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NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in
the preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are
requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the
United States, Washington, D.C. 20543, of any typographical or other
formal errors, in order that corrections may be made before the
preliminary print goes to press.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
--------
No. 91-522
--------
SAUDI ARABIA, KING FAISAL SPECIALIST
HOSPITAL AND ROYSPEC, PETITIONERS v. ___
SCOTT NELSON ET UX.
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED
STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH
CIRCUIT
[March 23, 1993]
JUSTICE SOUTER delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 entitles foreign states to
immunity from the jurisdiction of courts in the United States, 28 U. S. C.
S1604, subject to certain enumerated exceptions. S1605. One is that a foreign
state shall not be immune in any case "in which the action is based upon a
commercial activity carried on in the United States by the foreign state."
S1605(a)(2). We hold that respondents' action alleging personal injury
resulting from unlawful detention and torture by the Saudi Government is not
"based upon a commercial activity" within the meaning of the Act, which
consequently confers no jurisdiction over respondents' suit.
I
Because this case comes to us on a motion to dismiss the complaint, we assume
that we have truthful factual allegations before us, see United States v. _____________
Gaubert, 499 U. S. ___, ___ (1991), though many of those allegations are subject_______
to dispute. See Brief for Petitioners 3, n. 3; see also n. 1, infra. _____
Petitioner Kingdom of Saudi Arabia owns and operates petitioner King Faisal
Specialist Hospital in Riyadh, as well as petitioner Royspec Purchas- 91-522 - OPINION
2 SAUDI ARABIA v. NELSON ____
ing Services, the Hospital's corporate purchasing agent in the United States.
App. 91. The Hospital Corporation of America, Ltd. (HCA), an independent
corporation existing under the laws of the Cayman Islands, recruits Americans
for employment at the Hospital under an agreement signed with Saudi Arabia in
1973. Id., at 73. ___
In its recruitment effort, HCA placed an advertisement in a trade periodical
seeking applications for a position as a monitoring systems engineer at the
Hospital. The advertisement drew the attention of respondent Scott Nelson in
September 1983, while Nelson was in the United States. After interviewing for
the position in Saudi Arabia, Nelson returned to the United States, where he
signed an employment contract with the Hospital, id., at 4, satisfied personnel ___
processing requirements, and attended an orientation session that HCA conducted
for Hospital employees. In the course of that program, HCA identified Royspec
as the point of contact in the United States for family members who might wish
to reach Nelson in an emergency. Id., at 33. ___
In December 1983, Nelson went to Saudi Arabia and began work at the Hospital,
monitoring all "facilities, equipment, utilities and maintenance systems to
insure the safety of patients, hospital staff, and others." Id., at 4. He did ___
his job without significant incident until March 1984, when he discovered safety
defects in the Hospital's oxygen and nitrous oxide lines that posed fire hazards
and otherwise endangered patients' lives. Id., at 57-58. Over a period of ___
several months, Nelson repeatedly advised Hospital officials of the safety
defects and reported the defects to a Saudi Government commission as well. Id., ___
at 4-5. Hospital officials instructed Nelson to ignore the problems. Id., at ___
58.
The Hospital's response to Nelson's reports changed, however, on September 27,
1984, when certain Hospital employees summoned him to the Hospital's security
office 91-522 - OPINION
SAUDI ARABIA v. NELSON 3 ____
where agents of the Saudi Government arrested him. (Ftnote. 1) The agents (Ftnote. 1)
transported Nelson to a jail cell, in which they "shackled, tortured and bea[t]"
him, id., at 5, and kept him four days without food. Id., at 59. Although ___ ___
Nelson did not understand Arabic, Government agents forced him to sign a
statement written in that language, the content of which he did not know; a
Hospital employee who was supposed to act as Nelson's interpreter advised him to
sign "anything" the agents gave him to avoid further beatings. Ibid. Two days _____
later, Government agents transferred Nelson to the Al Sijan Prison "to await
trial on unknown charges." Ibid. _____
At the Prison, Nelson was confined in an overcrowded cell area infested with
rats, where he had to fight other prisoners for food and from which he was taken
only once a week for fresh air and exercise. Ibid. Although police interroga- _____
tors repeatedly questioned him in Arabic, id., at 5, Nelson did not learn the ___
nature of the charges, if any, against him. Ibid. For several days, the Saudi _____
Government failed to advise Nelson's family of his whereabouts, though a Saudi
official eventually told Nelson's wife, respondent Vivian Nelson, that he could
arrange for her husband's release if she provided sexual favors. Ibid. _____
Although officials from the United States Embassy visited Nelson twice during
his detention, they concluded that his allegations of Saudi mistreatment were
"not credible" and made no protest to Saudi authorities. Id., at 64. It was ___
only at the personal request of a United States Senator that the Saudi
Government released Nelson, 39 days after his arrest, on November 5, 1984.
