Theodoridis v. Islamic Republic of Iran

── Theodoridis v. Islamic Republic of Iran ── Court: Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit Date: April 23, 2026 Category: General 25-2135 Theodoridis v. Islamic Republic of Iran UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT SUMMARY ORDER RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A SUMMARY ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT’S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A SUMMARY ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION “SUMMARY ORDER”). A PARTY CITING A SUMMARY ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL. At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, held at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the City of New York, on the 23rd day of April, two thousand twenty-six. Present: RICHARD C. WESLEY, MICHAEL H. PARK, Circuit Judges, ELIZABETH C. COOMBE, District Judge. * __________________________________________ JORDAN THEODORIDIS, HALEEMA SALIE, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. 25-2135 ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN, Defendant-Appellee. † __________________________________________ FOR PLAINTIFFS-APPELLANTS: JERRY S. GOLDMAN (Bruce E. Strong, Ethan Greenberg, Samuel M. Braverman, Alexander Greene, on the brief), Anderson Kill P.C., New York, NY 10036 * Judge Elizabeth C. Coombe, of the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York, sitting by designation. † The Clerk of Court is respectfully directed to amend the caption accordingly. FOR DEFENDANT-APPELLEE: No appearance. Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Daniels, J.). UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND DECREED that the judgment of the district court is REVERSED IN PART, VACATED IN PART, AND REMANDED for further proceedings. Plaintiffs-Appellants Rahma Salie and Michael Theodoridis were a married couple who died aboard American Airlines Flight 11 on September 11, 2001. Both were non-U.S. nationals. In 2016, Congress amended the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, permitting non-U.S. nationals to sue foreign states under the terrorism exception for injury and death resulting from terrorist acts. See 28 U.S.C. § 1605B(b). In 2018, Appellants’ estates sued Iran for aiding and abetting the 9/11 attacks, joining a decades-long multi-district litigation consolidating related claims. The district court granted Appellants’ motions for default judgment on their New York wrongful-death and survival claims, 1 awarding their estates economic damages and compensatory pain and suffering damages. But it denied Appellants’ motions for default judgment on their claims for intentional infliction of emotional distress (“IIED”), concluding that they had not established the tort’s “severe emotional distress” element. We assume the parties’ familiarity with the underlying facts, procedural history, and issues on appeal, to which we refer only as necessary to explain our decision to vacate and remand. We review the disposition of a motion for default judgment for abuse of discretion. See 1 “[A] survival claim merely refers to the concept that an otherwise exis