Sovereign immunity, or crown immunity, is a legal doctrine whereby a sovereign or state cannot commit a legal wrong and is immune from civil suit or criminal prosecution, strictly speaking in modern texts in its own courts. State immunity is a similar, stronger doctrine, that applies to foreign courts.
The Enforcement Act of 1871, also known as the Ku Klux Klan Act, Third Enforcement Act, Third Ku Klux Klan Act, Civil Rights Act of 1871, or Force Act of 1871, is an Act of the United States Congress which empowered the President to suspend the writ of habeas corpus to combat the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and other terrorist organizations who had terrorized and murdered innocent African Americans, public officials, and White sympathizers in the previous Confederate States of America. The act was passed by the 42nd United States Congress and signed into law by United States President Ulysses S. Grant on April 20, 1871. The act was the last of three Enforcement Acts passed by the United States Congress from 1870 to 1871 during the Reconstruction Era to combat attacks upon the suffrage rights of African Americans. The statute has been subject to only minor changes since then, but has been the subject of voluminous interpretation by courts.
Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents, 403 U.S. 388 (1971), was a case in which the US Supreme Court ruled that an implied cause of action existed for an individual whose Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizures had been violated by the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. The victim of such a deprivation could sue for the violation of the Fourth Amendment itself despite the lack of any federal statute authorizing such a suit. The existence of a remedy for the violation was implied by the importance of the right violated.
Cheek v. United States, 498 U.S. 192 (1991), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court reversed the conviction of John L. Cheek, a tax protester, for willful failure to file tax returns and tax evasion. The Court held that an actual good-faith belief that one is not violating the tax law, based on a misunderstanding caused by the complexity of the tax law, negates willfulness, even if that belief is irrational or unreasonable. The Court also ruled that an actual belief that the tax law is invalid or unconstitutional is not a good faith belief based on a misunderstanding caused by the complexity of the tax law, and is not a defense.
In the United States, qualified immunity is a legal principle of federal constitutional law that grants government officials performing discretionary (optional) functions immunity from lawsuits for damages unless the plaintiff shows that the official violated "clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known". It is a form of sovereign immunity less strict than absolute immunity that is intended to protect officials who "make reasonable but mistaken judgments about open legal questions", extending to "all [officials] but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law". Qualified immunity applies only to government officials in civil litigation, and does not protect the government itself from suits arising from officials' actions.
Judicial immunity is a form of sovereign immunity, which protects judges and others employed by the judiciary from liability resulting from their judicial actions. It is intended to ensure that judges can make decisions free from improper influence exercised on them, contributing to the impartiality of the judiciary and the rule of law. In modern times, the main purpose of "judicial immunity [is to shield] judges from the suits of ordinary people", mainly litigants who may be dissatisfied with the outcome of a case decided by the judge.
United Building & Construction Trades Council v. Mayor and Council of Camden, 465 U.S. 208 (1984), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that a city can pressure private employers to hire city residents, but the same exercise of power to bias private contractors against out-of-state residents may be called into account under the Privileges and Immunities Clause of Article Four of the United States Constitution.
Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 167 (1961), was a United States Supreme Court case that considered the application of federal civil rights law to constitutional violations by city employees. The case was significant because it held that 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a statutory provision from 1871, could be used to sue state officers who violated a plaintiff's constitutional rights. § 1983 had previously been a relatively obscure and little-used statute, but since Monroe it has become a central part of United States civil rights law.
Monell v. Department of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658 (1978), is an opinion given by the United States Supreme Court in which the Court overruled Monroe v. Pape by holding that a local government is a "person" subject to suit under Section 1983 of Title 42 of the United States Code: Civil action for deprivation of rights. Additionally, the Court held that §1983 claims against municipal entities must be based on implementation of a policy or custom.
Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511 (1985), was a United States Supreme Court case deciding on the issue of immunity of cabinet officers from suits from individuals.
Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800 (1982), was a case decided by the United States Supreme Court involving the doctrines of qualified immunity and absolute immunity.
Section 230 is a section of Title 47 of the United States Code that was enacted as part of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which is Title V of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, and generally provides immunity for online computer services with respect to third-party content generated by its users. At its core, Section 230(c)(1) provides immunity from liability for providers and users of an "interactive computer service" who publish information provided by third-party users:
No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.
In United States law, the federal government as well as state and tribal governments generally enjoy sovereign immunity, also known as governmental immunity, from lawsuits. Local governments in most jurisdictions enjoy immunity from some forms of suit, particularly in tort. The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act provides foreign governments, including state-owned companies, with a related form of immunity—state immunity—that shields them from lawsuits except in relation to certain actions relating to commercial activity in the United States. The principle of sovereign immunity in US law was inherited from the English common law legal maxim rex non potest peccare, meaning "the king can do no wrong." In some situations, sovereign immunity may be waived by law.
The Parker immunity doctrine is an exemption from liability for engaging in antitrust violations. It applies to the state when it exercises legislative authority in creating a regulation with anticompetitive effects, and to private actors when they act at the direction of the state after it has done so. The doctrine is named for the Supreme Court of the United States case in which it was initially developed, Parker v. Brown.
The Constitution of East Timor entered into force on 20 May 2002, and was the country's first constitution after it gained independence from Portugal in 1975 and from Indonesia, which invaded East Timor on 7 December 1975 and left in 1999 following a UN-sponsored referendum.
Mt. Healthy City School District Board of Education v. Doyle, 429 U.S. 274 (1977), often shortened to Mt. Healthy v. Doyle, was a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court decision arising from a fired teacher's lawsuit against his former employer, the Mount Healthy City Schools. The Court considered three issues: whether federal-question jurisdiction existed in the case, whether the Eleventh Amendment barred federal lawsuits against school districts, and whether the First and Fourteenth Amendments prevented the district, as a government agency, from firing or otherwise disciplining an employee for constitutionally protected speech on a matter of public concern where the same action might have taken place for other, unprotected activities. Justice William Rehnquist wrote the opinion.
Plumhoff v. Rickard, 572 U.S. 765 (2014), is a United States Supreme Court case involving the use of force by police officers during high-speed car chases. After first holding that it had jurisdiction to hear the case, the Court held that the conduct of the police officers involved in the case did not violate the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures.
The Ending Qualified Immunity Act is a proposed United States Act of Congress introduced in 2020 by Justin Amash (L-Michigan) and Ayanna Pressley (D-Massachusetts) to end qualified immunity in the United States. Qualified immunity shields police officers and other government officials from being held personally liable for discretionary actions performed within their official capacity unless their actions violate "clearly established" federal law, a precedent requiring both that those actions violate written law and that there be a judicial precedent establishing that such actions are unlawful.
Pierson v. Ray, 386 U.S. 547 (1967), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court first introduced the justification for qualified immunity for police officers from being sued for civil rights violations under Section 1983, by arguing that "[a] policeman's lot is not so unhappy that he must choose between being charged with dereliction of duty if he does not arrest when he had probable cause, and being mulcted in damages if he does."
Vega v. Tekoh, 597 U.S. ___ (2022), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held, 6–3, that an officer's failure to read Miranda warnings to a suspect in custody does not alone provide basis for a claim of civil liability under Section 1983 of United States Code. In the case, the Court reviewed its previous holding of Miranda v. Arizona (1966) to determine whether respondent Carlos Vega violated plaintiff Terence Tekoh's constitutional rights by failing to read Tekoh his Miranda rights prior to interrogation. Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the six-justice majority that Tekoh's Fifth Amendment rights were not violated, as Miranda rights are "not themselves rights protected by the Constitution."
