Bermuda also severely limits the ability of shareholders to sue officers and directors, including barring contingent-fee cases in which lawyers for those who sue are paid only if they win.

Some of the toughest work facing lawyers working for the corporation involves suing the directors and officers of failed savings and loans.

Experts in the field said that this was one of very few times that a public pension fund had sued officers of a company seeking compensation for actions damaging the investment.

But states are already free to sue individual tribal officers for failure to collect taxes.

In July 1999, PEF sued former president James Sheedy and other former officers for allegedly embezzling more than $62,000 from the union.

Federal regulators sued officers and directors of the National Bank of Washington, the Justice Department announced today.

In 1971, the Supreme Court ruled that a citizen could sue individual federal officers for violating one's constitutional rights.

The Court held that military personnel cannot sue the Government or superior officers for damages, even for gross and deliberate violations of their constitutional rights.

The F.D.I.C. often sues former officers and directors, but it is rare for an owner to indemnify them.