354
Opinion of the Court
ous intentional torts, including battery, unlawful detainment, wrongful arrest and imprisonment, false imprisonment, inhuman torture, disruption of normal family life, and infliction of mental anguish. Id., at 6-11, 15, 19-20. Counts I, IX, and XIII charge petitioners with negligently failing to warn Nelson of otherwise undisclosed dangers of his employment, namely, that if he attempted to report safety hazards the hospital would likely retaliate against him and the Saudi Government might detain and physically abuse him without legal cause. Id., at 5-6, 14, 18-19. Finally, counts VIII, XII, and XVI allege that Vivian Nelson sustained derivative injury resulting from petitioners' actions. Id., at 11-12, 16, 20. Presumably because the employment contract provided that Saudi courts would have exclusive jurisdiction over claims for breach of contract, id., at 47, the Nelsons raised no such matters.
The District Court dismissed for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976, 28 U. S. C. §§ 1330, 1602 et seq. It rejected the Nelsons' argument that jurisdiction existed, under the first clause of § 1605(a)(2), because the action was one "based upon a commercial activity" that petitioners had "carried on in the United States." Although HCA's recruitment of Nelson in the United States might properly be attributed to Saudi Arabia and the hospital, the District Court reasoned, it did not amount to commercial activity "carried on in the United States" for purposes of the Act. Id., at 94-95. The court explained that there was no sufficient "nexus" between Nelson's recruitment and the injuries alleged. "Although [the Nelsons] argu[e] that but for [Scott Nelson's] recruitment in the United States, he would not have taken the job, been arrested, and suffered the personal injuries," the court said, "this 'connection' [is] far too tenuous to support jurisdiction" under the Act. Id., at 97. Likewise, the court concluded that Royspec's commercial activity in the United States, purchasing supplies and equipment for the hospital, id., at
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