Agnieszka Fryszman

Payments recorded far from the killings

In 2007, Chiquita Brands International pleaded guilty in federal court to knowingly providing material support to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, known as the AUC. The company admitted making payments from 1997 through 2004. That criminal plea established the payment history, but it did not decide civil responsibility for particular killings attributed to the paramilitary organization.

Families of Colombian victims brought civil claims alleging that Chiquita’s support had contributed to deaths committed by the AUC. The distance was geographic and evidentiary. Plaintiffs had to connect corporate decisions made through a multinational business, payments documented over years, the conduct of an armed group, and the circumstances of individual killings in another country.

Agnieszka Fryszman led Cohen Milstein’s trial team with Leslie Kroeger as part of a larger plaintiffs’ group. The first bellwether trial lasted six weeks in federal court in Florida. Eight families presented their claims. The structure allowed a jury to test a bounded set of records without pretending that every family’s evidence or every alleged AUC killing was identical.

On June 10, 2024, the jury found Chiquita liable and awarded a total of $38.3 million to the family members of eight men. The verdict reflected findings that the company had provided substantial assistance and that the resulting risk was foreseeable. Jurors rejected the company’s contention that the payments were compelled by an imminent threat sufficient to excuse its conduct.

Chiquita maintained that there was no legal basis for the verdict and argued that it had been victimized by armed groups operating in Colombia. The company appealed. The Eleventh Circuit heard oral argument on January 30, 2026, and no published appellate disposition was located as of July 29, 2026. The bellwether verdict remains a trial result under appellate review, not a final resolution of the broader litigation.

The guilty plea established Chiquita’s payment history. The families still had to prove the civil elements and connect those payments to particular deaths. The jury found liability and awarded damages to eight families; Chiquita’s appeal remains pending.

Recruitment debt in a seafood supply chain

Ratha v. Phatthana Seafood began with seven Cambodian villagers recruited for work at seafood-processing factories in Thailand. They alleged that recruiters charged fees, took documents, imposed deductions, and placed them in debt while wages and working conditions prevented them from leaving freely. Fryszman served as lead counsel for the plaintiffs in their civil trafficking claims.

The United States defendant was a California seafood importer connected to products from the Thai facilities. That link created the central statutory question: when can a domestic company face civil liability for allegedly benefiting from a venture abroad while knowing, or while it should have known, that the venture engaged in forced labor? The case required evidence about purchasing relationships, audits, communications, and what the importer understood.

The district court granted summary judgment to the importer. After later legal developments, the plaintiffs sought relief from that judgment under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b)(6). A Ninth Circuit panel initially left the denial in place, and the full court then reheard the matter. Reopening the earlier judgment was necessary before the trafficking claims could return to the merits.

In February 2026, the en banc Ninth Circuit reversed the denial of Rule 60 relief. The majority concluded that intervening law had undermined one ground for the earlier judgment and that the district court had erred in its treatment of participation and knowledge. It held that a reasonable jury could find the required knowledge on the summary-judgment record and remanded the case.

The ruling reopened the case for further proceedings while leaving trafficking liability unresolved. A dissent disputed the majority’s use of Rule 60 and its reading of the record. The plaintiffs regained an opportunity to present their claims.

The alleged coercion occurred at factories abroad, while the statutory theory followed the commercial relationship to a domestic importer. The evidence concerned participation, benefit, purchasing relationships, audits, communications, and the importer’s knowledge. The en banc ruling reopened those questions for further proceedings.

A courthouse door after diplomatic violence

In May 2017, demonstrators gathered near the Turkish ambassador’s residence in Washington, D.C., during a visit by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Plaintiffs alleged that Turkish security personnel and supporters attacked them. Civil suits followed against the Republic of Turkey and others. Before any tort claim could proceed, the courts had to decide whether foreign sovereign immunity closed the courthouse door.

Fryszman served as lead appellate counsel for the plaintiffs. The D.C. Circuit held in 2021 that the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act’s tortious-activity exception applied to the alleged conduct in the United States. It also rejected Turkey’s arguments that the political-question doctrine and international comity required dismissal. The opinion affirmed jurisdiction; it did not itself adjudicate liability or damages.

The Supreme Court denied review in October 2022. After Turkey stopped participating, the district court entered default later that year. The default followed jurisdictional litigation rather than a conventional trial. The appellate work preserved a forum by establishing that the alleged conduct fell outside sovereign immunity on the pleaded and developed record.

The Turkey litigation differs from Chiquita and Ratha in defendant, doctrine, and proof. International human-rights claims can be dismissed before discovery or trial when jurisdiction, immunity, extraterritoriality, or statutory scope bars the action.

Building a domestic civil record

Fryszman is a partner at Cohen Milstein in Washington and founded and chairs the firm’s Human Rights practice. She represents plaintiffs in civil matters involving torture, trafficking, forced labor, extrajudicial killing, and related violations of international law. Her cases often require cooperation with local counsel, affected communities, experts, investigators, and litigation teams operating across languages and borders.

Her education includes Brown University and Georgetown University Law Center, followed by federal clerkships. She built a civil human-rights practice within a plaintiffs’ firm for claims arising abroad and defendants contesting the forum’s or statute’s reach.

Chiquita moved from admitted payments to a bellwether jury record and now an appeal. Ratha moved from summary judgment through an en banc reopening and remand. The Turkey cases moved through sovereign-immunity and political-question defenses before default proceedings. Each trajectory is different, and none can be accurately reduced to a single verdict, reversal, or jurisdictional holding.

The source record changes with each stage. A guilty plea may establish a payment but not its civil consequence. A summary-judgment record can show enough for a jury without proving liability. An immunity opinion can establish jurisdiction without deciding the tort. Fryszman’s matters demand close control of those categories because the strongest available document often answers only one part of the plaintiffs’ larger case.

Across them, Fryszman constructs domestic civil records for claims involving foreign witnesses, corporate supply chains, armed groups, sovereign defendants, and evolving statutes. Those records allow the disputes to proceed under ordinary procedural rules while preserving defense arguments and the limits of each court ruling.

Chiquita remains on appeal, and Ratha has returned to the district court for further proceedings. Neither matter has reached a final resolution.