Joseph J. Cicippio, Elham Cicippio, David Jacobson v. Islamic Republic of Iran

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• concluding that state-sponsored hostage taking is not a commercial activity even if it is financially motivated
• holding that kidnaping is not commercial activity
• distinguishing a kidnapping of another country’s national for leverage in international negotiations from a kidnapping of a commercial rival
• “[W]e cannot consider the alleged motive of the Iranian government in determining whether appellants’ claim if true would involve commercial activity.”
• “Perhaps a kidnapping of a commercial rival could be thought to be a commercial activity.”
• “[W]e take from Weltover the key proposition that in determining whether a given government activity is commercial under the [FSIA], we must ask whether the activity is one in which commercial actors typically engage.”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).