A Utah government immunity law could upend the Kirk family’s efforts to bring a wrongful death lawsuit against Utah Valley University over alleged security failures surrounding Charlie Kirk’s assassination. Attorneys for Kirk’s family filed a notice of intent to sue on Sept. 9, one day before the anniversary of his death. The filing alleges a series of security failures by the university, including declining additional police officers, failing to adequately address concerns from Kirk's security team and not having an adequate security plan in place for his visit.
But legal experts say the Kirks face an uphill legal battle because Utah law grants government entities — including their officers and employees — broad immunity from lawsuits arising from a lengthy list of circumstances, including the performance or failure to perform discretionary functions and claims involving assault, battery, false imprisonment, malicious prosecution and civil rights violations. "Unfortunately, Charlie Kirk's family is going to have a very difficult time prevailing in a wrongful death case in Utah," Tenielle Brown, a University of Utah law professor, told Fox News Digital. "And that's because Utah's government immunity statute is phrased in such a way that says even if the state and UVU were reckless, they retain immunity in cases that arise out of a battery, and that would include gunshot wounds." JUDGE IN ACCUSED ASSASSIN TYLER ROBINSON'S CASE EXPLAINS WHY DEATH PENALTY REMAINS ON TABLE IN WRITTEN ORDER Kirk, 31, co-founded Turning Point USA in 2012 and grew the conservative youth organization into a major force on high school and college campuses nationwide.
He was shot and killed while speaking at Utah Valley University in Orem on Sept. 10, 2025. Neama Rahmani, president of West Coast Trial Lawyers, told Fox News Digital that wrongful death claims against the government are already difficult for plaintiffs to win because government entities generally enjoy broad immunity from lawsuits stemming from assaults or batteries committed by third parties. "I've handled lack of security cases, including lack of security cases against the government," Rahmani told Fox News Digital.
"They are tough because you are trying to hold the police or city, county or state responsible for someone else's criminal actions." But Rahmani suggested the Kirk family's strongest evidence could be a message from UVU Police Chief Jeffrey Long acknowledging concerns about rooftop access to the Sorenson Center, a building located "pretty close" to where Kirk was scheduled to speak. The Sorenson Center sits directly west of the Losee Center, where prosecutors say Tyler Robinson fired the shot that killed Kirk. In response to the security concerns, Long messaged Kirk's team, "I got you covered." TYLER ROBINSON HEARING ENDS WITHOUT RULING AS EVIDENCE DISMANTLES CHARLIE KIRK CONSPIRACY CLAIMS "That means they're gonna argue that they assume the responsibility to make sure Charlie Kirk was safe, and they failed to do so," Rahmani said of the Kirk family.
"In cases where you have the government taking on a duty, that tends to be better than simply arguing that the government has a duty to protect everyone because we know that murders happen all the time, and you can't sue the government just because someone is killed." But Brown said Utah law can shield government officials from lawsuits even when they fail to perform their job functions. "There have been a number of cases where the plaintiffs and the family of the victims have sued for either wrongful death or battery," Brown told Fox News Digital. "And in some cases, the government did behave recklessly, and they could show carelessness and recklessness and the plaintiffs were not able to prevail because it arose out of a battery.
Most states don't have that broad of a statute." Brown pointed to the case of Mika Scott, a 19-year-old Utah Valley University student who sued Utah County and the Utah County Sheriff's Office after Shawn Leonard, a prisoner with a violent criminal record who had escaped from a work-release program, raped her in 2010. "They were supposed to screen inmates to make sure that they weren't violent," Brown told Fox News Digital. "And then when they went out in the community on the job sites, they were supposed to make sure that they were policing the boundaries so that these inmates couldn't escape and in a really terrible situation." "And she could have shown carelessness and maybe even recklessness, but because of the government immunity statute and because this claim arose out of a battery, she was not able to prevail against the state," Brown continued.
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