Opinion of the Court
abetted the Reina nightclub attack, with a strict nexus between their assistance and that attack. Neither side is quite right.
To start, we find it unnecessary to parse whether the textual object of “aids and abets” is “the person” or the “act of international terrorism.” That syntactic dispute makes little difference here, because aiding and abetting is inherently a rule of secondary liability for specific wrongful acts. See Prosser & Keeton 323. As stated above, the rule imposes liability for a wrong on those who “hel[p] another to complete its commission.” Rosemond, 572 U. S., at 70 (emphasis added). Or, as Halberstam put it, the defendant must aid and abet “a tortious act.” 705 F. 2d, at 484.
Nor would a contrary rule make sense for torts. That is because tort law imposes liability only when someone commits an actual tort; merely agreeing to commit a tort or suggesting a tortious act is not, without more, tortious. See Prosser & Keeton 324; Halberstam, 705 F. 2d, at 479.[1] “Enterprises” or “conspiracies” alone are therefore not tortious—the focus must remain on the tort itself. The same is true here: The ATA opens the courthouse doors only if the plaintiff is “injured … by reason of an act of international terrorism.” §2333(a). JASTA further restricts secondary liability by requiring that the “act of international terrorism” be “committed, planned, or authorized by” a foreign terrorist organization designated as such “as of the date on which such act of international terrorism was committed, planned, or authorized.” §2333(d). Thus, it is not enough,
- ↑ In this respect, tort law is different from criminal law, which does punish mere agreements to commit crimes. See, e.g., 2 LaFave §12.2(b), at 372 (“At common law a conspiracy was punishable even though no act was done beyond the mere making of the agreement”); see also 1 J. Ohlin, Wharton’s Criminal Law §8.7, p. 242 (16th ed. 2021) (noting that statutory requirements of an “overt act” generally do not require that the overt act be criminal); Iannelli v. United States, 420 U. S. 770, 785, n. 17 (1975) (similar).
