Randolph Rice

“That goes away or we get around that. We pierce that veil and, therefore, we can now go after the school, the police chief, the government agencies, because we detrimentally relied on the text message and that assurance that that rooftop was going to be protected.”

Randolph Rice · said date not stated · reported 2026-09-22

Rice continued explaining how the family's legal strategy could pierce governmental immunity through detrimental reliance on the chief's assurance.

“Utah law makes it very difficult for the Charlie Kirk family to proceed with a civil claim against the state and the university,”

Randolph Rice · said date not stated · reported 2026-09-22

Randolph Rice, who is following the Kirk family's case, explained the difficulty of pursuing a civil claim under Utah's Governmental Immunity Act.

“Generally speaking, they are immune from any type of civil suit, meaning money damages,”

Randolph Rice · said date not stated · reported 2026-09-22

Rice explained that government entities and employees are generally immune from civil suits seeking money damages.

“What they're going to try to do is, and I'm guessing this, is they're going to say, look, because of the fact that they detrimentally relied on that, we're not bound by the Governmental Immunity Act,”

Randolph Rice · said date not stated · reported 2026-09-22

Rice speculated that the Kirk family will argue detrimental reliance on the police chief's text message to bypass governmental immunity.