8
TWITTER, INC. v. TAAMNEH
Opinion of the Court
§2333(d)(2). The central question is thus whether defendants’ conduct constitutes “aid[ing] and abett[ing], by knowingly providing substantial assistance,” such that they can
be held liable for the Reina nightclub attack. Ibid.
III
As always, we start with the text of §2333. See Bartenwerfer v. Buckley, 598 U. S. 69, 74 (2023). Here, that text
immediately begs two questions: First, what exactly does it
mean to “aid and abet”? Second, what precisely must the
defendant have “aided and abetted”?
A
We turn first to the meaning of the phrase “aids and
abets, by knowingly providing substantial assistance.”
Nothing in the statute defines any of those critical terms.
Yet terms like “aids and abets” are familiar to the common
law, which has long held aiders-and-abettors secondarily liable for the wrongful acts of others. See Central Bank of
Denver, N. A. v. First Interstate Bank of Denver, N. A., 511
U. S. 164, 181 (1994). We generally presume that such
common-law terms “brin[g] the old soil” with them. Sekhar
v. United States, 570 U. S. 729, 733 (2013) (internal quotation marks omitted). In enacting JASTA, Congress provided additional context by pointing to Halberstam v.
Welch, 705 F. 2d 472 (CADC 1983), as “provid[ing] the
proper legal framework” for “civil aiding and abetting and
conspiracy liability.” §2(a)(5), 130 Stat. 852.6 We thus
begin with Halberstam’s “legal framework,” viewed in context of the common-law tradition from which it arose.
——————
6 The provision reads in full: “The decision of the United States Court
of Appeals for the District of Columbia in Halberstam v. Welch, 705 F.2d
472 (D.C. Cir. 1983), which has been widely recognized as the leading
case regarding Federal civil aiding and abetting and conspiracy liability,
including by the Supreme Court of the United States, provides the proper
legal framework for how such liability should function in the context of
chapter 113B of title 18, United States Code.” §2(a)(5), 130 Stat. 852.
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