When Can You Sue the Government?

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Picture this: A federal agent raids the wrong house and destroys your property. A state university wrongfully expels your child. A police officer uses excessive force during an arrest. In each case, you want to sue for damages—but you might not be able to.

Two powerful legal shields protect the government and its employees from most lawsuits: sovereign immunity and qualified immunity. These doctrines can block your day in court even when officials clearly violate your rights. They’ve sparked fierce debates about accountability, justice, and whether anyone should be above the law in a democracy.

When Governments Can’t Be Sued

The Crown’s Old Trick

Sovereign immunity follows an ancient rule: the government can’t be sued in its own courts without permission. This principle traces back to medieval England and the idea that “the king can do no wrong.” When America broke from Britain, it kept this legal tradition—despite rejecting almost everything else about monarchy.

The concept seems simple: if the government creates the courts, it doesn’t have to appear before them unless it agrees to. But the reality is far more complex. Today, sovereign immunity protects federal, state, and tribal governments from most lawsuits, leaving citizens with limited options when government actions cause harm.

A Patchwork of Protection

Not all governments enjoy the same level of protection. The federal government has sovereign immunity, but Congress has created specific exceptions through laws like the Federal Tort Claims Act. States also have sovereign immunity, reinforced by the Constitution’s Eleventh Amendment, which was added after one state successfully sued another in federal court.

Tribal governments occupy a unique position. As “domestic dependent nations,” the 573 federally recognized tribes maintain sovereignty that predates the Constitution. Their immunity often extends to commercial enterprises like casinos and timber operations—a source of ongoing controversy.

Cities and counties generally can’t claim sovereign immunity. They’re considered creations of state government rather than sovereign entities themselves. This means you can usually sue your local police department, but not your state’s highway patrol.

Why Protect the Government?

Modern defenders of sovereign immunity offer several justifications:

Protecting taxpayer money: Unlimited lawsuits could drain public treasuries, leaving less for schools, roads, and other services.

Keeping government running: Officials need to make decisions without constantly worrying about being sued.

Separation of powers: Courts shouldn’t second-guess policy decisions better left to elected officials.

Historical precedent: The doctrine has deep roots in Anglo-American law.

Critics like legal scholar Erwin Chemerinsky argue these justifications ring hollow in a democracy. If the government can do wrong—and it clearly can—why shouldn’t it face consequences like everyone else?

The Money Trail

The practical effects hit ordinary people hard. When a government employee’s negligence causes a car accident, victims might find they can’t sue the government employer. When a federal agency wrongly denies benefits, applicants may have no recourse for the financial damage. When state university officials violate a student’s rights, the institution might be completely immune from lawsuits.

Consider the complex rules around federal employees. Under the Westfall Act, if a postal worker causes a car crash while delivering mail, you can sue the federal government under the Federal Tort Claims Act—but not the individual driver. However, if that same postal worker violates your constitutional rights, you might be able to sue them personally, though they can claim qualified immunity.

When Officials Get Personal Protection

Beyond Government Immunity

While sovereign immunity protects government entities, qualified immunity shields individual officials from personal lawsuits. This doctrine emerged from federal civil rights law, particularly Section 1983—a Reconstruction-era law designed to protect newly freed enslaved people from state and local officials who violated their rights.

The irony is stark. A law meant to hold officials accountable has been interpreted by courts to protect them from accountability. Modern qualified immunity allows officials to escape personal liability unless they violated “clearly established” law that any reasonable person would have known.

The Courtroom Evolution

The Supreme Court built qualified immunity piece by piece over decades:

In 1967’s Pierson v. Ray, the Court first recognized a “good faith” defense for police officers who arrested civil rights activists during the Mississippi Freedom Rides. If officers reasonably believed their actions were constitutional, they couldn’t be held liable even if later proven wrong.

The watershed moment came in 1982 with Harlow v. Fitzgerald. The case involved presidential aides who allegedly retaliated against a whistleblower. The Court shifted from a subjective “good faith” test to an objective standard: officials are protected unless they violated “clearly established” rights that a reasonable person would have known about.

This change was supposed to make cases easier to resolve without diving into officials’ state of mind. Instead, it created a new problem: defining what counts as “clearly established” law.

The Precedent Trap

Here’s where qualified immunity gets truly problematic. Courts often require plaintiffs to find a previous case with nearly identical facts before ruling that a right was “clearly established.” This creates what critics call a “Catch-22.”

The Institute for Justice found numerous examples of this logical trap:

• Police officers who stole $225,000 during a search got immunity because no prior case specifically held that stealing items covered by a search warrant violated the Fourth Amendment.
• An officer who shot a 10-year-old child while trying to kill a family dog received immunity because no previous case addressed shooting children while aiming at non-threatening dogs.
• Officers who released a police dog on a suspect sitting with his hands raised got immunity because the closest precedent involved a suspect who had surrendered while lying down.

Constitutional Stagnation

The Supreme Court’s 2009 decision in Pearson v. Callahan made the problem worse. Courts can now grant immunity based on the “clearly established law” standard without deciding whether a constitutional right was actually violated. This means new precedent rarely gets created, leaving the law frozen in place.

