Docket 24-983
Havana Docks Corp. v. Royal Caribbean Cruises, Ltd.
DecidedMay 21, 2026
8-1decision
Source: CourtListener.
Court allows Havana Docks to sue cruise lines over use of confiscated Cuban docks
What it does
The ruling holds that cruise lines can be liable under Title III of the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act for using physical docks in Havana that Cuba seized in 1960, even though the original American company's time-limited legal right to operate those docks would have expired in 2004 anyway. It rejects a lower court test that asked what would have happened if Cuba had never confiscated the property, and instead says the physical docks themselves count as "confiscated property" that becomes off-limits to later commercial use.
Who benefits
Havana Docks Corporation and other U.S. nationals holding certified claims to physical property (buildings, land, equipment) seized by the Cuban government, who can now sue companies that later use that property commercially without needing to prove the company interfered with their specific expired legal interest.
Who is affected
Cruise lines and other companies that do business using facilities in Cuba built or once operated by Americans before 1959, who now face a broader theory of liability under the Act even when the original American claimant's legal rights to that property had already expired.
Practical impact
Cruise lines and other companies remain exposed to potentially massive damages awards for using facilities in Cuba tied to pre-1959 American property claims, even where the original claimant's legal rights had already expired by the time of the challenged use. The case returns to the lower courts to address unresolved issues, including whether the "lawful travel" exception shields the cruise lines and whether the scale of potential damages raises due process problems, leaving significant uncertainty about the ultimate scope of liability under the Act.
Majority reasoning
The majority, led by Justice Thomas, reasoned that the statute's definition of "property" covers both physical things and intangible property interests, so "property which was confiscated" can mean the physical docks, not just Havana Docks' expired usufruct concession. It found that requiring an exact match between the confiscated interest and the trafficked-in interest would let companies freely use physical confiscated property, such as land or buildings, without liability, since interests themselves are not typically "used." The Court rejected the Eleventh Circuit's counterfactual approach—asking what would have happened absent confiscation—as unworkable, noting it would even block liability in classic trafficking cases like the sale and purchase of a confiscated interest. It also held that when Cuban agents physically seized the docks and ousted Havana Docks' agents, that qualified as "confiscation" of the docks themselves under the statute's definition covering seizure of "control," not just ownership.
Dissent reasoning
Justice Kagan dissented, arguing that the docks were never Havana Docks' property—Cuba owned them all along—so the only thing Cuba could have confiscated from Havana Docks was its time-limited concession, which expired in 2004, well before the cruise lines used the docks starting in 2016. She argued the statute imposes liability only for trafficking in the "property which was confiscated" from the plaintiff, and where that property is an intangible interest, liability requires trafficking in that interest specifically, not the underlying physical thing. She contended the majority's reading effectively converts time-limited property interests into permanent ones, comparing it to letting a landlord's tenant sue over use of the building decades after the lease ended, and analogized the temporal limit on Havana Docks' rights to a spatial limit that would clearly bar recovery for use of an adjacent, non-leased property.
Constitutional question
The case asks whether a federal statute allowing lawsuits over "trafficking" in property confiscated by Cuba requires the plaintiff to show the defendant used the plaintiff's own property interest, or whether it is enough that the defendant used the underlying physical property in which the plaintiff once had an interest.