Tahoe Regional Planning Agency

and thus not entitled to immunity.

The court again asked whether an entity was comparable to a county or municipality, or rather an arm of the state in the case Lake Country Estates v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, decided in 1979.

There, the entity at issue was the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, a bi-state entity created by California and Nevada alongside the federal government under the compact clause.

The court explained that the interstate compact created the agency as a separate legal entity and a political subdivision and that judgments against the agency were not binding on either state.

The court also observed that most of the agency's governing members were not appointed by the states, that its rulemaking authority was not subject to any state-level veto, that the agency's function, land use regulation, was a traditional local government function, and that California had previously sued it.