Federal Judge Carlton Reeves captured the frustration: “Plaintiffs must produce precedent even as fewer courts are producing precedent. No precedent = no clearly established law = no liability.”

Two Shields, Different Battles

Comparing the Protections

Though both doctrines shield government actors from lawsuits, they work differently:

Sovereign immunity protects government entities from being sued at all. The question is whether the government has consented to face a particular type of lawsuit in court.

Qualified immunity protects individual officials from personal liability. The question is whether they violated “clearly established” law.

Sovereign immunity comes from common law traditions and constitutional provisions. Congress can waive it through legislation.

Qualified immunity is largely judge-made law, created through Supreme Court interpretations of civil rights statutes.

Sovereign immunity can apply to any type of lawsuit—tort claims, contract disputes, constitutional violations.

Qualified immunity only applies to lawsuits alleging violations of federal constitutional or statutory rights.

When Both Apply

Sometimes both doctrines can affect the same incident. Imagine a federal agent uses excessive force during an arrest. The victim might have two potential lawsuits:

1. Sue the federal government under the Federal Tort Claims Act for assault and battery (a common law tort). The government waived sovereign immunity for this type of claim by federal law enforcement officers.
2. Sue the individual agent under Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents for violating Fourth Amendment rights against excessive force. The agent can claim qualified immunity.

The government might pay damages for the tort while the individual officer escapes personal liability for the constitutional violation. This “two-track” system reflects different policy choices about institutional versus individual accountability.

The Money Trail: Who Really Pays?

Government Indemnification

One of the dirty secrets of qualified immunity is that government employees rarely pay judgments from their own pockets. Research shows that governments almost always indemnify their employees—meaning taxpayers ultimately foot the bill even when individual officers are held liable.

This reality undermines a key argument for qualified immunity: protecting officials from financial ruin. If governments pay anyway, why not hold officials personally accountable to deter future misconduct?

Insurance Alternative

Some reformers propose requiring police officers to carry professional liability insurance, similar to doctors and lawyers. The Cato Institute argues this would create market-based accountability. Officers with histories of misconduct would face higher premiums, potentially pricing problematic officers out of the profession.

Federal Exceptions: When You Can Sue

The Tort Claims Act

Congress created the biggest exception to federal sovereign immunity in 1946 with the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA). This law allows lawsuits against the federal government for personal injury, death, or property damage caused by federal employees acting within their job duties.

But the FTCA comes with major exceptions:

Discretionary functions: Policy decisions involving judgment calls remain protected.

Intentional torts: The government generally isn’t liable for assault, battery, false arrest, or other intentional wrongdoing—except when committed by federal law enforcement officers.

Military activities: Combat-related injuries are excluded, as are most injuries to military personnel under the judge-made Feres doctrine.

Foreign incidents: Claims arising in other countries are typically barred.

Contract and Constitutional Claims

The 1887 Tucker Act waives immunity for certain monetary claims against the federal government based on contracts, statutes, or the Constitution. The U.S. Court of Federal Claims handles large claims, while federal district courts hear smaller ones.

For non-monetary relief against federal agencies, the Administrative Procedure Act allows lawsuits seeking to force agencies to follow the law—but not to pay damages.

State Immunity: The Eleventh Amendment Shield

The Chisholm Shock

State sovereign immunity got a constitutional boost after a controversial 1793 Supreme Court case. In Chisholm v. Georgia, the Court allowed a South Carolina citizen to sue Georgia in federal court to collect a debt. States panicked about their financial exposure, especially for Revolutionary War debts.

The backlash was swift. States ratified the Eleventh Amendment in 1795, limiting federal court jurisdiction over lawsuits against states by citizens of other states or foreign countries.

Expanding Protection

The Supreme Court later expanded state immunity beyond the Eleventh Amendment’s text. In 1890’s Hans v. Louisiana, the Court ruled that states also couldn’t be sued by their own citizens in federal court for federal law violations.

The 1999 decision Alden v. Maine went even further, holding that states generally can’t be sued in their own state courts for federal law violations either. The Court called state sovereign immunity a “fundamental aspect” of sovereignty that existed before the Constitution.

Officer Suits and Ex Parte Young

Citizens found a workaround through “officer suits”—suing government officials individually rather than the government entity. The 1908 case Ex Parte Young established that state officials acting unconstitutionally are “stripped” of their official authority and can be sued for prospective relief.

This doctrine allows lawsuits seeking to stop ongoing violations of federal law, but not monetary damages from the state treasury for past harms.

When Congress Can Override

Congress can sometimes override state sovereign immunity, but only in limited circumstances. Under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment, Congress can abrogate state immunity when enforcing equal protection and due process rights—but the legislation must be “congruent and proportional” to the constitutional violation.

The Supreme Court has generally rejected Congress’s attempts to use other constitutional powers, like the Commerce Clause, to override state immunity.

Commercial Activities: When Governments Act Like Businesses

The Fairness Question

Government commercial activities create tension between immunity and marketplace fairness. Should tribal casinos, state lotteries, or postal services get competitive advantages through immunity?

