1. What was the theory that Butters advanced as to why the lawsuit fell into an FSIA exception?

2. How far does the FSIA immunity go? If one of Vance’s employees was ordered by Saudi officials to physically detain Butters and she was injured, would Vance still be protected by the FSIA against any liability resulting from Butters’s injury?

3. When the court states that the “FSIA immunity presupposes a tolerance for the sovereign decisions of other countries that may reflect legal norms and cultural values quite different from our own,” what legal norms and cultural values is it referring to?

Vance International is a U.S. company that provides security services to corporations and foreign sovereigns, including the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Vance was hired to augment the security provided to a princess of the Saudi royal family while the princess underwent medical treatments in California. The Saudi military was responsible for protection, and Saudi military officers supervised all security at the site. Butters, a woman employed by Vance as a security officer, was assigned to the Saudi detail and, on several occasions, Butters temporarily worked as an acting supervisor in a security command post. Vance managers recommended to the Saudis that Butters be promoted to serving a full rotation in the command post, but the Saudi authorities rejected that recommendation. Their rejection was based on the Saudi military supervisor’s contention that the appointment of a woman for that post was unacceptable under Islamic law and that Saudis would consider it inappropriate for their officers to spend long periods of time in a command post with a woman present.

Butters brought suit against Vance for gender dis-crimination in the loss of the promotion, and Vance asserted immunity under the Federal Sovereign Immunities Act because it was carrying out orders of the Saudi government. Butters argued that Vance fell under one of the exceptions to the FSIA because the company was engaged in a commercial activity. 

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Vance. The court reasoned that Vance was entitled to immunity from suit under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act because Vance’s client, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, was responsible for Butters not being promoted. The court held that the action here was not exempt from the FSIA as “commercial activities” because the relevant act was quintessentially an act peculiar to sovereigns and that Vance was entitled to derivative immunity under the FSIA because it was following Saudi Arabia’s orders not to promote Butters. 

Immunity  “Any type of governmental immunity reflects a trade-off between the possibility that an official’s wrongdoing will remain unpunished and the risk that government functions will be impaired. The resolution of immunity questions inherently requires a balance between the evils inevitable in any available alternative. FSIA immunity presupposes a tolerance for the sovereign decisions of other countries that may reflect legal norms and cultural values quite different from our own. Here Saudi Arabia made a decision to protect a member of its royal family in a manner consistent with Islamic law and custom. The Act requires not that we approve of the diverse cultural or political motivations that may underlie another sovereign’s acts, but that we respect them.”