Can You Sue China for COVID and Actually Collect?

You can sue China for COVID-19 in an American court, but almost no one will get past the courthouse door, and the one plaintiff who did has yet to collect a dollar. The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act presumes foreign governments are immune from U.S. lawsuits, and every COVID-related claim tested so far has been dismissed except a single narrow allegation about personal protective equipment hoarding. Even that case ended in a $24 billion default judgment that is, for now, a piece of paper.

The Immunity Wall

The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 is the only route for suing a foreign state in an American court, state or federal. Under the statute, a foreign government is presumed immune, and the case gets dismissed unless the plaintiff proves the lawsuit fits one of a handful of narrow exceptions.¹ The burden sits entirely on the plaintiff. China doesn’t have to show up, file anything, or defend itself for the case to be thrown out.

That design matters because it inverts the way most civil litigation works. In an ordinary lawsuit, a defendant who ignores the case loses by default. Against a foreign sovereign, silence is a winning strategy unless the plaintiff can first demonstrate the court has jurisdiction at all.

Why Most COVID Theories Fail the FSIA Exceptions

Three exceptions have been argued in COVID cases. Only one has produced any traction, and even then only in a sliver.

Commercial Activity

The FSIA strips immunity when the lawsuit is based on commercial activity by the foreign government that causes a “direct effect” in the United States.² Courts look at the nature of the conduct, not its purpose: buying supplies on the open market is commercial even if the government’s motive is public safety.³

The common COVID allegations — suppressing information about the virus, silencing doctors, allowing large gatherings in Wuhan, mismanaging the public health response — are the acts of a government exercising sovereign authority, not a business transacting in a market. Courts have treated them that way. The Eighth Circuit rejected Missouri’s argument that virus research in Wuhan and social media censorship directly caused economic harm in Missouri, calling those effects “remote and attenuated.”⁴ A global pandemic reaching American shores months later isn’t the kind of immediate, traceable link the “direct effect” test demands.

Non-Commercial Tort

This exception covers personal injury, death, or property damage caused by a foreign government’s wrongful act, but only when the entire tort occurs inside the United States. Both the wrongful conduct and the resulting injury have to happen on U.S. soil.² The alleged misconduct in COVID cases — concealing the outbreak, failing to contain the virus, risky research — happened in China. That geographic mismatch kills the claim on its face.

The exception also excludes “discretionary function” claims, meaning policy decisions where officials exercised judgment. The Eighth Circuit found every act Missouri identified fell in that bucket, from allowing gatherings in Wuhan to punishing whistleblower doctors.⁴

Terrorism

The terrorism exception only applies to countries the State Department has designated as state sponsors of terrorism. The current list is Cuba, North Korea, Iran, and Syria.⁵ China isn’t on it. The exception doesn’t apply, no matter how the allegations are framed.

The One Claim That Survived

Missouri’s lawsuit is the sole COVID case against China to clear the FSIA. A district court dismissed the entire complaint in 2022. On appeal, the Eighth Circuit revived a single theory: that Chinese entities cornered the global market on personal protective equipment, buying up respirator masks, medical gowns, and gloves while restricting exports of high-quality PPE. The court found that specific conduct was commercial in nature and plausibly caused a direct effect in the United States by producing an immediate shortage and price manipulation.⁴

The Chinese defendants refused to appear. In March 2025 the court entered a default judgment of $24 billion. A default against a party that never shows up is a different animal from a contested verdict, and it starts, rather than ends, the harder part of the case.

Why a Judgment Isn’t the Same as Money

Even after winning, a plaintiff can only attach foreign-state property that is used for commercial activity in the United States and is connected to the claim. A court also has to find that a reasonable period has passed since judgment was entered.⁶ Certain categories are completely off-limits: foreign central bank funds held for the bank’s own account, and military property, cannot be seized under any circumstances.⁷

China has the resources and sophistication to keep assets out of U.S. jurisdiction. The track record elsewhere is bleak. A federal judges’ guide to the FSIA notes that even under the more plaintiff-friendly rules for terrorism cases, most judgments against foreign sovereigns go uncollected. One court noted that at the time of its decision, roughly $45 million in Iranian assets were available in the United States against more than $10 billion in outstanding judgments, calling the framework a failed policy that doesn’t deliver justice to victims.

