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SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
_________________
No. 11–88
_________________
ASID MOHAMAD, individually and for the ESTATE
OF AZZAM RAHIM, deceased, et al., PETITIONERS
v.
PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY et al.
on writ of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the district of columbia circuit
[April 18, 2012]
Justice Sotomayor delivered the opinion of the
Court.[
1]*
The Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991 (TVPA
or Act), 106Stat. 73, note following 28 U. S. C. §1350,
authorizes a cause of action against “[a]n individual” for acts of
torture and extrajudicial killing committed under authority or
color of law of any foreign nation. We hold that the term
“individual” as used in the Act encompasses only natural persons.
Consequently, the Act does not impose liability against
organizations.
I
Because this case arises from a motion to
dismiss, we ac-cept as true the allegations of the complaint.
Ashcroft v.
al-Kidd, 563 U. S. ___, ___ (2011)
(slip op., at 1). Petitioners are the relatives of Azzam Rahim, who
immigrated to the United States in the 1970’s and became a
naturalized citizen. In 1995, while on a visit to the West Bank,
Rahim was arrested by Palestinian Authority intelligence officers.
He was taken to a prison in Jericho, where he was imprisoned,
tortured, and ultimately killed. The following year, the U. S.
Department of State issued a report concluding that Rahim “died in
the custody of [Palestinian Authority] intelligence officers in
Jericho.” Dept. of State, Occupied Territories Human Rights
Practices, 1995 (Mar. 1996).
In 2005, petitioners filed this action against
respondents, the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian
Liberation Organization, asserting,
inter alia, claims of
torture and extrajudicial killing under the TVPA. The District
Court granted respondents’ motion to dismiss, concluding, as
relevant, that the Act’s authorization of suit against “[a]n
individual” extended liability only to natural persons.
Mohamad v.
Rajoub, 664 F. Supp. 2d 20, 22 (DC 2009).
The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia
Circuit affirmed on the same ground. See
Mohamad v.
Rajoub, 634 F.3d 604, 608 (2011) (“Congress used the word
‘individual’ to denote only natural persons”).[
2] We granted certiorari, 565 U. S. ___
(2011), to resolve a split among the Circuits with respect to
whether the TVPA authorizes actions against defendants that are not
natural persons,[
3] and now
affirm.
II
The TVPA imposes liability on individuals for
certain acts of torture and extrajudicial killing. The Act
provides:
“An individual who, under actual or apparent
author-ity, or color of law, of any foreign nation—
“(1) subjects an individual to torture shall,
in a civil action, be liable for damages to that individual; or
“(2) subjects an individual to extrajudicial
killing shall, in a civil action, be liable for damages to the
individual’s legal representative, or to any person who may be a
claimant in an action for wrongful death.” §2(a).
The Act defines “torture” and “extrajudicial
killing,” §3, and imposes a statute of limitations and an
exhaustion requirement, §§2(b), (c). It does not define
“individual.”
Petitioners concede that foreign states may not
be sued under the Act—namely, that the Act does not create an
exception to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976, 28
U. S. C. §1602
et seq., which renders foreign
sovereigns largely immune from suits in U. S. courts. They
argue, however, that the TVPA does not similarly restrict liability
against other juridical entities. In petitioners’ view, by
permitting suit against “[a]n individual,” the TVPA contemplates
liability against natural persons
and nonsovereign
organizations (a category that, petitioners assert, includes
respondents). We decline to read “individual” so unnaturally. The
ordinary meaning of the word, fortified by its statutory context,
persuades us that the Act authorizes suit against natural persons
alone.
A
Because the TVPA does not define the term
“individual,” we look first to the word’s ordinary meaning. See
FCC v.
AT&T Inc., 562 U. S. ___, ___ (2011)
(slip op., at 5) (“When a statute does not define a term, we
typically give the phrase its ordinary meaning” (internal quotation
marks omitted)). As a noun, “individual” ordinarily means “[a]
human being, a person.” 7 Oxford English Dictionary 880 (2d ed.
