Opati v. Republic of Sudan
In 1998, al Qaeda operatives detonated truck bombs outside the United States Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Victims and their family members sued the Republic of Sudan under the state-sponsored terrorism exception to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA), formerly 28 U. S. C. §1605(a)(7), alleging that Sudan had assisted al Qaeda in perpetrating the attacks. At the time, the plaintiffs faced §1606’s bar on punitive damages for suits proceeding under any of the §1605 sovereign immunity exceptions. In 2008, Congress amended the FSIA in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). 122 Stat. 3. In NDAA §1083(a), Congress moved §1605(a)(7) to a new section and created an express federal cause of action for acts of terror that also provided for punitive damages. See §1605A(c). In §1083(c)(2), it gave effect to existing lawsuits that had been “adversely affected” by prior law “as if” they had been originally filed under the new §1605A(c). And in §1083(c)(3), it provided a time-limited opportunity for plaintiffs to file new actions “arising out of the same act or incident” as an earlier action and claim §1605A’s benefits. Following these amendments, the original plaintiffs amended their complaint to include the new federal cause of action under §1605A(c), and hundreds of others filed new, similar claims. The district court entered judgment for the plaintiffs and awarded approximately $10.2 billion in damages, including roughly $4.3 billion in punitive damages. As relevant here, the court of appeals held that the plaintiffs were not entitled to punitive damages because Congress had included no statement in NDAA §1083 clearly authorizing punitive damages for preenactment conduct.