Nevada Appellate Lawyer & Attorney : Tami D. Cowden : Nevada Supreme Court, Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals

A private corporation simply cannot be an arm of a state.   That's the conclusion of the Ninth Circuit in Del Campo v. American Corrective Counseling Services.  The court held, somewhat testily, that private entities are not entitled to 11th amendment immunity. 

In this consolidated case, the plaintiffs brought an assortment of state and federal fair debt collection claims against ACCS, a private corporation. ACCS operated a bad check recovery program for the Santa Clara DA.  The Court held that ACCS’s status as a private entity, not its conduct, is what determines its ineligilbity for 11^th amendment immunity.

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In Aholelei v. Public Safety the Ninth Circuit held that filing of a third-party complaint, without more, cannot constitute a waiver of immunity.  The plaintiff was an inmate of a prison who suffered injuries from being beaten by other inmates. He sued state employee defendants. The defendants raised the issue of immunity pursuant to the 11^th amendment, and also filed a separate  third party complaint against the inmates who committed the beating. The Court rejected the claim that filing the third party complaint was a voluntary invocation of federal jurisdiction, noting that the third party complaint was an appropriate defense strategy not inconsistent with the immunity claim.  

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