John Doe et al. v. Exxon Mobil Corporation et al.

Court	United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia, United States
Case number	05-7162
Decision title	Memorandum
Decision date	12 January 2007
Parties	John Doe I Village A, Aceh, Indonesia, and others Exxon Mobil Corporation, and others
Categories	Human rights violations
Keywords	arbitrary arrest and detention, assault, battery, conversion, corporate liability, false imprisonment, kidnapping, negligence per se, negligent hiring, negligent supervision, wrongful death
Links	Memorandum

Summary

Several villagers from Aceh, Indonesia, filed a civil suit against oil and gas company Exxon Mobil. They argued that the company carried responsibility for human rights violations committed by Indonesian security forces by hiring these forces and because Exxon Mobil knew or should have known that human rights violations were being committed.

After the District Court allowed the case to proceed in part, the plaintiffs presented an amended complaint, which was assessed again by the District Court. It allowed most of these claims, which were based on the laws of the District of Columbia, to proceed. Exxon appealed to this ruling, but the Court of Appeals stated that it did not have jurisdiction to hear the appeal. The Court also refused to compel the District Court to dismiss the case.

Procedural history

On 11 June 2001 eleven villagers from Aceh, Indonesia, filed a civil suit against Exxon Mobil. The plaintiffs held that the company carried responsibility for human rights violations committed by Indonesian security forces in Aceh. They argued that these forces were hired by Exxon Mobil and that the company knew or should have known that they were committing human rights violations. The plaintiffs invoked the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA), which allows aliens to bring a suit for a tort committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States, the Torture Victim Protection Act (TVPA), which allows for the filing of a suit regarding torture, and state tort law. The District Court only allowed the state tort law claims to proceed. The plaintiffs amended their complaint, after which defendants filed a motion to dismiss. This motion was almost entirely dismissed.

Related developments

The US Supreme Court denied Exxon Mobil’s petition for a writ of certiorari on 16 June 2008. Exxon Mobil filed a motion for a summary judgement, which the District Court declined to grant on 27 August 2008 as he found that the plaintiffs had presented sufficient preliminary evidence to support their allegations. However, on 30 September 2009, the District Court did grant another motion to dismiss as the judge found that the foreign plaintiffs did not have standing in a US court. This dismissal was reversed by the Court of Appeals on 8 July 2011. Currently, the case is pending at the Court of Appeals in Washington D.C., where the case is assessed in light of the repercussions of the Supreme Court ruling in Kiobel v. Shell of 17 April 2013.

Legally relevant facts

In 1975 a conflict flared up between Indonesia and the Free Aceh Movement, which tried to achieve independence for Aceh. One of the movements’ objections against the Indonesian government was the fact that the government concluded agreements with American oil and gas companies to exploit Aceh’s natural resources. The plaintiffs allege that during this conflict, Exxon Mobil hired a unit of the Indonesian national army to protect its pipelines. Allegedly, these troops committed human rights violations and the plaintiffs allege that Exxon Mobil carries responsibility for this. According to the plaintiffs, Exxon Mobil “conditioned payment on providing security, made decisions about where to build bases, hired mercenaries to train the security troops, and provided logistical support”.

Core legal questions

In its interlocutory appeal, the defendants argued that the District Court should have dismissed the case based on the political questions doctrine. This doctrine holds that if a ruling in a case would adversely affect foreign policy of the United States, this case is considered non-justiciable.

Specific legal rules and provisions

Paragraph 1291, Title 28 of the US Code.

Court's holding and analysis

The appeal was dismissed. The Court did not consider the merits of political question arguments, as it concluded that there was no jurisdiction under the collateral order doctrine. According to this doctrine, three narrow requirements determine whether a District Court order is appealable (pp. 6-7). The third condition that the District Court’s order will be “effectively unreviewable on appeal from final judgment” was not met (pp. 8-9). Although the matter of separation of powers is considered as a “value of a high order”, this does not mean that all District Court orders that reject separation of powers defenses are immediately appealable. Allowing the appeal in this case would mean substantially expanding the scope of the doctrine (p. 14).

Neither was the Court willing to compel the District Court to dismiss the case. It held that the District Court had taken steps to avoid that Indonesia’s sovereign rights would be breached in further proceedings (p. 15). Also, while the State Department had warned about possible disadvantageous effects of this case on US foreign interests, it had also stated that these disadvantageous effects were not certain (p. 16). The defendants, the Court concluded, did not have a clear and indisputable right to have the plaintiffs’ claims dismissed (p. 21).

Further analysis

J.H. Choper, ‘The Political Question Doctrine: Suggested Criteria’, SSRN, 21 July 2005.
K. Gerdy, ‘"Important" and "Irreversible" but Maybe Not "Unreviewable": The Dilemma of Protecting Defendants' Rights Through the Collateral Order Doctrine’, University of San Francisco Law Review, 2004, vol. 38, pp. 213-260.

See also the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre's Case profile: ExxonMobil lawsuit (re Aceh).

Instruments cited

Paragraph 1291, Title 28 of the Code of Laws of the United States of America (United States Code), Office of the Law Revision Counsel of the U.S. House of Representatives, 1983.

Related cases

US District Court for the District of Columbia, John Doe et al. v. Exxon Mobil Corporation et al., Civil Action No. 01-1357 (LFO), Memorandum, 14 October 2005.
US District Court for the District of Columbia, John Doe et al. v. Exxon Mobil Corporation et al., Civil Action No. 01-1357 (LFO), Memorandum, 2 March 2006.
US District Court for the District of Columbia, John Doe et al. v. Exxon Mobil Corporation et al., Civil Action No. 01-1357 (LFO), Memorandum and Opinion, 27 August 2008.
US District Court for the District of Columbia, John Doe et al. v. Exxon Mobil Corporation et al., Civil No. 07-1022 (RCL), Memorandum and Opinion, 30 September 2009.
US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, John Doe et al. v. Exxon Mobil Corporation et al., No. 09-7125, Decision, 8 July 2011.

Additional materials

E. Larson, ‘ExxonMobil Fails On Appeal To Dismiss Aceh Suit’, Law360, 18 January 2007.

Social media links

J. Harrow, ‘Guest blog: More on Exxon v. Doe’, Supreme Court of the United States Blog, 13 June 2008.
R. Alford, ‘Appellate Jurisdiction Over Political Questions’, Opinio Juris, 24 January 2007.