1989); see also,
e.g., Random House Dictionary of the
English Language 974 (2d ed. 1987) (“a person”); Webster’s Third
New International Dictionary 1152 (1986) (“a particular person”)
(hereinafter Webster’s). After all, that is how we use the word in
everyday parlance. We say “the individual went to the store,” “the
individual left the room,” and “the individual took the car,” each
time re-ferring unmistakably to a natural person. And no one, we
hazard to guess, refers in normal parlance to an organization as an
“individual.” Evidencing that common usage, this Court routinely
uses “individual” to denote a natural person, and in particular to
distinguish between a natural person and a corporation. See,
e.g., Goodyear Dunlop Tires Operations, S. A. v.
Brown, 564 U. S. __, __ (2011) (slip op., at 7) (“For
an individual, the paradigm forum for the exercise of general
jurisdiction is the individual’s domicile; for a corporation, it is
an equivalent place, one in which the corporation is fairly
regarded as at home”).
Congress does not, in the ordinary course,
employ the word any differently. The Dictionary Act instructs that
“[i]n determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, unless the
context indicates otherwise . . . the wor[d] ‘person’
. . . include[s] corporations, companies, associations,
firms, partnerships, societies,
and joint stock companies,
as well as individuals.” 1 U. S. C. §1 (emphasis
added). With the phrase “as well as,” the definition marks
“individual” as distinct from the list of artificial entities that
precedes it.
In a like manner, federal statutes routinely
distinguish between an “individual” and an organizational entity of
some kind. See,
e.g., 7 U. S. C. §92(k)
(“ ‘Person’ includes partnerships, associations, and
corporations, as well as individuals”); §511 (same); 15
U. S. C. §717a (“ ‘Person’ includes an individual or
a corporation”); 16 U. S. C. §796 (“ ‘[P]erson’
means an individual or a corporation”); 8 U. S. C.
§1101(b)(3) (“ ‘[P]erson’ means an individual or an
organization”). Indeed, the very same Congress that enacted the
TVPA also established a cause of action for U. S. nationals
injured “by reason of an act of interna-tional terrorism” and
defined “person” as it appears in the statute to include “any
individual
or entity capable of holding a legal or
beneficial interest in property.” Federal Courts Administration Act
of 1992, 18 U. S. C. §§2333(a), 2331(3) (emphasis
added)).
B
This is not to say that the word “individual”
invariably means “natural person” when used in a statute. Congress
remains free, as always, to give the word a broader or different
meaning. But before we will assume it has done so, there must be
some indication Congress intended such a result. Perhaps it
is the rare statute (petitioners point to only one such example,
located in the Internal Revenue Code) in which Congress expressly
defines “individual” to include corporate entities. See 26
U. S. C. §542(a)(2). Or perhaps, as was the case in
Clinton v.
City of New York,
524
U.S. 417, 429 (1998), the statutory context makes that
intention clear, because any other reading of “individual” would
lead to an “ ‘absurd’ ” result Congress could not
plausibly have intended.
There are no such indications in the TVPA. As
noted, the Act does not define “individual,” much less do so in a
manner that extends the term beyond its ordinary usage. And the
statutory context strengthens—not undermines—the conclusion that
Congress intended to create a cause of action against natural
persons alone. The Act’s liability provision uses the word
“individual” five times in the same sentence: once to refer to the
perpetrator (
i.e., the defendant) and four times to refer to
the victim. See §2(a). Only a natural person can be a victim of
torture or extrajudicial killing. “Since there is a presumption
that a given term is used to mean the same thing throughout a
statute, a presumption surely at its most vigorous when a term is
repeated within a given sentence,”
Brown v.
Gardner,
513 U.S.
115, 118 (1994) (citation omitted), it is difficult indeed to
conclude that Congress employed the term “in-dividual” four times
in one sentence to refer to a natural person and once to refer to a
natural person
and any nonsovereign organization. See also
§3(b)(1) (using term “individual” six times in referring to victims
of torture).
