More than two decades after the September 11 attacks, federal courts are still issuing consequential rulings that are quietly reshaping how the United States handles foreign government accountability for international terrorism. Two decisions out of the Southern District of New York – one in August 2025, one in March 2026 – together suggest that an emerging legal framework is taking shape, one with implications that reach well beyond the 9/11 cases themselves.
The two rulings address different defendants, different theories of liability, and different categories of harm. But read together, they mark a significant expansion of the circumstances under which victims of foreign-sponsored terrorism can seek and obtain redress in American courts.
The Legal Foundation: Congress Opens the Courthouse Door
For most of American legal history, foreign governments enjoyed broad immunity from civil suits in U.S. courts under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA). The principle behind that immunity was practical as much as legal: disputes with foreign nations, the thinking went, are better resolved through diplomacy than litigation.
That began to change in 2016, when Congress passed the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), amending the FSIA to carve out a specific exception for international terrorism. Under 28 U.S. Code § 1605B, a foreign government can now be sued in U.S. district court when a plaintiff seeks damages for physical injury, property damage, or death occurring on American soil, provided the harm resulted from an act of international terrorism and a tortious act by a foreign state official or employee acting within the scope of their duties, regardless of where that act originated.
The amendment did not guarantee plaintiffs would win. It guaranteed they could get in the door. What has happened since – through years of discovery, expert testimony, and judicial scrutiny – is that courts are now beginning to define what winning actually looks like.
Ruling One: Foreign Facilitation of an Attack
In re Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001 — August 28, 2025
The first ruling addresses the most direct form of foreign government liability: did a foreign state help plan or enable the attack itself?
After years of litigation and extensive pretrial discovery, U.S. District Court Judge George B. Daniels denied Saudi Arabia’s motion to dismiss in August 2025, finding that plaintiffs had produced sufficient evidence to proceed to trial. The core of their case against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) rests on two Saudi nationals operating in California in the years before the attacks.
Omar Al-Bayoumi arrived in San Diego in 1994, officially to pursue education. Plaintiffs alleged he was working as a Saudi intelligence asset and provided direct logistical assistance to two of the hijackers after their arrival in the United States. Fahad Al-Thumairy served as imam of a Los Angeles mosque beginning in 1998; a bank account in his name received substantial funds from a senior Saudi cabinet member, which he attributed to mosque expenses.
Judge Daniels concluded that the evidence, taken together, was sufficient to survive dismissal:
“Plaintiffs have managed to provide this Court with reasonable evidence to the roles played by Bayoumi, Thumairy, and KSA, in assisting the hijackers. KSA did not proffer sufficient evidence to the contrary. Although KSA attempts to offer seemingly innocent explanations or context, they are either self-contradictory or not strong enough to overcome the inference that KSA had employed Bayoumi and Thumairy to assist the hijackers.”
Saudi Arabia has contested the suit at every stage. The case is now proceeding toward trial, the first time a foreign sovereign has faced that prospect in a U.S. court over its alleged role in facilitating a terrorist attack on American soil.
Ruling Two: The Long Tail of Harm
Knight, Rodriguez, Johnson, and Gaston v. Islamic Republic of Iran — March 17, 2026
The second ruling addresses a different and equally significant question: How far forward in time does a foreign government’s liability extend for a terrorist attack it sponsored?
Iran has been designated a state sponsor of terrorism and has faced numerous default judgments in 9/11-related litigation, never appearing in court to contest the claims. The March 2026 ruling by Judge Daniels breaks new ground, however, by addressing for the first time the claims of living plaintiffs who developed serious but non-fatal medical conditions as a result of their exposure to the toxic environment at Ground Zero in the weeks and months following the attacks.
Previous rulings in the same litigation had addressed compensation for plaintiffs whose latent conditions ultimately proved fatal. This decision extended that framework to survivors – first responders, recovery workers, and others – who are living with ongoing illness. Two plaintiffs also sought recovery for injuries sustained during the attacks themselves, in addition to their latent conditions. The estate of one plaintiff, Albert Filosa, sought recovery for latent injuries that preceded his death.
Judge Daniels adopted in full the recommendations of U.S. Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn, who had evaluated each plaintiff’s circumstances and recommended specific pain and suffering damages. No party objected to her findings.
The ruling establishes an important legal principle: the harm attributable to a foreign-sponsored terrorist attack does not end when the smoke clears. Cancers, respiratory diseases, and other conditions that manifest years or even decades later remain compensable — and the foreign government whose support enabled the attack remains liable for them.
An Emerging Framework
Taken together, the two rulings are helpful precedence for future litigation in U.S. District Courts, seeking foreign government accountability in terrorism cases for physical injury to person or property or death occurring in the United States.
It bears noting that the Saudi Arabia and Iran cases are procedurally different in an important respect. Saudi Arabia is an active, contested defendant: it has appeared, argued, and will have the opportunity to present its case at trial. Iran has defaulted, so there will be no trial. The principles emerging from both cases are significant, but the Saudi Arabia ruling carries particular weight precisely because it survived a fully contested motion to dismiss.
Implications for Homeland Security Practice
For homeland security professionals, the practical significance of this framework operates on several levels.
Civil litigation has proven capable of surfacing operationally relevant information. The discovery process in the Saudi Arabia case produced detailed evidence about foreign government personnel networks operating on U.S. soil, the kind of information that in other contexts might remain classified or diplomatically suppressed. As more cases proceed, that discovery record will continue to grow.
The framework also creates prospective deterrence. Foreign governments now face the possibility that financial and logistical support provided to terrorist organizations – even through intermediaries, even through ostensibly civilian personnel – could expose them to open-ended civil liability in American courts, potentially for decades after an attack.
Finally, the latent injury ruling has direct relevance to how agencies plan for the long-term care and compensation of personnel who respond to mass casualty events. The legal recognition that toxic exposure liability extends years into the future mirrors the policy reality that first responder health consequences do the same.
The 9/11 litigation is not over. But the legal architecture it has produced may prove to be one of its most durable consequences.
28 U.S.C. § 1605B is available at law.cornell.edu. The August 2025 Saudi Arabia opinion is available through the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The March 2026 Iran ruling is available via the case docket at No. 03 MDL 1570.
