The pharmaceutical companies turned to the high court after the D.C. Circuit denied the petition for a rehearing en banc in February 2023.
At the Supreme Court’s invitation in October to file a brief expressing the federal government’s views on the case, the government said last month that the justices should grant a GVR in light of Taamneh.
The justices unanimously held in that case that Twitter did not “knowingly” provide substantial assistance to the Islamic State group and thus couldn’t be held liable for aiding and abetting under the Anti-Terrorism Act. They said that the plaintiffs failed to show that Twitter and other tech companies did more than “transmit information by billions of people.”
The federal government told the high court that while it “condemns in the strongest terms” the terrorist acts that caused the servicemembers’ injuries and the “profound loss respondents have suffered,” the D.C. Circuit’s ruling was rendered without the benefit of the justices’ guidance in Taamneh.