It is also revealing that the Act holds
perpetrators lia-ble for extrajudicial killing to “any
person who may be a claimant in an action for wrongful
death.” §2(a)(2) (emphasis added). “Person,” we have recognized,
often has a broader meaning in the law than “individual,” see
Clinton, 524 U. S., at 428, n. 13, and frequently
includes nonnatural persons, see,
e.g., 1 U. S. C.
§1. We generally seek to respect Congress’ decision to use
different terms to de-scribe different categories of people or
things. See
Sosa v.
Alvarez-Machain,
542 U.S.
692, 711, n. 9 (2004). Our construction of “individual” to
encompass solely natural persons credits Congress’ use of the
disparate terms; petitioners’ construction does not.[
4]
In sum, the text of the statute persuades us
that the Act authorizes liability solely against natural
persons.
III
Petitioners’ counterarguments are
unpersuasive.
A
Petitioners first dispute that the plain text
of the TVPA requires today’s result. Although they concede that an
ordinary meaning of “individual” is “human being,” petitioners
point to definitions of “individual” that “frame the term
. . . in distinctly non-human terms, instead placing
their emphases on the
oneness of something.” Brief for
Petitioners 18 (citing,
e.g., Webster’s 1152 (defining
“individual” as “a single or particular being or thing or group of
being or things”)). Those definitions, however, do not account even
for petitioners’ preferred interpretation of “in-dividual” in the
Act, for foreign states—which petition- ers concede are not liable
under the Act—do not differ from nonsovereign organizations in
their degree of “oneness.” Moreover, “[w]ords that can have more
than one meaning are given content . . . by their
surroundings,”
Whitman v.
American Trucking Assns.,
Inc.,
531 U.S.
457, 466 (2001), and for the reasons explained
supra,
petitioners’ definition makes for an awkward fit in the context of
the TVPA.
Petitioners next claim that federal tort
statutes uniformly provide for liability against organizations, a
convention they maintain is common to the legal systems of other
nations. We are not convinced, however, that any such “domestic and
international presumption of organi-zational liability” in tort
actions overcomes the ordi- nary meaning of “individual.” Brief for
Petitioners 16. It is true that “Congress is understood to
legislate against a background of common-law adjudicatory
principles.”
Astoria Fed. Sav. & Loan Assn. v.
Solimino,
501 U.S.
104, 108 (1991). But Congress plainly can override those
principles, see,
e.g., id., at 108–109, and, as
explained
supra, the TVPA’s text evinces a clear intent not
to subject nonsovereign organizations to liability.[
5]
We also decline petitioners’ suggestion to
construe the TVPA’s scope of liability to conform with other
federal statutes that petitioners contend provide civil remedies to
victims of torture or extrajudicial killing. None of the three
statutes petitioners identify employs the term “in-dividual” to
describe the covered defendant, and so none assists in the
interpretive task we face today. See 42 U. S. C. §1983;
28 U. S. C. §§1603(a), 1605A(c) (2006 ed., Supp. IV); 18
U. S. C. §§2333, 2334(a)–(b), 2337. The same is true of
the Alien Tort Statute, 28 U. S. C. §1350, so it offers
no comparative value here regardless of whether corporate entities
can be held liable in a federal common-law action brought under
that statute. Compare
Doe v.
Exxon Mobil Corp., 654
F.3d 11 (CADC 2011), with
Kiobel v.
Royal Dutch Petroleum
Co., 621 F.3d 111 (CA2 2010), cert. granted, 565 U. S. ___
(2011). Finally, al-though petitioners rightly note that the TVPA
contemplates liability against officers who do not personally
execute the torture or extrajudicial killing, see,
e.g.,
Chavez v.
Carranza, 559 F.3d 486 (CA6 2009), it does not
follow (as petitioners argue) that the Act embraces liability
against nonsovereign organizations. An officer who gives an order
to torture or kill is an “individual” in that word’s ordinary
usage; an organization is not.
B
Petitioners also contend that legislative
history supports their broad reading of “individual.” But “reliance
on legislative history is unnecessary in light of the statute’s
unambiguous language.”
Milavetz, Gallop & Milavetz,
P. A. v.
United States, 559 U. S. ___, ___, n.
