The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday sided with Havana Docks, a U.S. company that has pursued claims tied to property confiscated by Fidel Castro’s government more than 65 years ago, in a ruling that revived a lawsuit aimed at cruise operators.
By an 8-1 vote, the justices held that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta was wrong to dismiss the claims, according to Justice Clarence Thomas’s opinion. Thomas wrote that “the cruise lines used confiscated property to which Havana Docks owns the claim.”
The case targets four cruise lines that brought tourists to Cuba during a brief period when relations between the United States and Cuba thawed under President Barack Obama. In 2016, Obama announced at a joint news conference with Castro that cruise lines could resume service to Cuba, and several operators began making stops in Havana that allowed cruise passengers to take excursions to local venues.
That changed in 2019, when President Donald Trump decided to activate the provision of federal law that allows lawsuits tied to confiscated Cuban property. After that decision, the cruise lines “hastily dropped Cuba stops and rerouted ships on the go,” according to the Supreme Court’s backdrop in the opinion.
The Supreme Court’s decision returns the dispute to the federal appeals court because it is “not a final decision in the suit filed by Havana Docks,” Thomas acknowledged. The justices said the cruise lines still have additional arguments that have yet to be ruled on.
The lawsuit traces to a key section of the Helms-Burton Act, a federal law Congress passed in response to the shootdowns of civilian planes flown by Miami-based exiles in 1996. Title III of the act allows Americans to sue companies that, as the law describes it, engage in commercial activity involving property confiscated by Cuba’s government.
In the earlier proceedings, U.S. District Judge Beth Bloom in Miami found the cruise lines liable for their use of a Havana terminal that Havana Docks once controlled. Bloom also ruled that licenses issued by Obama’s Treasury Department to carry American passengers to Cuba did not shield the cruise lines from the lawsuit, according to the account of the litigation in the Supreme Court ruling.
The Supreme Court’s intervention comes amid heightened pressure on Cuba from the Trump administration, including the Wednesday indictment of former Cuban President Raúl Castro in connection with the 1996 downing of civilian planes. The decision also fits a broader pattern with Helms-Burton: before the first Trump administration, the Supreme Court noted that every president had suspended the law’s Title III provision, citing objections from U.S. allies doing business in Cuba and concerns about future negotiated settlements between Washington and Havana.