Survivors and victims' families of the 2017 Sutherland Springs church shooting are hoping that a recent court ruling in a case arising from the 2015 Charleston church shooting will help them stay clear of the sovereign immunity hurdle in their lawsuit against the United States.

More than 75 Texas plaintiffs have sued the federal government for negligence in running the nation's criminal background check system, alleging it enabled the Sutherland Springs shooter to purchase firearms illegally, killing 26 and wounding 20 churchgoers. Earlier in the litigation, they won a court ruling that said the government did not have sovereign immunity to dodge their claims. However, the government is pushing the court to grant permission to file an interlocutory appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

The plaintiffs, who oppose the interlocutory appeal, on Wednesday filed a notice to inform the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas that a recent ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in a similar case, Sanders v. United States, unanimously rejected the government's argument for immunity under the federal law that created the background check system.

Plaintiffs lawyer Jamal Alsaffar, a partner in Whitehurst, Harkness, Brees, Cheng, Alsaffar & Higginbotham in Austin, said that the Fourth Circuit's ruling shows that immunity doesn't apply in the Texas case either.

"The government has admitted that it failed to enforce the law, and now, they are asking the courts to allow them to get away with it," he said. "I think the law is against them and I think both the Texas court and the Fourth Circuit are affirming that even if you are the federal government, if you break the law, you have to face accountability for doing it."

According to a Sept. 3 second amended complaint in the Texas case, Holcombe v. United States, federal law requires the government to flag people with certain criminal histories or mental institution commitments in a criminal background check system.

The plaintiffs claimed that the Sutherland Springs shooter served in the U.S. Air Force and was discharged for bad conduct after a 2012 conviction for domestic violence for assaulting his then-wife and stepson. He also had been committed to a mental institution. Yet the Air Force and Department of Defense failed to report the gunman's conviction or commitment to the background check system, and the shooter was able to buy firearms from Academy Sports & Outdoors stores in Colorado and Texas, which he then used in the mass shooting.

The plaintiffs are suing the United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act for negligence, negligent failure to train and supervise and negligent undertaking.

The government denied allegations that the Air Force and Department of Defense violated federal law by failing to report the gunman's history to the background check system, which caused the shooting, said an Aug. 27 answer.

Previously in the case, U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez ruled that the gunman was able to buy his firearms because of the government's reporting failures, said a May 23 order on motion to dismiss. Among other things, the government argued that the federal law that created the background check system gave the government immunity to the claims. The court rejected the argument, finding that the law shielded governmental employees, but not the federal government itself.

Defense lawyers Clayton Diedrichs, James Gilligan, James Dingivan and Paul Stern each didn't return emails seeking comment.