Justices scuttle lawsuit against Nestlé, Cargill for allegedly aiding child slavery abroad

The Supreme Court on Thursday threw out a lawsuit alleging that two U.S.-based companies, Nestlé and Cargill, facilitated human-rights abuses on cocoa plantations in the Ivory Coast. By a vote of 8-1, the justices ruled that the lawsuit cannot go forward because it is based on conduct that occurred overseas. Although the decision was obviously a victory for the two companies, it was not the sweeping one that the business community had sought. The justices left open for another day the question of whether the federal law at the heart of the case allows lawsuits against U.S. corporations at all.

Thursday’s decision came in a lawsuit filed by six citizens of Mali, who claimed that as children they were enslaved on cocoa plantations in Ivory Coast. The conditions there, the plaintiffs contended, were horrific: They worked for long hours without pay and with very little food, and if they didn’t work quickly enough, they were beaten with whips and tree branches.

The plaintiffs filed a lawsuit in federal court in California against Nestlé and Cargill, alleging that the companies had aided and abetted human-rights abuses because they had purchased cocoa beans from the plantations even though the companies knew that the plantations used child slavery. The companies also provided the cocoa farmers with support, the plaintiffs added, such as personal spending money and farming supplies such as fertilizers and tools.

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