Alien tort claims act

• Author: International Law Group, PLLC
• Pages: 118-120

Page 118

The Complaint alleges that the Colombian bottling companies that employed the Plaintiffs collaborated with Colombian paramilitary forces and Colombian police to murder and torture Plaintiffs, many of whom are trade union leaders. Plaintiffs also sued the Coca-Cola Company and its Colombian subsidiary Coca-Cola de Colombia, S.A. (the Coca-Cola Defendants). Plaintiffs sued in a Florida federal court, alleging the systematic intimidation, kidnapping, detention, torture and murder of Colombian trade unionists by paramilitary forces working as Defendants' agents. After the Defendants jointly moved to dismiss the complaint under Civil Rule 12(b)(1) for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, the Plaintiffs amended their complaint by filing four separate complaints (the Gil case, the Galvis case, the Leal case and the Garcia case).

The Gil case involved a bottling factory run by Bebidas y Alimentos de Urabá and its owner, Richard Kirby (the Bebidas Defendants). The other three cases implicate separate bottling factories operated by Panamco Colombia and its owners, Panamerican Beverages Company, LLC and Panamco, LLC (the Panamco Defendants).

The District Court held that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the ATCA and TVPA claims against the Coca-Cola Defendants in the Gil case. The bottler's agreement between The Coca-Cola Defendants and the Bebidas Defendants lacked the requisite control for the Coca-Cola Defendants to be answerable for the acts of Bebidas or its employees.

In a separate opinion, the District Court found that each of the four complaints failed to plead factual allegations sufficient to invoke the court's subject matter jurisdiction under the ATCA and the TVPA. This appeal resulted.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirms. The Court upholds the jurisdictional dismissal of the ATCA claims. It vacates the dismissal of the TVPA claims, however, for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. It instructs the District Court instead to dismiss the TVPA claims for failure to state a claim.

"Plaintiffs contend [that] Colombia has experienced pervasive civil unrest. This stems from a longstanding civil war involving armed leftist groups on one side and the Colombian military, as well as right-wing paramilitaries, on the other. Since 1986, when the largest trade union confederation in Colombia was formed, over 4,000 trade unionists have been murdered. Plaintiffs describe the violent persecution of trade unionists...