____________________
1) Petitioners assert that the Saudi Government arrested Nelson because he 1)
had falsely represented to the Hospital that he had received a degree from the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology and had provided the Hospital with a
forged diploma to verify his claim. Brief for Petitioners 4-5. The Nelsons
concede these misrepresentations, but dispute that they occasioned Scott
Nelson's arrest. Brief for Respondents 9. 91-522 - OPINION
4 SAUDI ARABIA v. NELSON ____
Id., at 60. Seven days later, after failing to convince him to return to work___
at the Hospital, the Saudi Government allowed Nelson to leave the country. Id., ___
at 60-61.
In 1988, Nelson and his wife filed this action against petitioners in the
United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida seeking
damages for personal injury. The Nelsons' complaint sets out 16 causes of
action, which fall into three categories. Counts II through VII and counts X,
XI, XIV, and XV allege that petitioners committed various intentional torts,
including battery, unlawful detainment, wrongful arrest and imprisonment, false
imprisonment, inhuman torture, disruption of normal family life, and infliction
of mental anguish. Id., at 6-11, 15, 19-20. Counts I, IX, and XIII charge ___
petitioners with negligently failing to warn Nelson of otherwise undisclosed
dangers of his employment, namely, that if he attempted to report safety hazards
the Hospital would likely retaliate against him and the Saudi Government might
detain and physically abuse him without legal cause. Id., at 5-6, 14, 18-19. ___
Finally, counts VIII, XII, and XVI allege that Vivian Nelson sustained
derivative injury resulting from petitioners' actions. Id., at 11-12, 16, 20. ___
Presumably because the employment contract provided that Saudi courts would have
exclusive jurisdiction over claims for breach of contract, id., at 47, the ___
Nelsons raised no such matters.
The District Court dismissed for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction under the
Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976, 28 U. S. C. SS1330, 1602 et seq. It ______
rejected the Nelsons' argument that jurisdiction existed, under the first clause
of S1605(a)(2), because the action was one "based upon a commercial activity"
that petitioners had "carried on in the United States." Although HCA's
recruitment of Nelson in the United States might properly be attributed to Saudi
Arabia and the Hospital, the District Court reasoned, it did not amount to
commercial activity "carried on the United States" for purposes of the Act.
Id., at___ 91-522 - OPINION
SAUDI ARABIA v. NELSON 5 ____
94-95. The court explained that there was no sufficient "nexus" between
Nelson's recruitment and the injuries alleged. "Although [the Nelsons] argu[e]
that but for [Scott Nelson's] recruitment in the United States, he would not
have taken the job, been arrested, and suffered the personal injuries," the
court said, "this `connection' [is] far too tenuous to support jurisdiction"
under the Act. Id., at 97. Likewise, the court concluded that Royspec's ___
commercial activity in the United States, purchasing supplies and equipment for
the Hospital, id., at 93-94, had no nexus with the personal injuries alleged in ___
the complaint; Royspec had simply provided a way for Nelson's family to reach
him in an emergency. Id., at 96. ___
The Court of Appeals reversed. 923 F. 2d 1528 (CA11 1991). It concluded that
Nelson's recruitment and hiring were commercial activities of Saudi Arabia and
the Hospital, carried on in the United States for purposes of the Act, id., at ___
1533, and that the Nelsons' action was "based upon" these activities within the
meaning of the statute. Id., at 1533-1536. There was, the court reasoned, a ___
sufficient nexus between those commercial activities and the wrongful acts that
had allegedly injured the Nelsons: "the detention and torture of Nelson are so
intertwined with his employment at the Hospital," the court explained, "that
they are `based upon' his recruitment and hiring" in the United States. Id., at ___
1535. The court also found jurisdiction to hear the claims against Royspec.
Id., at 1536. (Ftnote. 2) After the Court of Appeals denied petitioners' (Ftnote. 2)___
suggestion for rehearing en banc, App. 133, we granted certiorari, 504 U. S. ___
(1992). We now reverse.
