Nestlé_USA,_Inc._v._Doe
Nestlé USA, Inc. v. Doe
2021 United States Supreme Court case
Nestlé USA, Inc. v. Doe, 593 U. S. ___ (2021), is a United States Supreme Court decision regarding the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), which provides federal courts jurisdiction over claims brought by foreign nationals for violations of international law. Consolidated with Cargill, Inc. v. Doe,[1] the case concerned a class-action lawsuit against Nestlé USA and Cargill for aiding and abetting child slavery in Côte d’Ivoire by purchasing from cocoa producers that utilize child slave labor from Mali. The plaintiffs, who were former slave laborers in the cocoa farms, brought their claim in U.S. district court under the ATS.
The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California dismissed the suit on the basis that corporations cannot be sued under the ATS, and that the plaintiffs failed to allege the elements of an aiding and abetting claim.[2] The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed,[3] holding that corporations are liable for aiding and abetting slavery, in part because norms against slavery are "universal and absolute" and thus provide a basis for an ATS claim against a corporation; however, it did not address the argument by the defendant corporations that the complaint sought an extraterritorial application of the ATS, which the U.S. Supreme Court had recently rejected in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co.[4]
On remand, the district court again dismissed the claims, finding that the plaintiffs sought an impermissible extraterritorial application of the ATS.[5] In the interim, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Jesner v. Arab Bank, PLC, which held that foreign corporations cannot be sued under the ATS.[6] 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.
In an 8–1 opinion authored by Justice Clarence Thomas, the Supreme Court held that respondents improperly sought extraterritorial application of the ATS given the presumption of domestic application and that the conduct relevant to the statute's focus did not occur in the United States.[7][8] Justice Thomas reasoned that nearly all the conduct alleged as the company's aiding and abetting forced labor—providing training, equipment, and cash to overseas farmers—occurred in the Ivory Coast, not the United States, and that "mere corporate presence" in the United States was not sufficient to establish the extraterritorial connection. The case was reversed and remanded. Justice Samuel Alito filed a dissenting opinion.