## Facts

- Two U.S. citizens traveled to Libya for oil-industry work.
- Libyan officials arrested and jailed them for an extended period.
- They alleged beatings and other physical and psychological mistreatment during detention.
- They sued Libya under the FSIA terrorism exception then codified at 28 U.S.C. § 1605(a)(7), characterizing the conduct as “torture” and “hostage taking.”
- Libya moved to dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction (sovereign immunity) and lack of personal jurisdiction (arguing Fifth Amendment due process/minimum contacts).
- The district court denied dismissal; Libya took an interlocutory appeal.

## Issues

1. Whether the complaint’s allegations were legally sufficient to invoke the FSIA terrorism exception by stating “hostage taking” as defined by the incorporated hostage-taking convention.
2. Whether the complaint pleaded “torture” with sufficient factual specificity to satisfy the statute’s strict definition and defeat sovereign immunity.
3. Whether a foreign state is a “person” under the Fifth Amendment Due Process Clause such that personal jurisdiction over the foreign state requires minimum contacts with the United States.

## Decision

- The court held the alleged facts did not satisfy the statutory/treaty definition of “hostage taking,” so that theory could not abrogate Libya’s immunity.
- The court held the “torture” allegations were too conclusory to satisfy § 1605(a)(7) as pleaded, but remanded to allow plaintiffs to amend with specific facts that could meet the strict definition.
- The court held a foreign state is not a “person” under the Fifth Amendment Due Process Clause; therefore, due process imposes no minimum-contacts limitation on personal jurisdiction over a foreign state in an FSIA suit.
- Disposition: dismissal as to hostage taking; vacatur and remand as to torture for possible amendment; personal-jurisdiction due-process challenge rejected.

## Legal Principles

- To overcome FSIA immunity, a plaintiff must plead nonconclusory facts that, if true, bring the case within a statutory exception; labels alone are insufficient.
- “Hostage taking” under the FSIA terrorism exception requires detention plus threats and a purpose to compel a third party (including a state or international organization) to act or refrain from acting as a condition for release.
- “Torture” under the FSIA terrorism exception requires facts supporting the intentional infliction of severe physical or mental pain or suffering by, or with the consent or acquiescence of, an official acting in an official capacity.
- Foreign states are not “persons” for Fifth Amendment due-process purposes; thus, constitutional minimum-contacts doctrine does not constrain Congress’s grant of personal jurisdiction over foreign states through the FSIA.

## Conclusion

The D.C. Circuit enforced strict, treaty-based pleading requirements for the FSIA terrorism exception, rejecting conclusory hostage-taking and torture allegations as pleaded while allowing amendment on torture, and held that foreign states cannot invoke Fifth Amendment minimum-contacts limits to defeat personal jurisdiction in FSIA cases.


Price v. Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, 294 F.3d 82 (D.C. Cir. 2002)