____________________
2) The Court of Appeals expressly declined to address the act of state 2)
doctrine, 923 F. 2d, at 1536, and we do not consider that doctrine here. 91-522 - OPINION
6 SAUDI ARABIA v. NELSON ____
II
The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act "provides the sole basis for obtaining
jurisdiction over a foreign state in the courts of this country." Argentine _________
Republic v. Amerada Hess Shipping Corp., 488 U. S. 428, 443 (1989). Under the________ ___________________________
Act, a foreign state is presumptively immune from the jurisdiction of United
States courts; unless a specified exception applies, a federal court lacks
subject-matter jurisdiction over a claim against a foreign state. Verlinden _________
B. V. v. Central Bank of Nigeria, 461 U. S. 480, 488-489 (1983); see 28 U. S. C._____ _______________________
S1604; J. Dellapenna, Suing Foreign Governments and Their Corporations 11, and
n. 64 (1988).
Only one such exception is said to apply here. The first clause of
S1605(a)(2) of the Act provides that a foreign state shall not be immune from
the jurisdiction of United States courts in any case "in which the action is
based upon a commercial activity carried on in the United States by the foreign
state." (Ftnote. 3) The Act defines such activity as "commercial activity (Ftnote. 3)
carried on by such state and having substantial contact with the United States,"
S1603(e), and provides that a commercial activity may be "either a regular
course of commercial conduct or a particular commercial transaction or act," the
"commercial character of [which] shall be determined by reference to" its "na-
ture," rather than its "purpose." S1603(d).
There is no dispute here that Saudi Arabia, the Hospi-
____________________
3) In full, S1605(a)(2) provides that "[a] foreign state shall not be 3)
immune from the jurisdiction of courts of the United States or of the States in
any case . . . in which the action is based upon a commercial activity carried
on in the United States by the foreign state; or upon an act performed in the
United States in connection with a commercial activity of the foreign state
elsewhere; or upon an act outside the territory of the United States in
connection with a commercial activity of the foreign state elsewhere and that
act causes a direct effect in the United States." 91-522 - OPINION
SAUDI ARABIA v. NELSON 7 ____
tal, and Royspec all qualify as "foreign state[s]" within the meaning of the
Act. Brief for Respondents 3; see 28 U. S. C. SS1603(a), (b) (term "foreign
state" includes "an agency or instrumentality of a foreign state"). For there
to be jurisdiction in this case, therefore, the Nelsons' action must be "based
upon" some "commercial activity" by petitioners that had "substantial contact"
with the United States within the meaning of the Act. Because we conclude that
the suit is not based upon any commercial activity by petitioners, we need not
reach the issue of substantial contact with the United States.
We begin our analysis by identifying the particular conduct on which the
Nelsons' action is "based" for purposes of the Act. See Texas Trading & Milling _______________________
Corp. v. Federal Republic of Nigeria, 647 F. 2d 300, 308 (CA2 1981), cert._____ ___________________________
denied, 454 U. S. 1148 (1982); Donoghue, Taking the "Sovereign" Out of the
Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act: A Functional Approach to the Commercial
Activity Exception, 17 Yale J. Int'l L. 489, 500 (1992). Although the Act
contains no definition of the phrase "based upon," and the relatively sparse
legislative history offers no assistance, guidance is hardly necessary. In
denoting conduct that forms the "basis," or "foundation," for a claim, see
Black's Law Dictionary 151 (6th ed. 1990) (defining "base"); Random House
Dictionary 172 (2d ed. 1987) (same); Webster's Third New International Dictio-
nary 180, 181 (1976) (defining "base" and "based"), the phrase is read most
naturally to mean those elements of a claim that, if proven, would entitle a
plaintiff to relief under his theory of the case. See Callejo v. Bancomer, _______ _________
S. A., 764 F. 2d 1101, 1109 (CA5 1985) (focus should be on the "gravamen of the_____
complaint"); accord, Santos v. Compagnie Nationale Air France, 934 F. 2d 890, ______ ______________________________
