Sovereign Immunity and Closed Courthouses For most of American History, suing the federal government was nearly impossible. The old English maxim – “the King can do no wrong” – carried over into American law as  sovereign immunity . If federal employees injured you, the courts generally turned you away. Congress occasionally passed private bills granting relief in individual cases, but the system was slow, political, and inconsistent. The result was a patchwork of remedies that depended less on