The nonprofit Break the Chain Campaign, which is helping the Indian women, first contacted Dechert to represent similar clients several years ago. Kotler, a litigator in Decherts Princeton office, settled two civil complaints on behalf of former domestic workers, but in his most recent cases, diplomatic immunity issues have come to the fore.
In the first of these cases, an Indian woman is suing her former employers, a Kuwaiti diplomat and his wife, alleging that he raped, psychologically abused, and imprisoned her. The domestic employees suit, originally filed in 2002, was dismissed because the Kuwaiti defendants claimed diplomatic immunity. When the diplomat ceased serving and left the U.S., Dechert and the International Womens Human Rights Clinic at the City University of New York School of Law refiled the suit. Following the April ruling restricting the former diplomats immunity, the defendants have appealed the default judgment against them. (Claims against Kuwait have been dismissed.)
