Burton v. Drummond Company Inc.

In 2001, three Colombian trade union leaders were murdered by paramilitary forces. Their families sued Drummond Company, Inc. and its Colombian subsidiary under the Alien Tort Statute and Torture Victim Protection Act in U.S. federal court, alleging the companies provided financial and logistical support to the paramilitaries to suppress union organizing. The plaintiffs claimed extrajudicial killing, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The district court dismissed the case for failure to state a claim. On October 12, 2018, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of direct liability claims, but vacated the dismissal of aiding and abetting and conspiracy claims, allowing the families to amend their complaint to properly allege those theories of secondary liability.

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the dismissal of direct liability claims but reversed the dismissal of the aiding and abetting and conspiracy claims, remanding the case to allow the plaintiffs to file an amended complaint.

Whether a U.S. corporation could be held liable under the Alien Tort Statute for aiding and abetting extrajudicial killings and war crimes committed by foreign paramilitary groups; whether the plaintiffs sufficiently alleged specific intent and a principal-agent relationship between Drummond and the paramilitaries; and the extraterritorial application of U.S. human rights law in light of jurisdictional constraints.

The case tested the narrowing boundaries of the Alien Tort Statute after Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum and underscored the challenges of holding multinationals accountable for overseas human rights violations. It drew attention to corporate complicity in labor repression and remained a significant precedent in transnational human rights litigation.