The King Can Do No Wrong’s Travels and Travails Across the Common Law World

Abstract This chapter examines understandings of the king can do no wrong and their evolution in the United States, Ireland, and Australia. The first section of this chapter focusses on how American law retained the feudal element of the king’s immunity from suit while rejecting other understandings of the king can do no wrong. It argues that the American doctrine of sovereign immunity rests on a premise that is most un-English––the sovereign’s status as above the law. The second section recounts how the Republic of Ireland’s courts rejected the king can do no wrong understood as a relic of a feudal monarchical past incompatible with the constitutional commitments of a sovereign, democratic state. The third section analyses understandings of the king can do no wrong in Australia, where legal thinking offers an interesting perspective on the Commonwealth’s capacity to do wrong and its liability for a tort at common law.