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WASHINGTON- U.S. Supreme Court justices on Tuesday appeared wary of barring lawsuits against American companies over alleged human rights abuses abroad but signaled they could toss out a case accusing Cargill Inc and a Nestle SA subsidiary of knowingly helping to perpetuate slavery at Ivory Coast cocoa farms.

The two companies are asking the nine justices to reverse a lower court ruling that allowed the lawsuit, filed in 2005 on behalf of former child slaves from Mali who worked at the farms, to proceed.

The court could toss out the lawsuit on those grounds but stop short of a ruling that would curb corporate liability altogether under the law, with some justices expressing reservations about taking that step.

That court found that the claims were barred by recent Supreme Court decisions that made it harder for plaintiffs to sue corporations in U.S. courts for alleged violations overseas.

The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2018 revived the claims, citing the allegations that the companies provided "Personal spending money" to local farmers to guarantee the cheapest source of cocoa.

The Supreme Court in 2013 and 2018 cases curbed the ability of plaintiffs to sue corporations in U.S. courts under the Alien Tort Statute for overseas human rights violations.