Thanks for visiting! Welcome to a new way to research case law. You are viewing a free summary from Descrybe.ai. For citation and good law / bad law checking, legal issue analysis, and other advanced tools, explore our Legal Research Toolkit — not free, but close.
Sargon Dadesho v. Government of Iraq
Citations: 139 F.3d 766; 40 Fed. R. Serv. 3d 546; 98 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 2098; 98 Daily Journal DAR 2948; 1998 U.S. App. LEXIS 5732; 1998 WL 128494Docket: 97-15434
Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit; March 24, 1998; Federal Appellate Court
Sargon Dadesho, the plaintiff-appellee, sued the Government of Iraq in 1992, alleging a plot to murder him. Iraq, aware of the lawsuit, did not appear in court, leading to a default judgment against it for intentional infliction of emotional distress. Iraq later sought to set aside the judgment, claiming distraction due to frozen assets and severed diplomatic relations, but the district court denied this motion on December 18, 1996. Iraq filed a notice of appeal on February 18, 1997, exceeding the thirty-day deadline for civil appeals under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(a). The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals determined that the notice of appeal was untimely and thus the appeal must be dismissed. Iraq argued it was entitled to the same sixty-day appeal period as the United States government, referencing the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA). However, the court clarified that only the U.S. government or its agencies are granted such extensions under the appellate rules, and the FSIA contains no provisions regarding appeal deadlines. The court also found no basis for extending additional procedural protections to foreign governments, emphasizing that Congress has not provided the protections Iraq sought. Consequently, the appeal was dismissed as untimely. The panel concluded the case was suitable for decision without oral argument.