HAN KIM v. DEMOCRATIC PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF KOREA
Cite as 774 F.3d 1044 (D.C. Cir. 2014)
probably the defendant’s negligence which
caused the accident.’’ 2A STUART M. SPEISER, CHARLES F. KRAUSE, & ALFRED W. GANS,
THE AMERICAN LAW OF TORTS 508 n. 30
(2009).
Or take the well-known McDonnell
Douglas formula for making out a Title
VII claim. Because a plaintiff faces ‘‘difficulty TTT in proving the motives behind an
employer’s actions’’ in a race-discrimination case, the Supreme Court has held
that, in order to make out a prima facie
case, he need only show that he is a member of a protected class and that he was
denied an open position for which he was
qualified and that remains open. Bundy,
641 F.2d at 950 (citing McDonnell Douglas, 411 U.S. at 802, 93 S.Ct. 1817). This
inference makes sense, as ‘‘common experience tells us’’ that such facts are normally evidence of a ‘‘discriminatory motive.’’
Id. at 951.
[1] Similarly, plaintiffs like the Kims
will find it difficult to prove what happened behind the walls of a North Korean
labor camp because the government has
made all but certain that that evidence
does not exist. But ‘‘common experience
tells us’’ that where a plaintiff has produced compelling, admissible evidence that
the regime abducted the victim and that it
routinely tortures and kills the people it
abducts, the courts can assume that the
defendant probably tortured and killed the
victim. Given Congress’s purpose—holding state sponsors of terrorism responsible
for their crimes—such evidence is sufficient to ‘‘satisf[y] the court.’’
International tribunals with experience
in these kinds of cases have taken the
same approach. For instance, the Inter–
American Court of Human Rights—the
United States is a signatory to the Court’s
underlying treaty, though not a state party—has recognized that circumstantial evidence is ‘‘especially important’’ in cases of
1049
forced disappearance, Radilla–Pacheco v.
Mexico, Preliminary Objections, Merits,
Reparations, and Costs, Judgment, Inter–
Am. Ct. H.R. (ser.C) No. 209, ¶ 222 (Nov.
23, 2009), because ‘‘this type of repression
is characterized by an attempt to suppress
all information about the kidnapping or the
whereabouts and fate of the victim.’’ Velásquez–Rodriguez v. Honduras, Merits,
Judgment, Inter–Am. Ct. H.R. (ser.C)
No. 4, ¶ 131 (July 29, 1988). So where ‘‘it
has not been directly shown that [the victim] was physically tortured, his kidnapping and imprisonment by governmental
authorities, who have been shown to subject detainees to indignities, cruelty and
torture, [may] constitute’’ proof of that
treatment. Id. ¶ 187.
III.
We thus turn to the question of whether
the Kims have met their burden of producing evidence ‘‘satisfactory to the court.’’
Mindful that we must draw our ‘‘findings
of fact and conclusions of law from admissible testimony in accordance with the
Federal Rules of Evidence,’’ Daliberti v.
Republic of Iraq, 146 F.Supp.2d 19, 21 n. 1
(D.D.C.2001), we begin with what we know
for sure: that North Korean agents abducted Reverend Kim. A South Korean
court convicted a DPRK intelligence agent
for planning and executing that kidnapping, see supra p. 1045, and the district
court took judicial notice of that decision
under Rule 201. See Kim, 950 F.Supp.2d
at 35. Two experts, moreover—just the
kind of experts whose testimony we have
credited in FSIA default actions, see Kilburn v. Socialist People’s Libyan Arab
Jamahiriya, 376 F.3d 1123, 1131–32
(D.C.Cir.2004), and whose testimony is
doubtless admissible, see Fed.R.Evid.
702—reported that victims of forced disappearance in North Korea usually suffer
torture and that Reverend Kim’s political