Missouri’s attorney general has said the state will pursue Chinese-owned farmland and financial interests. As of mid-2025, judgment-service packets had been sent to be forwarded through diplomatic channels, and no assets had been seized.

What It Costs to Even Try

Filing is the easy part. Serving legal papers on a foreign sovereign runs through a rigid four-step hierarchy in 28 USC 1608, starting with any special arrangement, then any applicable treaty (China is a party to the Hague Service Convention, which requires documents to go through China’s Ministry of Justice and be translated into Chinese),⁸ then mail through the foreign ministry, then transmission by the U.S. Secretary of State. Each step has to be attempted in order, and skipping ahead can void service entirely.⁹ Against a defendant with no interest in cooperating, the process routinely stretches into months before the merits are even in view.

Translations, international mail, diplomatic transmittal, and sharply limited discovery (courts shield foreign sovereigns from ordinary litigation burdens) add up. For an individual, legal fees alone would almost certainly exceed any realistic recovery.

Suing Chinese Companies or Labs Instead

Some plaintiffs have tried a workaround by targeting state-owned companies, research institutions, or specific laboratories rather than the government itself. The FSIA defines an “agency or instrumentality” of a foreign state as a separate legal person that functions as an organ of the foreign state or is majority-owned by it, and is not a U.S. citizen or created under a third country’s laws.³ These entities still get FSIA protection, though they can lose it more readily if their conduct was commercial.

Two problems remain. Proving a specific lab or company engaged in commercial activity that directly caused harm in the United States requires the same traceable, immediate connection that doomed most of Missouri’s theories. And even a win needs seizable U.S.-based assets connected to the claim or an express waiver of immunity.⁶

Could Congress Change the Rules

Several bills have been introduced to carve out a COVID-specific exception, modeled on the 2016 Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, which stripped immunity from foreign governments whose overseas conduct contributed to terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. The LIABLE Act, introduced in the 119th Congress as H.R. 1432, and earlier proposals would waive immunity for foreign governments whose gross negligence or deliberate misrepresentation about an infectious disease caused harm in the United States, including false information provided to the World Health Organization.¹⁰

None have become law. If one did, China would still refuse to appear, collection would still depend on finding seizable assets, and diplomatic consequences could be serious. JASTA has been on the books for years, and litigation against Saudi Arabia continues without substantial recoveries. Opening the courthouse door does not solve the enforcement problem on the other side.

The Honest Answer for an Individual

If you lost a family member, a business, or your health to COVID-19 and you’re thinking about suing China, the picture is discouraging. No individual plaintiff has gotten past the FSIA. The only surviving claim was brought by a state attorney general alleging large-scale commercial manipulation of the PPE market, a theory most individuals and businesses cannot replicate. The costs are high, discovery is constrained, and even a successful judgment is likely uncollectable. Barring a change in federal law paired with a real enforcement mechanism, suing China for COVID remains a theoretical option and a practical impossibility for nearly everyone.

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 1604 – Immunity of a Foreign State From Jurisdiction
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 1605 – General Exceptions to the Jurisdictional Immunity of a Foreign State
3
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 1603 – Definitions
4
Justia. The State of Missouri v. The Peoples Republic of China, No. 22-2495 (8th Cir. 2024)
5
United States Department of State. State Sponsors of Terrorism
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 1610 – Exceptions to the Immunity From Attachment or Execution
7
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 1611 – Certain Types of Property Immune From Execution
8
HCCH. China – Central Authority and Practical Information
9
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 1608 – Service; Time to Answer; Default
10
U.S. Congressman Chris Smith. Former CDC Director Testifies That COVID-19 Most Likely Originated From Wuhan Lab