High court blocks Hamas victims' try to reopen case against Lebanese bank

UPI

2 days ago

WASHINGTON, June 5 (UPI) -- The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled unanimously that it would not allow relatives of victims and survivors of Hamas attacks from 2001 to 2003 to reopen a case in which they accused a Lebanese bank of providing financial services to Hamas-affiliated clients.
The court ruled in BLOM Bank SAL vs. Michal Honickman, in an opinion delivered by Justice Clarence Thomas, that the plaintiffs did not meet the requirements of extraordinary circumstances for reopening the case.
When the case was originally tried in 2019, the relatives and victims lost because they failed to prove the bank knowingly took on clients affiliated with Hamas. The victims and relatives then wanted to offer evidence to which they claimed they had access later.
They cited as precedent Rule 60(b), which outlines the reasons why a case could be reopened after a judgement has been issued, such as a mistake in the judgement or evidence unavailable to the plaintiffs during their original case.
"It is Rule 60(b)'s standard -- and only Rule 60(b0's standard -- that applies when a party seeks relief from final judgement. A party seeking Rule 60(b) relief must always demonstrate 'extraordinary circumstances' justifying relief," the court wrote.
Justice Kentanji Brown Jackson delivered a concurring opinion in which she parted from her colleagues, warning that courts should not deny requests to reopen cases simply because the requesting party was given a chance to amend a case while it was ongoing.
"In particular, I think the district court was wrong to fault plaintiffs for making a 'deliberate choice' to appeal the dismissal of their complaint in lieu of accepting various pre-dismissal opportunities to cure purported pleading deficiencies." Brown wrote.
The victims and families accused the Lebanese bank of aiding and abetting attacks from 2001 to 2003 by providing financial services to Hamas-affiliated clients.
In 2019, the families attempted to sue the bank, but the judge dismissed the suit for not providing evidence that the bank knowingly provided financial services to Hamas-affiliated clients. The court even asked the survivors and families' lawyer if they wanted to amend the case, but they declined.
They later found evidence they said proves that the bank knowingly engaged with Hamas affiliates, so they went back to court to reopen their case. Their lawyer, Michael Radine, criticized the Supreme Court's decision.
Radine said in a statement to UPI that the district court would not allow his clients to retry the case unless they could meet "the erroneous and essentially unmeetable pleading standards raised by the defendant and adopted by the district court."
He added that the district court required evidence such as acts or statements from bank employees proving affiliations with Hamas before discovery.
"Few plaintiffs will have access to a defendant's internal communications before discovery, which is why the [2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals] tossed that pleading standard as 'too exacting,'" Radine said in the statement.
During the original case, the families appealed to the 2nd Circuit and were turned down again, so they returned to the lower courts and asked to retry the case and submit evidence proving that the bank knowingly provided financial services to Hamas-affiliated individuals.
They were told their case did not meet the requirement to be reopened, so the plaintiffs appealed that decision to the 2nd Circuit again.
"Indeed, today's decision could empower district courts to prevent plaintiffs from amending their complaints whenever the state of the applicable law is unclear," Radine said.
BLOM Bank SAL's lawyer Michael Hugh McGinley didn't respond to a request for comment.