No. 21-3885 ___________________________

Dean Christiansen

lllllllllllllllllllllPlaintiff - Appellant

v. Christopher Eral, individually and in his official capacity as an officer of the Sioux City Police; Rex Mueller, individually and in his official capacity as Chief of Police for the Sioux City Police Department; City of Sioux City

lllllllllllllllllllllDefendants - Appellees ____________

Appeal from United States District Court for the Northern District of Iowa - Western ____________

Submitted: September 21, 2022 Filed: October 31, 2022 ____________ Before LOKEN, ARNOLD, and KOBES, Circuit Judges. ____________ ARNOLD, Circuit Judge.

When Dean Christiansen led police on a high-speed vehicle chase over the South Dakota state line into Iowa, Sioux City police officer Christopher Eral ended it by performing a "Pursuit Intervention Technique," or PIT maneuver, causing Christiansen to crash his truck and injure his chest, knee, and hip. Christiansen sued Eral, Eral's boss, and the city under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, but the district court1 dismissed his complaint on the ground that it didn't state a claim. Christiansen appeals that determination, but we affirm.

At this stage of the proceedings, we accept the facts alleged in Christiansen's complaint as true. See Vandevender v. Sass, 970 F.3d 972, 975 (8th Cir. 2020). He alleges that in June 2019 a police officer in North Sioux City, South Dakota, observed Christiansen's truck leave a casino parking lot in the middle of the night. The officer tried to initiate a traffic stop purportedly for mechanical issues, but Christiansen says that was just a pretext for stopping the truck so he could perform a suspicionless search. Christiansen did not stop his truck but instead fled with the officer in pursuit.

As the chase continued, Christiansen increased his speed to about eighty miles per hour. About two minutes into the chase he drove across the state line into Sioux City, and the officer in pursuit told Sioux City police, including Eral, that he suspected Christiansen of driving while intoxicated. Sioux City police attempted to halt Eral's flight with "stop sticks," but a different vehicle hit the sticks instead, and Christiansen had to swerve to avoid it and the sticks. The pursuing officer hit the stop sticks as well, disabling his vehicle.

At that point Eral entered the pursuit. He announced an intention to end the chase with the PIT maneuver at a time when Christiansen was driving between eighty and ninety miles per hour. Moments later Eral struck Christiansen's truck, causing it to spin into a ditch and collide with a light pole.

1 The Honorable Kelly K.E. Mahoney, Chief Magistrate Judge, United States District Court for the Northern District of Iowa, to whom the case was referred for final disposition by consent of the parties pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636(c).

-2- Christiansen brought claims against Eral for using excessive force against him and for violating his substantive due process rights. He also asserted a claim against Eral's boss in his official capacity and against Sioux City for Eral's use of excessive force. The district court, however, held that Christiansen's complaint did not state a claim. It concluded that Eral had acted reasonably in using the PIT maneuver to end the chase and so had not used excessive force. It also determined that Christiansen hadn't adequately alleged that Eral violated his substantive due process rights because the allegations in the compla