Sovereign Immunity Case Analysis

The first section of this work will address the concept and further development of Sovereign Immunity in a US law context. Later, this work will then move on to analyzing the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act (FSIA) and how it contrasts with the US Law of Sovereign Immunity. The exemptions to the application of the FSIA will also be considered. Landmark cases such as, Dolan v. United States Postal Service[7]; Millbrook v. United States[8]; and Odyssey Marine Exploration, Inc. v. The Unidentified Shipwrecked Vessel[9], are also going to be dealt with in this work in order to assess how and why this principle was applied and also, if the decision was –in our view– fair and in line with the Law.
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[1] Bentham,
Sovereign immunity is widely known throughout the United States and most of the federal governments and states practice this concept in order to maintain certain immunity in lawsuits. Nevertheless, federal governments and states do take advantage of this practice yet municipalities do not take part of this concept. The Sovereign immunity originally comes from the common law doctrine in Britain and from there on the United States adopted this doctrine and applied it to the country’s system. The beauty of this concept is that both federal and state governments are allowed to claim their immunity whenever there is a lawsuit presented. The governments can protect themselves in many cases and consequently can waive their immunity against claims from their opposing party. Nevertheless, there are certain cases were the plaintiff cannot sue a federal government for
Ministerial versus discretionary functions test. This test will identify whether or no the person acted in an operational manner then the person is not immunity yet if the person acted in a voluntary manner then there is immunity.
III. Planning versus implementational test. This test is to identify whether the person was planning an action ending up causing harm then the person has immunity. If the harm happens based on the governmental side, the person implementing the order, then there is no immunity.
IV. Non-justiciable versus justiciable. This is a basic test that is based on whether the action can be justified based on violations then there is no immunity applied. Otherwise, if it cannot be justified then there is immunity applied.
Last but not least, there are cases when citizens sue other states. However, in 1973 granted that one citizen/state can sue another state but there has been a modification made to this statement when the Eleventh Amendment was