The Oklahoma Bar Journal September 2025

likely resulted from the practicality that the courts were an extension of the realm and could not be used to enforce claims against it. 7

Oklahoma case law and draws from the Florida Supreme Court. 6 The decisional framework pre sented in DeCorte and its under pinnings illustrate how and when a jury can find that a public employee acted within the “scope of employment” and award puni tive damages for the same conduct. SOVEREIGN IMMUNITY The doctrine of sovereign immu nity was first recognized in early English law and established that the sovereign could not be sued without his permission. Although there is some debate as to whether the doc trine is based upon the theory that “the king can do no wrong,” the doctrine is believed to have more

Writing for the court in U.S. v. Lee , Justice Samuel Miller expressed the court’s misgivings when he wrote: No man in this country is so high that he is above the law. No officer of the law may set that law at defiance with impunity. All the officers of the govern ment, from the highest to the lowest, are creatures of the law, and are bound to obey it. 11 Although the court did not disturb the immunity provided to the government, it declined to extend that immunity to individ ual officers of the United States acting on its behalf. 12 Rejecting the argument that sovereign immunity

Federal Sovereign Immunity When the Constitution was

ratified, the crown could not be sued in its own courts without its consent. 8 The ratification of the U.S. Constitution included signif icant assurances by such figures as Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Marshall that the doctrine of sovereign immu nity would not be thrown out with the British. 9 Before long, however, a growing chorus of dissent began to gnaw at the edges of the sover eign’s immunity. 10

Statements or opinions expressed in the Oklahoma Bar Journal are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Oklahoma Bar Association, its officers, Board of Governors, Board of Editors or staff.

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THE OKLAHOMA BAR JOURNAL