Saudi Arabia, King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Royspec v. Scott Nelson et Ux. (507 U.S. 349)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided March 23, 1993 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 507 U.S. 349 · 113 S. Ct. 1471
- Decided
- March 23, 1993
- Term
- October Term 1992
- Vote
- 6–3
- Majority author
- Justice Souter
- Issue area
- Economic Activity
- Disposition
- Reversed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Justice Souter delivered the opinion of the Court. The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 entitles foreign states to immunity from the jurisdiction of courts in the United States, 28 U. S. C. § 1604, subject to certain enumerated exceptions. § 1605. One is that a foreign state shall not be immune in any case “in which the action is based upon a commercial activity carried on in the United States by the foreign state.” § 1605(a)(2). We hold that respondents’ action alleging personal injury resulting from unlawful detention and torture by the Saudi Government is not “based upon a commercial activity” within the meaning of the Act, which consequently confers no jurisdiction over respondents’ suit. I Because this case comes to us on a motion to dismiss the complaint, we assume that we have truthful factual allegations before us, see United States v. Gaubert, 499 U. S. 315, 327 (1991), though many of those allegations are subject to dispute, see Brief for Petitioners 3, n. 3; see also n. 1, infra. Petitioner Kingdom of Saudi Arabia owns and operates petitioner King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Riyadh, as well as petitioner Royspec Purchasing Services, the hospital’s corporate purchasing agent in the United States. App. 91. The Hospital Corporation of America, Ltd. (HCA), an independent corporation existing under the laws- of the Cayman Islands, recruits Americans for…
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