893 (CA7 1991) ("An action is based upon the elements that prove the claim, no
more and no less"); Millen Industries, Inc. v. Coordination Council for North _______________________ ______________________________
American Affairs, 272 U. S. App. D. C. 240, 246, 855 F. 2d 879, 885 (1988).________________ 91-522 - OPINION
8 SAUDI ARABIA v. NELSON ____
What the natural meaning of the phrase "based upon" suggests, the context
confirms. Earlier, see n. 3, supra, we noted that S1605(a)(2) contains two _____
clauses following the one at issue here. The second allows for jurisdiction
where a suit "is based . . . upon an act performed in the United States in
connection with a commercial activity of the foreign state elsewhere," and the
third speaks in like terms, allowing for jurisdiction where an action "is based
. . . upon an act outside the territory of the United States in connection with
a commercial activity of the foreign state elsewhere and that act causes a
direct effect in the United States." Distinctions among descriptions juxtaposed
against each other are naturally understood to be significant, see Melkonyan v. _________
Sullivan, 501 U. S. ___, ___ (1991), and Congress manifestly understood there to________
be a difference between a suit "based upon" commercial activity and one "based
upon" acts performed "in connection with" such activity. The only reasonable
reading of the former term calls for something more than a mere connection with,
or relation to, commercial activity. (Ftnote. 4) (Ftnote. 4)
In this case, the Nelsons have alleged that petitioners recruited Scott Nelson
for work at the Hospital, signed an employment contract with him, and
subsequently employed him. While these activities led to the conduct that
eventually injured the Nelsons, they are not the basis for the Nelsons' suit.
Even taking each of the Nelsons' allegations about Scott Nelson's recruitment
and employment as true, those facts alone entitle the Nelsons to
____________________
4) We do not mean to suggest that the first clause of S1605(a)(2) 4)
necessarily requires that each and every element of a claim be commercial
activity by a foreign state, and we do not address the case where a claim
consists of both commercial and sovereign elements. We do conclude, however,
that where a claim rests entirely upon activities sovereign in character, as
here, see infra, at 11-13, jurisdiction will not exist under that clause _____
regardless of any connection the sovereign acts may have with commercial
activity. 91-522 - OPINION
SAUDI ARABIA v. NELSON 9 ____
nothing under their theory of the case. The Nelsons have not, after all,
alleged breach of contract, see supra, at 4, but personal injuries caused by _____
petitioners' intentional wrongs and by petitioners' negligent failure to warn
Scott Nelson that they might commit those wrongs. Those torts, and not the
arguably commercial activities that preceded their commission, form the basis
for the Nelsons' suit.
Petitioners' tortious conduct itself fails to qualify as "commercial activity"
within the meaning of the Act, although the Act is too "`obtuse' " to be of much
help in reaching that conclusion. Callejo, supra, at 1107 (citation omitted). _______ _____
We have seen already that the Act defines "commercial activity" as "either a
regular course of commercial conduct or a particular commercial transaction or
act," and provides that "[t]he commercial character of an activity shall be
determined by reference to the nature of the course of conduct or particular
transaction or act, rather than by reference to its purpose." 28 U. S. C.
S1603(d). If this is a definition, it is one distinguished only by its
diffidence; as we observed in our most recent case on the subject, it "leaves
the critical term `commercial' largely undefined." Republic of Argentina v. _____________________ _
Weltover, Inc., 504 U. S. ___, ___ (1992); see Donoghue, supra, at 499;______________ ______
Lowenfeld, Litigating a Sovereign Immunity Claim - The Haiti Case, 49 N. Y. U. _____
L. Rev. 377, 435, n. 244 (1974) (commenting on then-draft Act) ("Start with
`activity,' proceed via `conduct' or `transaction' to `character,' then refer to
`nature,' and then go back to `commercial,' the term you started out to define
in the first place"); G. Born & D. Westin, International Civil Litigation in
United States Courts 479-480 (2d ed. 1992). We do not, however, have the option
