decided
- April 20, 2016
- Term
- October Term 2015
- Vote
- 6–2
- Majority author
- Justice Ginsburg
- Issue area
- Economic Activity
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Justice GINSBURG delivered the opinion of the Court. A provision of the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act of 2012, 22 U.S.C. § 8772, makes available for postjudgment execution a set of assets held at a New York bank for Bank Markazi, the Central Bank of Iran. The assets would partially satisfy judgments gained in separate actions by over 1,000 victims of terrorist acts sponsored by Iran. The judgments remain unpaid. Section 8772 is an unusual statute: It designates a particular set of assets and renders them available to satisfy the liability and damages judgments underlying a consolidated enforcement proceeding that the statute identifies by the District Court's docket number. The question raised by petitioner Bank Markazi: Does § 8772 violate the separation of powers by purporting to change the law for, and directing a particular result in, a single pending case? Section 8772, we hold, does not transgress constraints placed on Congress and the President by the Constitution. The statute, we point out, is not fairly portrayed as a "one-case-only regime." Brief for Petitioner 27. Rather, it covers a category of postjudgment execution claims filed by numerous plaintiffs who, in multiple civil actions, obtained evidence-based judgments against Iran together amounting to billions of dollars. Section 8772 subjects the designated assets to execution "to satisfy any…
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