3 (2010) (slip op., at 6, n. 3). In any event, the excerpts
petitioners cite do not help their cause. Petitioners note that the
Senate Report states that “[t]he legislation uses the term
‘individual’ to make crystal clear that foreign states or their
entities cannot be sued under this bill under any circumstances.”
S. Rep. No. 102–249, p. 7 (1991) (S. Rep.); see also
H. R. Rep. No. 102–367, pt. 1, p. 4 (1991)
(H. R. Rep.) (“Only ‘individuals,’ not foreign states, can be
sued”). Yet that statement, while clarifying that the Act does not
encompass liability against foreign states, says nothing about
liability against nonsovereign organizations. The other excerpts
petitioners cite likewise are not probative of the meaning of
“individual,” for they signal only that the Act does not impose
liability on perpetrators who act without authority or color of law
of a foreign state. See,
e.g., H. R. Rep., at 5 (“The
bill does not attempt to deal with torture or killing by purely
private groups”); S. Rep., at 8 (The bill “does not cover purely
private criminal acts by individuals or nongovernmental
organizations”).
Indeed, although we need not rely on legislative
history given the text’s clarity, we note that the history only
supports our interpretation of “individual.” The version of the
TVPA that was introduced in the 100th Congress established
liability against a “person.” Hearing and Markup on H. R. 1417
before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and Its Subcommittee
on Human Rights and International Organizations, 100th Cong., 2d
Sess., 82 (1988). During the markup session of the House Foreign
Affairs Committee, one of the bill’s sponsors proposed an amendment
“to make it clear we are applying it to individuals and not to
corporations.”
Id., at 81, 87. Counsel explained that it was
a “fairly simple” matter “of changing the word ‘person’ to
‘individuals’ in several places in the bill.”
Id., at 87–88.
The amendment was unanimously adopted, and the version of the bill
reported out of Committee reflected the change.
Id., at 88;
H. R. Rep. No. 693, pt. 1, p. 1 (1988). A materially
identical version of the bill was enacted as the TVPA by the 102d
Congress. Although we are cognizant of the limitations of this
drafting history, cf.
Exxon Mobil Corp. v.
Allapattah
Services, Inc.,
545 U.S.
546, 568 (2005), we nevertheless find it telling that the sole
explanation for substituting “individual” for “person” confirms
what we have concluded from the text alone.
C
Petitioners’ final argument is that the Act
would be rendered toothless by a construction of “individual” that
limits liability to natural persons. They contend that pre-cluding
organizational liability may foreclose effective remedies for
victims and their relatives for any number of reasons. Victims may
be unable to identify the men and women who subjected them to
torture, all the while knowing the organization for whom they work.
Personal jurisdiction may be more easily established over corporate
than human beings. And natural persons may be more likely than
organizations to be judgment proof. Indeed, we are told that only
two TVPA plaintiffs have been able to re-cover successfully against
a natural person—one only after the defendant won the state
lottery. See
Jean v.
Dorelien,
431 F.3d 776, 778 (CA11 2005).
We acknowledge petitioners’ concerns about the
limitations on recovery. But they are ones that Congress imposed
and that we must respect. “[N]o legislation pursues its purposes at
all costs,”
Rodriguez v.
United States,
480 U.S.
522, 525–526 (1987)
(per curiam), and petitioners’
purposive argument simply cannot overcome the force of the plain
text. We add only that Congress appeared well aware of the limited
nature of the cause of action it established in the Act. See,
e.g., 138 Cong. Rec. 4177 (1992) (remarks of Sen. Simpson)
(noting that “as a practical matter, this legislation will result
in a very small number of cases”); 137 Cong. Rec. 2671 (1991)
(remarks of Sen. Specter) (“Let me emphasize that the bill is a
limited measure. It is estimated that only a few of these lawsuits
will ever be brought”).
* * *
The text of the TVPA convinces us that
Congress did not extend liability to organizations, sovereign or
not. There are no doubt valid arguments for such an extension. But
Congress has seen fit to proceed in more modest steps in the Act,
and it is not the province of this Branch to do otherwise. The
judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of
Columbia Circuit is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
