Abstract
Introduction The concept of "sovereign immunity" - the immunity of the United States from suit without its express permission - underlies and permeates the question of federal governmental liability in court.n1 For any suit against the United States or its agencies to survive a motion to dismiss, a claimant must find a specific statute that waives the sovereign immunity of the government for that type of claim and then must follow the rules set down in that statute for pursuing recovery. Over the past century and a half, Congress has gradually lowered the shield of sovereign immunity, making the United States amenable to suit in most areas of substantive law and covering most situations in which an injured party would desire relief.n2 Congressional enactments thereby have woven a broad tapestry of authorized judicial actions against the federal government. Although these statutory waivers of federal sovereign immunity have been enacted piecemeal by Congress over the course of 150 years, they nevertheless fit together into a reasonably well-integrated pattern of causes of action covering most subjects of dispute between the government and its citizens. Congress has contributed to this cohesion, intentionally or unintentionally, by limiting the sweep of one statute and thereby avoiding conflict with another. For example, the Tucker Actn3 was enacted in 1887 to authorize money claims against the federal government for "cases not sounding in tort." n4 Thus, when the Federal Tort Claims Act ("FTCA") n5 was subsequently enacted in 1946, it ...