to throw up our hands. The term has to be given some interpretation, and con-
gressional diffidence necessarily results in judicial responsibility to
determine what a "commercial activity" is for purposes of the Act. 91-522 - OPINION
10 SAUDI ARABIA v. NELSON ____
We took up the task just last Term in Weltover, supra, which involved ________ _____
Argentina's unilateral refinancing of bonds it had issued under a plan to
stabilize its currency. Bondholders sued Argentina in federal court, asserting
jurisdiction under the third clause of S1605(a)(2). In the course of holding
the refinancing to be a commercial activity for purposes of the Act, we observed
that the statute "largely codifies the so-called `restrictive' theory of foreign
sovereign immunity first endorsed by the State Department in 1952." 504 U. S.,
at ___. We accordingly held that the meaning of "commercial" for purposes of
the Act must be the meaning Congress understood the restrictive theory to
require at the time it passed the statute. See Weltover, supra, at ___. ________ _____
Under the restrictive, as opposed to the "absolute," theory of foreign
sovereign immunity, a state is immune from the jurisdiction of foreign courts as
to its sovereign or public acts (jure imperii), but not as to those that are ______________
private or commercial in character (jure gestionis). Verlinden B. V. v. Central ________________ _______________ _______
Bank of Nigeria, 461 U. S., at 487; Alfred Dunhill of London, Inc. v. Republic_______________ ______________________________ ________
of Cuba, 425 U. S. 682, 698 (1976) (plurality opinion); see 28 U. S. C. S1602;_______
see also Dunhill, supra, at 711 (Appendix 2 to the Opinion of the Court) (Letter _______ _____
to the Attorney General from Jack B. Tate, Acting Legal Adviser, Dept. of State,
May 19, 1952); Hill, A Policy Analysis of the American Law of Foreign State
Immunity, 50 Ford. L. Rev. 155, 168 (1981). We explained in Weltover, supra, at ________ _____
___ (quoting Dunhill, supra, at 704), that a state engages in commercial _______ _____
activity under the restrictive theory where it exercises "`only those powers
that can also be exercised by private citizens,'" as distinct from those
"`powers peculiar to sovereigns.' " Put differently, a foreign state engages in
commercial activity for purposes of the restrictive theory only where it acts
"in the manner of a private player within" the market. 504 U. S., at ___; see
Restatement (Third) of the Foreign Relations Law of 91-522 - OPINION
SAUDI ARABIA v. NELSON 11 ____
the United States S451 (1987) ("Under international law, a state or state
instrumentality is immune from the jurisdiction of the courts of another state,
except with respect to claims arising out of activities of the kind that may be
carried on by private persons").
We emphasized in Weltover that whether a state acts "in the manner of" a ________
private party is a question of behavior, not motivation:
"[B]ecause the Act provides that the commercial character of an act is to be
determined by reference to its `nature' rather than its `purpose,' the
question is not whether the foreign government is acting with a profit motive
or instead with the aim of fulfilling uniquely sovereign objectives. Rather,
the issue is whether the particular actions that the foreign state performs
(whatever the motive behind them) are the type of actions by which a private ____
party engages in `trade and traffic or commerce.'" Weltover, supra, at ___ ________ _____
(citations omitted) (emphasis in original).
We did not ignore the difficulty of distinguishing "`purpose' (i.e., the reason ____ _ ______
why the foreign state engages in the activity) from `nature' (i.e., the outward ____ _
form of the conduct that the foreign state performs or agrees to perform)," but
recognized that the Act "unmistakably commands" us to observe the distinction.
504 U. S., at ___ (emphasis in original). Because Argentina had merely dealt in
the bond market in the manner of a private player, we held, its refinancing of
the bonds qualified as a commercial activity for purposes of the Act despite the
apparent governmental motivation. Id., at ___. ___
Unlike Argentina's activities that we considered in Weltover, the intentional ________
conduct alleged here (the Saudi Government's wrongful arrest, imprisonment, and
torture of Nelson) could not qualify as commercial under the restrictive theory.