The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act provides a useful comparison. It generally protects foreign governments from U.S. lawsuits but includes exceptions for commercial activities. While this law doesn’t directly apply to domestic governments, its principles influence debates about American governmental immunity.

Tribal Gaming and Beyond

Tribal commercial immunity is particularly contentious. The Supreme Court upheld tribal immunity for off-reservation business activities in cases like Kiowa Tribe v. Manufacturing Technologies, though some justices expressed concern about extending immunity beyond what’s needed for tribal self-governance.

Recognizing practical realities, tribes increasingly waive immunity in business contracts, especially for major construction or financing deals. Counterparties often demand such waivers as a condition of doing business.

Real-World Impact: When Rights Meet Reality

The Wrongful Conviction Connection

The Innocence Project highlights how immunity doctrines can prevent accountability for official misconduct contributing to wrongful convictions. When forensic experts provide false testimony or crime lab analysts hide exculpatory evidence, victims may find themselves unable to sue if no prior case established that such specific conduct by those particular types of officials was unconstitutional.

Levon Brooks and Kennedy Brewer were wrongfully convicted based on falsified bite mark evidence. When they sued the forensic experts who provided that evidence, the Fifth Circuit granted the experts qualified immunity, effectively ending the lawsuit.

Police Misconduct Cases

High-profile police misconduct cases illustrate qualified immunity’s practical effects:

In Kisela v. Hughes, an officer shot a mentally ill woman holding a kitchen knife at her side in her own yard. The Supreme Court granted the officer immunity, finding no clearly established precedent for that specific scenario.

The Equal Justice Initiative documents cases where officers received immunity for releasing police dogs on surrendering suspects, using excessive force on small individuals, and even cases involving fatal shootings where the specific circumstances hadn’t been previously addressed by courts.

The Geographic Lottery

Because “clearly established law” depends on precedent from the Supreme Court or the relevant regional federal appeals court, identical police conduct might result in liability in one part of the country but immunity in another. This creates a “geographic lottery” where constitutional rights depend on location.

The Reform Movement

State Laboratories

States have become testing grounds for immunity reform. Colorado led the way in 2020 with SB 217, limiting qualified immunity for law enforcement in state court cases and creating new civil rights causes of action.

New Mexico’s Civil Rights Act eliminated qualified immunity as a defense for public officials in state constitutional cases. Connecticut created new state civil rights claims while eliminating governmental immunity defenses.

Not all state action limits immunity. Iowa broadened its qualified immunity protections in 2021, showing the political divisions surrounding reform efforts.

Federal Legislation

Congress has considered various approaches:

The Ending Qualified Immunity Act would eliminate the defense entirely for all government officials.

The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act included qualified immunity limitations for law enforcement.

Conversely, the Qualified Immunity Act of 2025 seeks to codify and strengthen existing immunity protections.

Alternative Accountability

Beyond eliminating immunity, reformers propose alternative accountability mechanisms:

Professional liability insurance for police officers, creating market-based incentives for good behavior.

Enhanced municipal liability under Monell v. Department of Social Services, holding local governments accountable for policies that cause constitutional violations.

Strengthened civilian oversight and improved internal affairs processes.

Expanded federal civil rights investigations of problematic police departments.

The Advocacy Battlefield

Abolition Coalition

The ACLU, Cato Institute, NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Institute for Justice, and Equal Justice Initiative form an unusual coalition calling for qualified immunity’s end.

Their arguments focus on:

• Lack of statutory basis in Section 1983
• The “Catch-22” of clearly established law requirements
• Disproportionate impact on communities of color
• Failure to achieve stated policy goals
• Erosion of constitutional rights and public trust

The Defense

Law enforcement organizations and some conservative groups argue qualified immunity remains necessary to:

• Protect officers making split-second decisions in dangerous situations
• Prevent frivolous lawsuits that would drain resources and deter recruitment
• Preserve federalism by allowing states to manage their own liability schemes
• Maintain effective policing without excessive second-guessing

The Heritage Foundation and similar organizations generally support maintaining qualified immunity, though they acknowledge the need for police accountability through other means.

Looking Forward

The Continuing Tension

Both sovereign and qualified immunity reflect an fundamental tension in American governance: How do we balance government effectiveness with individual accountability? How do we protect public resources while ensuring justice for those harmed by government action?

The debates aren’t merely academic. They affect real people seeking redress for real harms. They influence how government officials behave, knowing they may or may not face personal consequences for their actions. They shape public trust in institutions and the rule of law.

The Stakes

The immunity doctrines aren’t just legal technicalities—they’re fundamental questions about democracy itself. In a government “of the people, by the people, for the people,” should that government and its agents be above the law? Can a democracy function if its citizens can’t hold their government accountable through the courts?

The answers will shape American law and governance for generations to come. As states experiment with reforms and federal legislators consider changes, the balance between accountability and effective government hangs in the balance.

The ancient maxim that “the king can do no wrong” sits uneasily in a nation founded on rejecting kings. Whether America will finally abandon this monarchical relic or find new ways to justify governmental immunity may define the future of civil rights and government accountability in the United States.

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