Appeals Court Revives Torture Claims Against Exxon

BLT

In a major ruling with wide implications for corporations that operate overseas, a divided federal appeals court in Washington today said Exxon Mobil Corp. is not immune from liability for alleged brutal conduct that agents of the company allegedly orchestrated against a group of Indonesian villagers.

The plaintiffs, 15 Indonesian villagers, sued Exxon in two actions in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, claiming government security forces, working for Exxon, killed and tortured villagers in Aceh, Indonesia.

The villagers, represented by Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, alleged Exxon employed Indonesian military as private security to protect a natural gas facility. The plaintiffs’ lawyers argued Exxon had control over the soldiers.

“The law of the United States has been uniform since its founding that corporations can be held liable for the torts committed by their agents,” Judge Judith Rogers of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said in the opinion, joined by Judge David Tatel. “This is confirmed in international practice, both in treaties and in legal systems throughout the world.”

The majority judges—Judge Brett Kavanaugh voted in dissent—sent the case back to Washington federal district court for further proceedings. The initial suit has been pending for a decade.
Cohen Milstein’s Agnieszka Fryszman, who argued for the plaintiffs in the D.C. Circuit in January, praised the D.C. Circuit’s ruling, calling it a “big and significant win that makes our case much stronger than it was before the appeal.”