The conduct boils down to abuse of the power of its police by the Saudi
Government, and however 91-522 - OPINION
12 SAUDI ARABIA v. NELSON ____
monstrous such abuse undoubtedly may be, a foreign state's exercise of the power
of its police has long been understood for purposes of the restrictive theory as
peculiarly sovereign in nature. See Arango v. Guzman Travel Advisors Corp., 621 ______ ____________________________
F. 2d 1371, 1379 (CA5 1980); Victory Transport Inc. v. Comisaria General de ______________________ ____________________
Abastecimientos y Transportes, 336 F. 2d 354, 360 (CA2 1964) (restrictive theory_____________________________
does not extend immunity to a foreign state's "internal administrative acts"),
cert. denied, 381 U. S. 934 (1965); Herbage v. Meese, 747 F. Supp. 60, 67 (DC _______ _____
1990), affirmance order, 292 U. S. App. D. C. 84, 946 F. 2d 1564, cert. denied,
502 U. S. ___ (1991); K. Randall, Federal Courts and the International Human
Rights Paradigm 93 (1990) (the Act's commercial-activity exception is irrelevant
to cases alleging that a foreign state has violated human
rights). (Ftnote. 5) Exercise of the powers of police and penal officers is not (Ftnote. 5)
the sort of action by which
____________________
5) The State Department's practice prior to the passage of the Act supports 5)
this understanding. Prior to the Act's passage, the State Department would
determine in the first instance whether a foreign state was entitled to immunity
and make an appropriate recommendation to the courts. See Verlinden B. V. v. _______________
Central Bank of Nigeria, 461 U. S. 480, 486-488 (1983). A compilation of_______________________
available materials demonstrates that the Department recognized immunity with
respect to claims involving the exercise of the power of the police or military
of a foreign state. See Sovereign Immunity Decisions of the Department of
State, May 1952 to January 1977 (M. Sandler, D. Vagts, & B. Ristau eds.), in
1977 Digest of United States Practice in International Law 1017, 1045-1046
(claim that Cuban armed guard seized cash from plaintiff at Havana airport);
id., at 1053-1054 (claim that Saudi militia fired on plaintiffs and caused____
personal and property damage).
JUSTICE WHITE points to an episode in which the State Department declined to
recognize immunity with respect to a claim by Jamaican nationals, working in the
United States, against the British West Indies Central Labour Organization, a
foreign governmental agency. See id., at 1062-1063; post, at 5, n. 3. In our ___ ____
view that episode bears little relation to this case, for the Jamaican nationals
did not allege mistreatment by the police of a foreign state. 91-522 - OPINION
SAUDI ARABIA v. NELSON 13 ____
private parties can engage in commerce. "[S]uch acts as legislation, or the
expulsion of an alien, or a denial of justice, cannot be performed by an
individual acting in his own name. They can be performed only by the state
acting as such." Lauterpacht, The Problem of Jurisdictional Immunities of
Foreign States, 28 Brit. Y. B. Int'l L. 220, 225 (1952); see also id., at 237. ___
The Nelsons and their amici urge us to give significance to their assertion _____
that the Saudi Government subjected Nelson to the abuse alleged as retaliation
for his persistence in reporting Hospital safety violations, and argue that the
character of the mistreatment was consequently commercial. One amicus, indeed, ______
goes so far as to suggest that the Saudi Government "often uses detention and
torture to resolve commercial disputes." Brief for Human Rights Watch as _
Amicus Curiae 6. But this argument does not alter the fact that the powers_____________
allegedly abused were those of police and penal officers. In any event, the
argument is off the point, for it goes to purpose, the very fact the Act renders
irrelevant to the question of an activity's commercial character. Whatever may
have been the Saudi Government's motivation for its allegedly abusive treatment
of Nelson, it remains the case that the Nelsons' action is based upon a sover-
eign activity immune from the subject-matter jurisdiction of United States
courts under the Act.
In addition to the intentionally tortious conduct, the Nelsons claim a
separate basis for recovery in petitioners' failure to warn Scott Nelson of the
hidden dangers associated with his employment. The Nelsons allege that, at the
time petitioners recruited Scott Nelson and thereafter, they failed to warn him
of the possibility of severe retaliatory action if he attempted to disclose any
safety hazards he might discover on the job. See supra, at 4. In other words, _____
petitioners bore a duty to warn of their own propensity for tortious conduct.
But this is merely a semantic ploy. For aught we can see, a plaintiff could 91-522 - OPINION
14 SAUDI ARABIA v. NELSON ____
recast virtually any claim of intentional tort committed by sovereign act as a
claim of failure to warn, simply by charging the defendant with an obligation to
announce its own tortious propensity before indulging it. To give juris-
dictional significance to this feint of language would effectively thwart the
Act's manifest purpose to codify the restrictive theory of foreign sovereign
immunity. Cf. United States v. Shearer, 473 U. S. 52, 54-55 (1985) (opinion of _____________ _______
Burger, C. J.).
III
The Nelsons' action is not "based upon a commercial activity" within the
meaning of the first clause of S1605(a)(2) of the Act, and the judgment of the
Court of Appeals is accordingly reversed.
It is so ordered. _________________