by Fred Lucas
The Supreme Court determined that a U.S.-based company — Havana Docks — can recover damages from four major cruise lines that used its docks previously confiscated by the Cuban government.
Havana Docks, a U.S. company, built docks in Havana’s port before the Cuban Revolution. The Castro regime revoked the company’s legal right to the docks, and the company later sued cruise lines that used the docks, claiming they were liable for trafficking in confiscated property. The cruise lines argued that the company’s legal right to the docks would have expired by then, regardless of confiscation.
In an 8-1 ruling issued on Thursday, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the majority that Havana Docks “did not have to prove that the cruise lines interfered with a property interest that would have existed in the counterfactual scenario in which the Cuban government did not confiscate it.”
The decision centered on the plain text of Title III of the 1996 Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act, also known as the Helms-Burton Act. The Court held that Havana Docks did not need to show that its time-limited concession, which would have expired in 2004 anyway, still existed in a hypothetical world without the confiscation. They ruled that the docks themselves count as the tainted property, and anyone who knowingly uses them without authorization owes compensation to the rightful U.S. claimant.
The court emphasized that the Cuban government physically seized control of the docks, expelled Havana Docks’ agents, and never paid compensation. The cruise lines – Royal Caribbean, Carnival, Norwegian Cruise Line, and MSC Cruises – then transported nearly one million passengers through those same docks between 2016 and 2019. This commercial activity, the Court concluded, established liability under the statute.
“The cruise lines’ use of the docks is sufficient to establish that they used ‘property which was confiscated by the Cuban Government,’” Thomas wrote.
Justice Elena Kagan dissented.
In 2019, the docks company sued the four cruise companies that used the confiscated docks from 2016 through 2019.
The companies argued they followed the U.S. government’s lead on reopening travel to Cuba as part of the Obama administration’s overtures to the island nation.
Thursday’s ruling reverses an 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision that determined the company could not recover damages. Before that, a lower court found the cruise companies liable for $440 million.
The question before the court was whether a plaintiff must establish a present-day property interest if the assets in question were not monetized.
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Fred Lucas is senior investigative reporter for the Daily Signal. He is the author of “The Myth of Voter Suppression: The Left’s Assault on Clean Elections”. Executive Editor of The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network Christina Botteri contributed to this report.
Photo “Cruise Ships in Havana” by Djof CCNC2.0
