United States Second Circuit

In defendants' appeal from interlocutory orders and cross-appeal from a final judgment, granting plaintiff's motion for default judgment based on various claims based on the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA) and New York labor laws, dismissing plaintiff's claims against defendant-Kuwait on sovereign immunity grounds, and denying plaintiff's and defendants' motions for reconsideration, the orders are affirmed in part where, while residual diplomatic immunity applied to the "acts performed by such a person in the exercise of his functions as a member of the mission," Vienna Convention art. 39(2), it did not apply to actions that pertained to his household or personal life and that may provide, at best, "an indirect" rather than a "direct . . . benefit to" diplomatic functions. However, the judgment is vacated in part where plaintiff's ATCA claims "arose from personal motives" and were outside the diplomats' scope of employment with Kuwait.

Appellate Information

• Decided 09/24/2010
• Published 09/24/2010

Judges

• Roger L. Miner

Court

• United States Second Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Andrew J. Fields, Neil H. Koslowe