Texas A&M University at College Station has wriggled off the legal hook of responsibility for the deaths and injuries caused by the collapse, in 1999, of a bonfire that used to be built annually to mark a key football game.

The accident resulted in 12 deaths and 27 injuries.

On Tuesday the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of the case, keeping in place several rulings by lower courts, which stated that the university was protected by “sovereign immunity,” a longstanding legal concept that holds that government agencies are immune from civil lawsuits or criminal prosecution.

A federal district court threw out the lawsuit, filed by survivors and families of the victims, in 2002 and again in 2004. A federal appeals court upheld the case’s dismissal in April. A parallel lawsuit in state court was dismissed in August.

The bonfire stack of more than 5,000 logs was traditionally burned in the days leading up to the annual football game against the University of Texas at Austin. Students and alumni now build the bonfire off campus. —Martin Van Der Werf