Chapter § 6.01 Introduction

• Jurisdiction: United States
• Publication year: 2020

§ 6.01 Introduction

The federal government is both omnipotent and omnipresent. With approximately 2.8 million civilian employees, the government is the nation’s largest employer.² For reference, Wal-Mart has about 2.2 million employees globally, with 1.5 million in the United States.³ The government’s total receipts amount to approximately $3.45 trillion and its expenditures $4.15 trillion.⁴ There isn’t a facet of our life that’s not influenced by the government. Given the government’s ubiquity—and authority—the potential for wrongdoing, whether perceived or real, is immense. Thus, there must be some recourse. In the seminal decision, Marbury v. Madison,⁵ Chief Justice Marshall observed that “[t]he government of the United States has been emphatically termed a government of laws, and not of men. It will certainly cease to deserve this high appellation, if the laws furnish no remedy [against it] for the violation of a vested legal right.”⁶ Likewise, President Abraham Lincoln acknowledged that it is “as much the duty of Government to render prompt justice against itself, in favor of citizens, as it is to administer the same between private parties.”⁷ Yet, in the early years of the nation, “[n]o court exercised standing jurisdiction over claims against the U.S. government, whether for contract, tort or even the payment of ‘just compensation’ due on a taking of property under the Fifth Amendment.”⁸ Indeed, it has been settled since at least the mid-1800s that the United States is immune from suit unless it consents to be sued. This is known as...