Suing the Government: A Guide to Damages in Administrative and Public Entity Litigation

61 questions on suing the government, answered and cited by the UpLaw editorial team.

• Are FTCA cases tried to a jury?
• Can a city be sued under Section 1983 for its employee's misconduct?
• Can you get damages under the Administrative Procedure Act?
• Can you get punitive damages against a government?
• Can you recover damages for a constitutional violation that caused no concrete harm?
• Can you recover damages for an agency's wrongful withholding of records under FOIA?
• Can you sue a federal employee personally for a tort committed on the job?
• Did Loper Bright and Corner Post change the damages picture in APA cases?
• Does the FTCA cover intentional torts?
• How are FTCA damages measured?
• How does a government contractor pursue a claim for nonpayment?
• How does qualified immunity affect the valuation of a civil-rights case?
• How does Section 1988 fee-shifting make civil-rights litigation viable?
• How does the FTCA's punitive-damages bar interact with compensatory awards?
• How do five different doors produce five different outcomes from one incident?
• How do the same facts produce different outcomes in a private versus a federal hospital?
• How is a takings claim conceptually different from other suits against the government?
• How is just compensation measured?
• How many layers of immunity can one incident implicate?
• How should a lawyer value a case against a public entity?
• How specifically must the law be “clearly established”?
• How strictly do courts read a waiver of sovereign immunity?
• If APA cases yield no damages, where does money in administrative litigation come from?
• Is prejudgment interest available in the Court of Federal Claims?
• What are the different kinds of takings?
• What are the guardrails on Section 1988 fee awards?
• What damages does the FTCA refuse to pay?
• What damages does the Privacy Act allow?
• What does the Eleventh Amendment bar, and what survives it?
• What does the Federal Tort Claims Act cover?
• What does the Tucker Act cover?
• What do Section 1983 damages actually look like in practice?
• What else does the Court of Federal Claims hear?
• What factors govern a FOIA fee award?
• What is a Bivens claim?
• What is a “money-mandating” source, and why do you need one?
• What is inverse condemnation, and what did Knick change?
• What is qualified immunity?
• What is Section 1983, and what does it reach?
• What is the difference between “money damages” and “specific relief” under the APA?
• What is the Equal Access to Justice Act?
• What is the Feres doctrine?
• What is the FTCA's administrative exhaustion requirement?
• What is the FTCA's discretionary-function exception?
• What is the independent-contractor exclusion, and can it help a plaintiff?
• What is the remedial gap for victims of federal-officer misconduct?
• What limits how much EAJA actually delivers?
• What makes Section 1983 the most generous door for damages?
• What three features of state tort claims acts reshape a case's value?
• Where does a federal takings claim get filed?
• Which categories of damages are routinely unavailable across government-suit vehicles?
• Which officials enjoy absolute rather than qualified immunity?
• Who pays a judgment against the federal government?
• Why does sovereign immunity invert ordinary litigation instinct?
• Why does the number on an FTCA administrative claim matter so much?
• Why do juries disappear when you sue the sovereign?
• Why is Bivens nearly a dead letter?
• Why is interest available in takings cases when it is barred elsewhere?
• Why is suing the government fundamentally different from suing a private party?
• Why is the failure-to-train theory so hard to prove?
• Why is there no reliable “average award” for government litigation?