# Estate of Colton Peterson v. David Krueger

> Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit · March 30, 2017 · 685 F. App'x 631

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/4156906

## Case

- **Full name:** ESTATE OF Colton PETERSON; Et Al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. David KRUEGER, Missoula Police Detective, Defendant-Appellant, and City of Missoula, Montana; Et Al., Defendants
- **Court:** Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
- **Decided:** March 30, 2017
- **Citations:** 685 F. App'x 631
- **Precedential status:** Unpublished
- **Opinion:** Opinion
- **Judges:** Fisher, Friedland, Mahan
- **Nature of suit:** Civil
- **Cited by:** 0 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

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## Opinion text

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MAR 30 2017
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

ESTATE OF COLTON PETERSON; et al., No. 14-35682

Plaintiffs - Appellees, D.C. No. 2:09-cv-00123-DLC

v.
MEMORANDUM*
DAVID KRUEGER, Missoula Police
Detective,

Defendant - Appellant,

and

CITY OF MISSOULA, Montana; et al.,

Defendants.

Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Montana
Dana L. Christensen, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted March 6, 2017
Portland, Oregon

Before: FISHER and FRIEDLAND, Circuit Judges, and MAHAN,** District
Judge.

*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
**
The Honorable James C. Mahan, United States District Judge for the
District of Nevada, sitting by designation.
Detective David Krueger challenges the district court’s denial of his motion

for summary judgment based on qualified immunity. We have jurisdiction

pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We reverse the district court’s decision denying

qualified immunity and hold that Krueger is entitled to qualified immunity because

the law was not clearly established at the time of the violation.

1. The district court denied Krueger’s motion for summary judgment based

on qualified immunity, finding that the contours of the law were sufficiently clear

that Krueger may be said to have been on notice that his conduct was unlawful.

The United States Supreme Court recently reiterated “the longstanding principle

that ‘clearly established law’ should not be defined ‘at a high level of generality.’”

White v. Pauly, 137 S. Ct. 548, 552 (2017) (per curiam) (citing Ashcroft v. al-Kidd,

563 U.S. 731, 742 (2011)). “[T]he clearly established law must be ‘particularized’

to the facts of the case.” Id. (citing Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640

(1987)). The district court erred in failing to identify a case where an officer acting

under similar circumstances as Krueger was held to have violated the Fourteenth

Amendment. Instead, the district court relied on Munger v. City of Glasgow Police

Department, 227 F.3d 1082 (9th Cir. 2000), Kennedy v. City of Ridgefield, 439

F.3d 1055 (9th Cir. 2006), and Patel v. Kent School District, 648 F.3d 965 (9th Cir.

2011), which lay out the state-created danger exception in markedly different

circumstances and are applicable to this case only at a high level of generality.

2
Accordingly, we conclude that summary judgment based on qualified immunity

was warranted because the law was not clearly established at the time of the

alleged conduct. See White, 137 S. Ct. at 552.

2. Because we hold that Krueger is entitled to qualified immunity, we do

not consider whether the alleged conduct constituted a constitutional violation.

REVERSED.

3

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/4156906. Public record. Not legal advice.