Sovereign Immunity for Public Airport Operations (2015)

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This study was performed under the overall guidance of the ACRP Project Committee 11-01. The Committee was chaired by TIMOTHY KARASKIEWICZ, General Mitchell International Airport, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Members are THOMAS W. ANDERSON, Metropolitan Airports Commission, Minneapolis, Minnesota; MARCO B. KUNZ, Salt Lake City Department of Airports, Salt Lake City, Utah; ELAINE ROBERTS, Columbus Regional Airport Authority, Columbus, Ohio; E. LEE THOMSON, Clark County, Las Vegas, Nevada; and KATHLEEN YODICE, Yodice Associates, Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, Washington, DC. DAPHNE A. FULLER provides liaison with the Federal Aviation Administration, FRANK SANMARTIN provides liaison with the Federal Aviation Administration, and MARCI A. GREENBERGER represents the ACRP staff.

Legal Research Digest 24 AIRPORT COOPERATIVE RESEARCH PROGRAM Sponsored by the Federal Aviation Administration March 2015 TRANSPORTATION RESEARCH BOARD OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES SOVEREIGN IMMUNITY FOR PUBLIC AIRPORT OPERATORS This report was prepared under ACRP Project 11-01, “Legal Aspects of Airport Programs,” for which the Transportation Research Board (TRB) is the agency coordinating the research. The report was prepared by Seay Law International. Responsible Senior Program Officer: Marci A. Greenberger Background There are over 4,000 airports in the country and most of these airports are owned by governments. A 2003 sur- vey conducted by Airports Council International–North America concluded that city ownership accounts for 38 percent, followed by regional airports at 25 percent, single county at 17 percent, and multi-jurisdictional at 9 percent. Primary legal services to these airports are, in most cases, provided by municipal, county, and state attorneys. Reports and summaries produced by the Airport Con- tinuing Legal Studies Project and published as ACRP Legal Research Digests are developed to assist these attorneys seeking to deal with the myriad of legal prob- lems encountered during airport development and opera- tions. Such substantive areas as eminent domain, environmental concerns, leasing, contracting, security, insurance, civil rights, and tort liability present cutting- edge legal issues where research is useful and indeed needed. Airport legal research, when conducted through the TRB’s legal studies process, either collects primary data that usually are not available elsewhere or performs analysis of existing literature. Applications The legal principle of sovereign immunity has its origins in the common law concept that, as ruler of the country, the sovereign (government) cannot be sued unless it con- sents. The Eleventh Amendment to the United States Constitution codified this protection for states, protecting them from being sued in federal courts. While the basic principle remains today, it has been the subject of legisla- tive enactments at the federal and state levels that circum- scribe, limit, or otherwise waive sovereign immunity. Since local governmental entities are not recognized as sovereigns in their own right, they derive their sovereign immunity from state legislation and exercise only those sovereign powers delegated to them by the states. Most public airports are owned and operated by units of local government or regional governmental authorities. There- fore, the extent of sovereign immunity granted to airports varies from state to state. This digest provides an overview of sovereign immu- nity as it applies to airports and provides a state-by-state summary of each state’s statutory authority and relevant case law. Appendix A provides a table of cases, and Appendix B contains a chart of authorities. These digests are issued in order to increase awareness of research results emanating from projects in the Cooperative Research Programs (CRP). Persons wanting to pursue the project subject matter in greater depth should contact the CRP Staff, Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, 500 Fifth Street, NW, Washington, DC 20001. Subscriber Categories: Aviation • Law Transportation Research Board 500 Fifth Street, NW Washington, DC 20001 LRD24_final.indd 7 3/30/15 3:09 PM A C R P LR D 24 TR B NON-PROFIT ORG. U.S. POSTAGE PAID WASHINGTON, D.C. PERMIT NO. 8970 COLUMBIA, M PERMIT NO. 88