ALSBTALK:

http://www.americanbar.org/publications/preview_home/10-1491.html

Is a person a person; or, can you have your cake and eat it too?

Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum
Docket No., 10-1491 

Argument Date: Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Questions Presented
1. Whether the issue of corporate civil tort liability under the Alien Tort Statute ("ATS"), 28 U.S.C. § 1350, is a merits question, as it has been treated by all courts prior to the decision below, or an issue of subject matter jurisdiction, as the court of appeals held for the first time.

2. Whether corporations are immune from tort liability for violations of the law of nations such as torture, extrajudicial executions or genocide, as the court of appeals decisions provides, or if corporations may be sued in the same manner as any other private party defendant under the ATS for such egregious violations, as the Eleventh Circuit has explicitly held.


Sometimes when it walks and talks just like a duck the court still is able to duck.

Michael

Professor Michael J. O'Hara, J.D., Ph.D.
Finance, Banking, & Law Department
College of Business Administration
Mammel Hall 228 
University of Nebraska at Omaha
6708 Pine Street 
Omaha  NE  68182-0048
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(402) 554 - 2823 voice  fax (402) 554 - 2680
http://cba.unomaha.edu/faculty/mohara/web/ohara.htm