Comments
On March 26, 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Sudan v. Harrison et al. against victims and their families of the USS Cole bombing, holding that a lower court could not issue a default judgment against Sudan because it had been improperly served. The case concerns the bombing of the USS Cole in Aden, Yemen, in 2000, which killed seventeen crew members, after which Al Qaeda claimed responsibility and the victims sued Sudan for giving material support to Al Qaeda for the bombing. When suing under an exception to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, there are four methods of serving civil process, including “by any form of mail requiring a signed receipt, to be addressed and dispatched . . . to the head of the ministry of foreign affairs of the foreign state concerned.” In this case, the service packet was addressed to the Sudanese Minister of Foreign Affairs at the Sudanese Embassy in the United States and a default judgment was issued against Sudan when it failed to appear in litigation. Sudan argued the judgment was invalid for lack of personal jurisdiction because the service packet must be sent to its foreign minister in Sudan, but the Second Circuit affirmed, finding that the statute was silent on where the mailing must be sent. The Supreme Court found in favor of Sudan and that service of process in this instance “requires a mailing to be sent directly to the foreign minister’s office in the foreign state.”