The United States Supreme Court sided with an American company Thursday in a case reaching back more than six decades to Fidel Castro's seizure of private property in Cuba, reviving claims worth more than $400 million against four major cruise lines that used confiscated docks in Havana.

By an 8-1 vote, the justices reversed a federal appeals court in Atlanta that had dismissed the suit brought by Havana Docks, a U.S. company that once operated terminal facilities in the Cuban capital. Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the court, said the appeals court got it wrong.

The ruling marks the most significant test yet of a long-dormant federal law that allows Americans to sue companies profiting from property stolen by Cuba's communist government. And it lands at a moment when the Trump administration is already applying fresh pressure on the Castro regime, having indicted former Cuban President Raúl Castro just one day earlier in connection with the 1996 downing of civilian planes flown by Miami-based exiles.

A law Congress wrote, and presidents shelved for decades

The case turns on Title III of the Helms-Burton Act, which Congress passed in direct response to the 1996 shootdowns. The provision allows Americans to sue almost any company that engages in commercial activity involving, or benefits from, property confiscated by Cuba's government.

But for more than two decades, every president, Republican and Democrat alike, suspended the Title III provision, treating it as a diplomatic bargaining chip rather than an enforceable right. That changed in 2019, when President Donald Trump activated the provision and announced new restrictions on travel to Cuba.

Trump's decision opened the courthouse doors for claims that had been frozen in legal limbo since the law's passage. Havana Docks walked through them.

How the cruise lines ended up in Havana

The backstory involves a brief diplomatic thaw under President Barack Obama. In 2016, Obama used a joint news conference with Castro to announce that cruise lines could resume service to Cuba. His Treasury Department issued licenses to carry American passengers to the island.

Carnival, Norwegian, Royal Caribbean, and MSC Cruises soon began making stops in Havana, offering excursions to local nightclubs, landmarks, rivers, and beaches. They used the very same Havana terminal that Havana Docks had controlled before Castro's government seized it more than 65 years ago.

The cruise lines dropped their Cuba stops and rerouted ships in 2019 after Trump reimposed restrictions. But the legal exposure remained. CBS News reported that Havana Docks filed suit targeting all four cruise lines under the newly activated Helms-Burton provision.

$400 million awarded, then reversed

U.S. District Judge Beth Bloom in Miami found the cruise lines liable for their use of the Havana terminal. She ruled that the Treasury Department licenses Obama's administration had issued to carry passengers to Cuba did not shield the companies from a Helms-Burton lawsuit. Bloom awarded Havana Docks more than $400 million in all.

The federal appeals court in Atlanta reversed that judgment and ruled for the cruise lines, dismissing the claims. Havana Docks took the case to the Supreme Court.

The high court's decision to take the case, and then to rule so decisively, signals that the justices view Title III as carrying real legal force, not merely symbolic weight. In a term that has featured sharp exchanges among justices and notable lone dissents, Thursday's 8-1 margin was striking.

Thomas: The cruise lines used confiscated property

Justice Thomas, writing for the overwhelming majority, was direct in his reasoning. He stated that the Atlanta appeals court was wrong to dismiss Havana Docks' claims.

"The cruise lines used confiscated property to which Havana Docks owns the claim."

Thomas did acknowledge that the cruise lines have additional arguments that have yet to be ruled on. The case now returns to the appeals court, meaning the $400 million judgment is not automatically reinstated, but the path to recovery is once again open.

The ruling raises a question that has lingered over Cuba policy for decades: what happens when an American administration encourages commercial engagement with a communist regime, and that engagement runs headlong into property rights that Congress explicitly chose to protect? The Obama-era diplomatic opening invited the cruise lines into Havana. The law Congress wrote, and Trump enforced, now holds them accountable for what they did there.

Broader pressure on Cuba

The Supreme Court ruling arrived one day after the Trump administration indicted Raúl Castro in connection with the 1996 downing of civilian planes flown by Miami-based exiles. That indictment, the activation of Title III, and the new travel restrictions all point in the same direction: a policy of holding the Cuban regime and those who do business with it to account.

The contrast with the Obama years is hard to miss. Obama treated the Castro government as a diplomatic partner, staging joint press conferences and greenlighting commercial travel. The legal framework Congress built to protect Americans whose property was stolen sat unused. The Court's willingness to enforce statutory text over diplomatic convenience reflects a different posture entirely.

For the cruise lines, the stakes are enormous. More than $400 million hung on the district court's original judgment. Even if the appeals court on remand considers the companies' remaining defenses, Thursday's ruling removes the primary legal barrier that had shielded them from liability.

For the broader business community, the message is plain: companies that profit from property confiscated by a foreign dictatorship may face American courts, regardless of what licenses a prior administration handed out. That principle has implications well beyond Cuba.

The case also underscores the long reach of communist confiscation. More than 65 years after Castro's government seized private property in Cuba, the owners, or their successors, are still fighting for restitution. The fact that it took until 2019 for any president to activate the enforcement mechanism Congress created in the 1990s is itself a measure of how reluctant Washington has been to confront the consequences of engagement with authoritarian regimes.

In a Supreme Court term that has produced several closely watched decisions with sharp dissents, the near-unanimity of Thursday's ruling is notable. Only one justice dissented. The identity of that lone dissenter was not specified in initial reporting, but the 8-1 margin suggests the legal reasoning commanded broad agreement across the Court's ideological lines.

Open questions remain. The cruise lines still have arguments the appeals court has not yet addressed. How the Atlanta court handles those defenses on remand will determine whether Havana Docks ultimately collects anything close to the $400 million Judge Bloom originally awarded. And the broader question, whether other companies that operated in Cuba during the Obama-era thaw face similar exposure, has not yet been tested.

What is settled, at least for now, is that Title III of Helms-Burton is not a dead letter. Congress wrote a law. A president enforced it. And the Supreme Court, by a lopsided margin, said it means what it says.

The Court has shown in other recent cases that it is willing to enforce statutory text even when the political class would prefer to look the other way. Thursday's ruling fits that pattern.

Property rights don't expire because a dictator found them inconvenient, and neither does the law Congress passed to protect them.