# Saudi Arabia v. Nelson

> Supreme Court of the United States · March 23, 1993 · 507 U.S. 349

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9432757

## Case

- **Full name:** SAUDI ARABIA Et Al. v. NELSON Et Ux.
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** March 23, 1993
- **Citations:** 507 U.S. 349; 113 S. Ct. 1471; 123 L. Ed. 2d 47; 1993 U.S. LEXIS 2398
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurring in part by Blackmun
- **Judges:** Souter, Rehnquist, O'Connor, Scalia, Thomas, Kennedy, White, Blackmun, Stevens, I-B
- **Cited by:** 689 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9432757

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- finding that the conduct at issue – Nelson’s wrongful arrest, imprisonment and torture – “boils down to abuse of the power of its police by the Saudi Government, and however monstrous such abuse undoubtedly may be, a foreign state’s exercise of the power of its police has long…
- recognizing that “Congress manifestly understood there to be a difference between a suit ‘based upon’ commercial activity [clause one] and one ‘based upon’ acts performed ‘in connection with’ such activity [clauses two and three],” with the former requiring a higher standard
- finding that the plaintiffs employment contract, while commercial in nature, did not form the basis for his personal injury claims resulting from unlawful detention and torture by the Saudi government because it was too far removed from the tortious acts
- explaining that, in Republic of Argentina v. Weltover, Inc., 504 U.S. 607, 612 (1992), the Court “observed that the [FSIA] ‘largely codifies the so-called “restrictive” theory of foreign sovereign immunity first endorsed by the State Department in 1952’”

## Opinion text

Justice Blackmun,
concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part.
I join Justice White’s opinion because it finds that respondents’ intentional tort claims are “based upon a commercial activity” and that the commercial activity at issue in those claims was not “carried on in the United States.” I *377 join Justice Kennedy’s opinion insofar as it concludes that the “failure to warn” claims should be remanded.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9432757. Public record. Not legal advice.