## Facts

- Sixty-four Iraqi plaintiffs (45 individuals and 19 estates) sought damages for deaths and serious injuries allegedly caused by employees of a U.S. private security contractor (Xe, formerly Blackwater) during security operations in Iraq.
- Plaintiffs alleged multiple incidents in which contractor personnel wrongfully shot or beat Iraqi civilians; all alleged conduct occurred in Iraq.
- Defendants included eleven related corporate entities (the “Xe defendants”) and an individual defendant alleged to own and operate those entities.
- The contractor entities were alleged to have provided security services in Iraq under U.S. Department of State contracts.
- Five actions were consolidated for discovery and pretrial proceedings; defendants moved to dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, failure to state a claim, political question, and forum non conveniens.

## Issues

1. Whether the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) conferred federal jurisdiction over claims alleging extrajudicial killings and serious abuses by a U.S. private security contractor in Iraq.
2. Whether the pleadings alleged violations of sufficiently definite and widely accepted international-law norms to state an ATS claim under the Sosa framework.
3. Whether private contractors (and corporate defendants) could be liable under asserted international-law norms, including where state action might be disputed.
4. Whether plaintiffs adequately stated civil RICO claims where injuries occurred abroad but the alleged enterprise and related conduct were tied to the United States.
5. Whether the political question doctrine, federal wartime/foreign-affairs interests, or forum non conveniens required dismissal at the pleading stage.

## Decision

- The court denied defendants’ motions to dismiss the core ATS claims at the Rule 12 stage, holding plaintiffs alleged law-of-nations violations cognizable under the ATS.
- The court denied dismissal of civil RICO counts to the extent plausibly pleaded, concluding RICO was not categorically unavailable merely because harms occurred abroad where the alleged enterprise and substantial conduct were U.S.-linked.
- The court rejected dismissal under the political question doctrine, finding the claims could be adjudicated using manageable legal standards without deciding matters constitutionally committed to the political branches.
- The court declined to dismiss on forum non conveniens grounds at that stage, giving weight to defendants’ U.S. connections and the asserted U.S. interest in regulating U.S. contractors.
- Applying Twombly/Iqbal, the court treated well-pleaded factual allegations as true and found the complaints plausibly stated claims sufficient to proceed into discovery.

## Legal Principles

- The ATS is jurisdictional but permits a narrow class of claims based on international-law norms that are specific, universal, and obligatory, consistent with the Sosa framework.
- At the motion-to-dismiss stage, courts accept well-pleaded factual allegations as true and assess whether the complaint plausibly states a claim for relief under Twombly/Iqbal.
- Certain international-law prohibitions (including war-crimes-type norms and related severe abuses) may apply to non-state actors; private-contractor status does not automatically bar ATS claims.
- Civil RICO may reach conduct connected to a U.S.-based enterprise and significant U.S. conduct even when the physical injury is suffered abroad, subject to adequate pleading of enterprise, predicate acts, and causation.
- The political question doctrine does not bar damages suits against private contractors merely because the conduct occurred in a conflict zone; dismissal requires a showing that adjudication would necessitate deciding nonjudicial policy questions or lack manageable standards.
- Forum non conveniens dismissal requires an adequate alternative forum and a balance of private/public factors; U.S. defendants and asserted U.S. regulatory interests can weigh against dismissal.

## Conclusion

The court allowed Iraqi plaintiffs’ ATS claims and certain civil RICO allegations against a U.S. security-contractor enterprise to proceed past the pleading stage, rejecting political-question and forum-non-conveniens dismissal and holding the complaints plausibly alleged cognizable international-law and statutory violations.


In re Xe Servs. Alien Tort Litig., 665 F. Supp. 2d 569 (E.D. Va. 2009)