ABSTRACT
Historically, in the United States, both public and private institutions of higher education have been immune from tort liability. Some courts have pierced the armor of immunity and allowed injured parties to recover from both public governmental agencies and private charitable institutions. The trend today is away from common law immunity for both public and private institutions. Many courts and legislatures1 in evaluating the merits of the doctrine of immunity have found that it is neither logical nor morally acceptable for dealing with problems of liability in modern society. This chapter discusses two of three principal theories of immunity. The three are: (1) sovereign immunity of state universities under common law and state statutory law, (2) state sovereign immunity under the Eleventh Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and (3) common law charitable immunity of private institutions. The first two theories are discussed below in this chapter and the third is discussed in the next succeeding chapter of this book.
