Supreme Court Says There is a Difference Between An “Individual” and “Person” – Offering an Important Lesson For Learning About the Law

One of the reasons law students spend three years continuously reading case law is to master one’s ability to appreciate nuance. One area of nuance that lawyers are expected to master is nuance between terms in statutory language. In Mohamad v Palestinian Authority, the Court was asked to determine if the Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991 authorizes a cause of action against the Palestinian Authority for alleged tortune and an alleged extra-judicial killing. Mohamed, the plaintiff, brought his case against the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian Liberation Organization but the District Court granted a motion to dismiss because it determined that the statute only extended liability to “natural persons.” The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia agreed. Consequently, when reading the decision of the Supreme Court, it is important to note that no court has reviewed the facts and come to a conclusion about whether torture or an extra-judicial killing actually occurred. The Supreme Court is being asked not whether the Palestinian Authority or the Palestinian Liberation Organization took action prohibited by the law, but instead, whether the organizations themselves can be sued under the law. In ruling for the Palestinian Authority, the Court notes that the statute in question specifically imposes liability on individuals for acts of torture and extra-judicial killings. It further notes that the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 makes foreign governments generally immune from suits in courts in the United States. Mohamad argues, however, that the Palestinian Authority does not qualify for immunity. I have not read the legal briefs of the parties but I must suspect that an interesting legal question in those briefs relates to whether the Palestinian Authority fits the definition of a foreign sovereign. I am unaware if any US courts have ruled on this question. It seems like a dangerously political question Courts would want to avoid. The Supreme Court does not discuss this question. The Court is uniquely focused on whether the statute that provides for claims against “individuals” may allow for suits against entities. The Court points out that in the Oxford English Dictionary, as in common parlance, the word "individual" uniquely refers to a human being. The Court distinguishes this analysis from the analysis of the word “person,” which Congress has legislatively enacted to include “corporations, companies, associations, firms, partnerships, societies, and joint stock companies, as well as individuals.” Citing 1 USC §1. The Court further points out that in other areas, such as in the Internal Revenue Code, Congress has stipulated that the word “individual” there may have a more expansive meaning. In Section B of the decision, the Court rejects the Mohamad’s argument concerning the legislative history of the statute, which Mohamad claims supports a broad reading of the word individual. The Court rejects this argument, asserting that “reliance on legislative history is unnecessary in light of the statute's unambiguous language.” (The Court, nevertheless, proceeds to make the point that the initial introduction of the bill established liability against a “person” and that was intentionally changed in subcommittee to the word “individual” through an amendment "to make it clear we are applying it to individuals and not to corporations." This case is a short one, but may be one worthy of inclusion in a case law book. For law students and lawyers alike, it is a lesson in reading statutes very carefully and with the mindset that a court may find linguistic distinctions in legislative language that are not obvious. Specifically, I doubt that Mohamad started his case with any intent to request the court to interpret the distinction between the word “person” and “individual.” For legislators and activists, it is a lesson in the importance of specifying in legislation precisely what is intended. I suspect that those involved in lobbying for the legislation at issue in this case did not intent to exempt entities when supporting the legislation. In fact, they probably didn’t consider the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976, and may have thought they were overriding that law—without considering that such an intent would need to be explicitly stated in the law for it to have any effect. I can’t help but note that this decision was effectively unanimous, written by Justice Sotomayor. Justice Breyer, however, in his concurring opinion, does not agree with the majority of Justices in the reasoning that this case rests solely on the dictionary definition of the word "individual." He re-emphasizes that the statutory text was altered in the legislative process to the word “individual” to make clear that the statute did not apply to corporations. Justice Breyer’s concurrence supports the lesson of this case, and of this article, that we lawyers and law students must take great pains to read statutes very carefully, and to start reading with the presumption that the words chosen for inclusion in a statute were chosen with extreme precision, designed to exclude meanings and impressions that might arise from use of other word choices.