On a second appeal, the Ninth Circuit again reverses dismissal of plaintiff’s Alien Tort Statute claim against major purchasers of cocoa for allegedly aiding and abetting use of child slave labor on Ivory Coast plantations where cocoa is grown. Plaintiffs sufficiently alleged that the cocoa purchasers’ conduct in paying personal spending money to Ivory Coast growers with knowledge of their child slave labors abuses was not ordinary business conduct and the payments were made from the United States sufficiently to come within the Alien Tort Statute even though the slave labor itself occurred overseas.
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (Nelson, D.W.; Shea, J., sitting by designation, concurring in the result); October 23, 2018; 906 F.3d 1120