221246P.pdf   11/03/2023  Vanessa Dundon  v.  Kyle Kirchmeier
   U.S. Court of Appeals Case No:  22-1246
   U.S. District Court for the District of North Dakota - Western   
   [PUBLISHED] [Colloton, Author, with Wollman and Benton, Circuit Judges] 
   Civil case - Civil rights. In an action claiming defendants violated 
   plaintiffs' civil rights by their use of force (fire hoses, tear gas, 
   rubber bullets, and bean bags) to disperse a protest against the Dakota 
   Access Pipeline at the Backwater Bridge in Morton County, North Dakota, 
   the district court granted defendants summary judgment, and plaintiffs 
   appeal seeking reinstatement of their Section 1983 claims against the 
   individual officers for using excess force, their claims against the 
   municipalities alleging unconstitutional policies, and their claim against 
   three defendants for supervisory liability. Held: (1) even assuming 
   plaintiffs could proceed against the unnamed police officers (Does 1-100), 
   the protestors have not shown that it was clearly established on the date 
   of the incident that use of force to disperse a crowd constituted a 
   seizure; the plaintiffs have not established a clearly established right 
   under the Fourth Amendment, and the district court properly dismissed 
   their claims against the officers under the Fourth and Fourteenth 
   Amendments; (2) the municipalities were entitled to summary judgment under 
   Monell v. Department of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658 (1978); as it was 
   not clearly established that the officers' use of force to disperse 
   protestors violated a constitutional right under the Fourth Amendment, and 
   the need for training and supervision on dispersal of protestors was not 
   so obvious that it can be characterized as deliberate indifference to the 
   protestors' rights to be free from unreasonable seizures; (3) with respect 
   to the claims against the supervisor defendants, there was insufficient 
   evidence here of deliberate indifference by supervisors where the alleged 
   constitutional right was not clearly established.