In 1989, agents of the Libyan government blew up a plane of civilians, killing 170 passengers and crew. Victims’ families brought suit against the Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya in U.S. District Court in D.C. for damages, and after winning summary judgment, the court entered judgments totaling approximately $1.3 billion. Libya appealed to the D.C. Circuit.
The very day the appeal was filed, the U.S. government and Libya entered into a settlement agreement which established a $1.5 billion settlement fund to compensate U.S. victims, and a $300 million fund to compensate “Libyan victims of U.S. airstrikes.” The two governments agreed that the funds were in full settlement of all claims for its respective nationals. As a consequence of this agreement, all pending lawsuits in the courts were “terminated.” The U.S. intervened in the D.C. Circuit appeal, and asked the court to dismiss. The court agreed, and terminated the appeal with prejudice. The Alilmanestianu family, many members of which were victims and who secured large judgments, were left with nothing or small percentages of the District Court judgment.
They sued the U.S. in the Court of Federal Claims. Wiping out our judgments was a taking. The government sought dismissal for failure to state a claim. In this order, CFC denied the motion:
- In response to the government’s argument that the judgments were not “final” because they had been appealed to the D.C. Circuit, the court held it didn’t matter (unrealized claims may be “property”), and indeed the plaintiffs also had their “right to defend their judgment to finality” taken by the government as well as the judgments themselves.
- It also was not necessary for the CFC to determine whether the taking was per se, or Penn Central: their complaint sufficiently alleged a taking and enough facts to make it plausible.
- No “political question” here: this lawsuit was not an effort to second guess the President’s authority to settle claims, merely that the plaintiffs’ property interests — their money judgments against Libya — were terminated for the public good.
Motion denied. Next up, an appeal?
Alimanestianu v. United States, No. 14-704C (Fed. Cl. Oct. 29, 2015)