Federal Appeals Court Reinstates $656 Million Judgment Against Palestinian Authorities

Authored by Joseph Lord via The Epoch Times,

A federal appellate court has agreed to reinstate a $656 million judgment against Palestinian authorities for Americans killed or wounded in attacks by the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Palestinian Authority while in Israel.

The ruling from the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was issued in the wake of a Supreme Court decision authorizing such suits for victims of international terrorism in a legal saga that’s been ongoing since the mid-2010s.

“We conclude that the original judgment for the plaintiffs should be reinstated. That conclusion is consistent with the plain import of the Supreme Court’s decision,” the judges said in a decision dated March 30.

The Supreme Court’s decision directly overturned a prior ruling made by the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals on the matter.

The case has its earliest origins in a law passed by Congress in 1992, the Anti-Terrorism Act, which permitted victims of international terror to sue the offender.

In 2014, in the case Sokolow v. PLO, the PLO was successfully sued under that law in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. In the case, victims were awarded $218.5 million in damages by a jury—tripled to $655.5 million under the Anti-Terrorism Act.

The victims and their families have stated that Palestinian agents were either directly involved in the attacks or helped incite them.

The Palestinians have consistently argued that the cases shouldn’t be allowed in American courts.

In 2016, the case was brought before the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals. In their decision, circuit judges tossed out the verdict from the lower court, and ruled that U.S. courts had no jurisdiction over international actors in non-U.S. countries.

Frustrated by the ruling, Congress in 2019 passed the Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act (PSJVTA), which sought to create a legislative carve-out to ensure that lawsuits against the PLO and Palestinian Authority could move forward.

The legislation stated that the PLO and Palestinian Authority had “consented” to the jurisdiction of U.S. courts if they either paid martyr benefits to terrorists or their families or if they maintained any non-United Nations offices in the United States.

In 2023, the matter came again before the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, and the court held that the PSJVTA was unconstitutional. Its ruling stated that Congress could not simply “deem” an action to constitute consent to U.S. jurisdiction without running afoul of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.

In a unanimous decision in June 2025, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of victims, overturning the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeal’s ruling that the Fifth Amendment was violated by the PSJVTA.

With the vacation overturned, the courts will now move toward enforcement of the lower court ruling in favor of the plaintiffs, although collecting the funds from the PLO may meet with practical obstacles.