Nestlé USA, Inc. v. Doe I
Justia (with opinion) · Docket · oyez.org
Argued on Dec 1, 2020.Decided on Jun 17, 2021.
Petitioner: Nestlé USA, Inc..Respondent: John Doe I, et al..
Advocates: Neal Kumar Katyal (on behalf of the petitioners)
Curtis E. Gannon (for the United States, as amicus curiae, supporting the petitioners)
Paul L. Hoffman (for the respondents)
Facts of the case (from oyez.org)
The plaintiff/respondents in this case are former enslaved children who were kidnapped and forced to work on cocoa farms in the Ivory Coast for up to fourteen hours without pay. They filed a class-action lawsuit against large manufacturers, purchasers, processors, and retail sellers of cocoa beans, including petitioner Nestle USA (and Cargill Inc., petitioner in a consolidated case).
Nestle USA, Inc., and Cargill, Inc., both domestic corporations, effectively control cocoa production in the Ivory Coast and operate “with the unilateral goal of finding the cheapest source of cocoa in the Ivory Coast,” resulting in a “system built on child slavery to depress labor costs.” The respondents allege that the defendants are aware that child slave labor is a problem in the Ivory Coast yet continue to provide financial support and technical farming aid to farmers who use forced child labor.
The children filed a proposed class action in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, alleging that the defendant companies were liable under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) for aiding and abetting child slavery in the Ivory Coast. The court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss based on its conclusion that corporations cannot be sued under the ATS, and that even if they could, the plaintiffs failed to allege the elements of a claim for aiding and abetting slave labor. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed, holding that corporations are liable for aiding and abetting slavery, in part because it found that norms that are “universal and absolute” can provide the basis for an ATS claim against a corporation, and the prohibition of slavery is “universal.” It did not address the defendants’ argument that the complaint sought an extraterritorial application of the ATS, which the U.S. Supreme Court had recently proscribed in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., 569 U.S. 108 (2013). On remand, the district court dismissed the claims alleging aiding and abetting slave labor under the ATS, finding that the complaint sought an impermissible extraterritorial application of the ATS.
In the interim, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Jesner v. Arab Bank, PLC, 584 U.S. __ (2018), holding that foreign corporations cannot be sued under the ATS. Again the Ninth Circuit reversed, finding that the holding in Jesner does not disturb its prior holding as to the domestic defendants, Nestle USA, Inc., and Cargill, Inc., and that the specific domestic conduct alleged by the plaintiffs falls within the focus of the ATS and does not require extraterritorial application of that statute.

Question
1. May an aiding and abetting claim against a domestic corporation brought under the Alien Tort Statute overcome the extraterritoriality bar where the claim is based on allegations of general corporate activity in the United States and where the plaintiffs cannot trace the alleged harms, which occurred abroad at the hands of unidentified foreign actors, to that activity?
2. Does the judiciary have the authority under the Alien Tort Statute to impose liability on domestic corporations?

Conclusion
To plead facts sufficient to support a domestic application of the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), 28 U.S.C. § 1350, plaintiffs must allege more domestic conduct than general corporate activity; the Ninth Circuit’s contrary holding is reversed, and the case is remanded. Justice Clarence Thomas authored an opinion in which a majority of the Court concluded that the respondents here improperly seek extraterritorial application of the ATS.
The Court’s precedents establish “a t