The on Monday put CACI International Inc a step closer to facing a trial in a lawsuit by three former detainees who have accused employees of the defence contractor of directing their torture at the near Baghdad.
The justices declined to hear CACI's appeal of a lower court's 2019 decision that favoured the three Iraqi men, whose suit against the Virginia-based company was filed in 2008 under a 1789 US law called the Alien Tort Statute that can be used to pursue legal claims over alleged human rights abuses.
The Richmond, Virginia-based 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals in 2019 refused to let the company immediately appeal a federal judge's earlier ruling that said CACI was immune from being sued because it was working as a government contractor.
The company has argued that it should be protected under a different and more muscular legal doctrine known as derivative sovereign immunity that can be invoked to shield government contractors from liability under certain circumstances.
(Reuters)