Immunities Government in the United States

Foreign States, Components, and Political Subdivisions in the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976

Foreign state or government

According to research about Immunities Government from the Federal Judicial Center:Clearly the FSIA applies to a suit against the sovereign entity itself, whatever it is called (the Commonwealth of W, the Republic of X, the Kingdom of Y, the State of Z, or any other independent country, nation, union, principality, confederation, etc.), as well as to its government (which may be a named defendant even if not a separate juridical entity). Formal diplomatic or political recognition of the foreign state or government by the United States is not a statutory prerequisite. However, in some circumstances, the fact that the U.S. Government has given formal recognition to a named defendant as a “foreign state” has been found relevant.68 Full membership in the United Nations can also be a reliable indicator that an entity is a foreign state. However, if an entity has only “observer status” or lesser rights of participation, that would not necessarily be conclusive proof of lack of “statehood.” Some cases require difficult factual determinations.

Immunity from Tort Liablity

Note: an overview of this issue is avaliable here.

Government paying for its own torts is not economically harmful for the whole but should function the same as insurance. Government is a form of insurance with different terms where in it must not do itself what it is to prevent in others, and if it does, it must pay.

“We are in accord with Dean Green when he disposed of this problem as follows: “There is considerable talk in the opinions about the tremendous financial burdens tort liability would cast upon the taxpayer. In some opinions it is stated that this factor is sufficient to warrant the courts in protecting the taxpayer through the immunity which they have thrown around municipal corporations. While this factor may have had compulsion on some of the earlier courts, I seriously doubt that it has any great weight with the courts in recent years. In the first place, taxation is not the subject matter of judicial concern where justice to the individual citizen is involved. It is the business of other departments of government to provide the funds required to pay the damages assessed against them by the courts.

Moreover, the same policy that, would protect governmental corporations from the payment of damages for the injuries they bring upon others would be equally pertinent to a like immunity to protect private corporations, for conceivably many essential private concerns could also be put out of business by the damages they cold incur under tort liability.

But as a matter of fact, this argument has no practical basis. Private concerns have rarely been greatly embarrassed, and in no instance, even where immunity is not recognized, has a municipality been seriously handicapped by tort liability. This argument is like so many of the horribles paraded in the early tort cases when courts were fashioning the boundaries of tort law. It has been thrown in simply because there was nothing better at hand. The public’s willingness to stand up and pay the cost of its enterprises carried out through municipal corporations is no less than its insistence that individuals and groups pay the coust of their enterprises. Tort liability is in fact a very small item in the budget of any well organized enterprise.” Green, Freedom of Litigation, 38 Ill.L.Rev. 355, 378.” (Molitor v. Kaneland Community Unit Dist. No. 302 163 N.E.2d. 89 @ 95 (Ill. 1959))

Resources

See Also

Popular Topics related with Immunities Government

• Foreign Immunities
• Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976
• Foreign Sovereign Immunity Government
• Immunities Convention
• Immunity and Privileges
• Immunity of Citizens
• Immunity to Diplomats