Cruise lines can be held liable for using docks seized under Castro, Supreme Court rules
WASHINGTON- The Supreme Court on Thursday largely upheld lawsuits filed by U.S. companies whose property was seized in Cuba before 1960, including claims against cruise lines that docked there over the past decade.
These lawsuits are not aimed at obtaining compensation from Cubans but from those who “traffic in property confiscated by the Cuban government.”
In an 8-1 decision, the justices revived a $400 million judgment against four cruise lines whose ships called at Havana between 2016 and 2019.
All used docks built in the early 20th century by the Havana Docks Corporation, an American company.
Justice Clarence Thomas pointed to a rarely enforced 1996 law that allowed prosecution of those who “use property tainted by past confiscation.”
Previous presidents had suspended enforcement of the law, but President Trump allowed such allegations.
This policy change exposed “traffickers in property confiscated from U.S. persons” to filing suit in federal courts, Thomas said.
The four cruise lines – Caribbean Cruises, Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, Carnival Corporation and MSC Cruises – carried nearly a million paying passengers to Cuba, he wrote.
They paid tens of millions of dollars to the Cuban government to do business in Cuba. They collectively earned hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue from trips that included a stopover in Havana, he said.
A federal judge in Florida ordered each of the cruise lines to pay $100 million in damages, but the U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta blocked the decision by a 2-1 vote. It said Havana Docks Corporation’s contract to operate the docks expired in 2004.
Justice Elena Kagan made the same argument in dissent.
She said: “The docks have always been owned by the Cuban government – not Havana Docks -. What Havana Docks had was only a property right to use those docks for a specified period of time. And that time-limited interest expired in 2004 – more than a decade before cruise lines used the docks.”
A similar request from Exxon Mobil Corp., which was argued in late February, is still pending in court.
