Estate of Ceaser Stinson v. Joel Streicher

In the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ____________________ No. 22-3043 ESTATE OF CEASER STINSON, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. JOEL STREICHER, Defendant-Appellant. ____________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin. No. 21-CV-1046-JPS — J.P. Stadtmueller, Judge. ____________________ ARGUED FEBRUARY 22, 2024 — DECIDED OCTOBER 14, 2026 ____________________ Before RIPPLE, SYKES, and ST. EVE, Circuit Judges. SYKES, Circuit Judge. Deputy Joel Streicher of the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office caused a fatal auto acci- dent while on patrol in his unmarked sheriff’s vehicle. Driv- ing within the speed limit, he approached a controlled inter- section as the light turned yellow and then red. But he missed the light change. He was looking down at his cellphone or dashboard computer, so he neither slowed down nor stopped. Instead, he ran the red light, striking a vehicle 2 No. 22-3043 lawfully passing through the intersection. Ceaser Stinson, the driver of the other car, was killed. Stinson’s estate brought this suit against Streicher seeking damages under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and several state-law theo- ries. This appeal concerns only the § 1983 claim: The estate alleges that Streicher violated Stinson’s right to due process under the substantive component of the Fourteenth Amend- ment’s Due Process Clause. It’s well established that an auto accident caused by a law- enforcement officer is not actionable as a due-process viola- tion unless the officer’s conduct was so egregious that it shocks the conscious. County of Sacramento v. Lewis, 523 U.S. 833, 846 (1998). This standard, in turn, requires the plaintiff to show that the officer intended to cause injury or was deliber- ately indifferent to impending harm—i.e., that he had actual knowledge of imminent harm and consciously refused to pre- vent it. Id. at 848–54; Lisby v. Henderson, 74 F.4th 470, 472–73 (7th Cir. 2023); Flores v. City of South Bend, 997 F.3d 725, 729 (7th Cir. 2021); Hill v. Shobe, 93 F.3d 418, 421 (7th Cir. 1996). Streicher sought summary judgment on the merits and based on qualified immunity. He argued that his conduct, though admittedly negligent, was neither intentional nor de- liberately indifferent to a known and imminent harm. Regard- ing qualified immunity, he noted that no case clearly estab- lished that an officer’s distracted driving violates substantive due process. The district judge denied the motion, ruling that a jury should decide whether Streicher’s inattention rose to the level of a due-process violation and that the issue of im- munity should await the jury’s verdict on that question. No. 22-3043 3 That was error. Public officials have qualified immunity from damages suits arising from their on-duty conduct unless they violate clearly established federal law. When immunity is raised at summary judgment, the plaintiff must show that (1) the evidence supports a finding that the officer committed the claimed constitutional violation, and (2) it was clearly es- tablished when the officer acted that his conduct was uncon- stitutional. These are legal questions for the court. The estate did not make these showings. The undisputed evidence, construed in the estate’s favor, does not support a reasonable inference that Streicher deliberately disregarded an impending harm. Even if we skipped the merits question and assumed for the sake of argument that the evidence could support a triable due-process claim, no case clearly estab- lishes that an officer’s distracted driving rises to the level of a due-process violation. Accordingly, Streicher’s immunity is intact. We reverse and remand for entry of judgment in his favor. I. Background At the time of this accident, Streicher was on duty as a deputy sheriff in the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office and assigned to patrol the interstate freeway system. On the morn- ing of January 25, 2020, he started his shift at about 10 a.m., driving an unmarked Chevy Tahoe, his designated sheriff’s vehicle. About 45 minutes after starting his shift, he stopped at the Milwaukee County Safety Building for a bathroom break. While there he opened a dating application known as “Zoosk” on his personal cellphone and exchanged a series of sexually explicit messages with a woman he had met on the app. Her last message to him was at 10:45 a.m., and he re- sponded at 10:52 a.m. 4 No. 22-3043 At about 11 a.m., Streicher returned to his vehicle and headed for the interstate to begin his freeway patrol. Driving northbound on North 10th Street near the Safety Building, Streicher approached a controlled intersection at North 10th and West State Streets as the light turned yellow and then red. His speed was 29 to 30 miles per hour, within the speed limit of 30 miles per hour. But he was looking down at his phone or dashboard computer and did not see the light change, so he made no effort to slow down or stop. Instead, he ran the red light, driving straight into the intersection from the right- turn-only lane. At that moment Ceaser Stinson was lawfully driving through the intersection on West State Street. At 11:11:02 a.m. Streicher collided with Stinson’s car. Stinson died at the scene. An investigator with the Milwaukee Police Department later determined that Streicher had about 15.5 seconds to slow and stop his vehicle before the collision—about 4 seconds while the light was yellow and 11 to 11.5 seconds while the light was red. Streicher admits that he took his eyes off the road and completely missed the light change. He says he was looking down at his dashboard computer. The police report confirms, however, that he unlocked his phone 26 seconds be- fore the crash, though the phone registered no further user interaction. During those 15.5 seconds, Streicher continued to drive at or just under the speed limit (29 to 30 mph) for about 500 feet. He does not remember seeing Stinson enter the intersection, nor does he remember seeing another car that entered the in- tersection five seconds earlier. No. 22-3043 5 The foregoing facts are not in dispute, and the cause of the accident is clear. Streicher took his eyes off the road for a du- ration of 15.5 seconds—he was looking at either his phone or his dashboard computer (or perhaps both)—so he ran the red light and struck Stinson’s vehicle. Put simply, Streicher’s dis- tracted driving caused the accident. It’s also undisputed that Streicher was not always a model officer. The last 15 years of his tenure at the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office featured reprimands for violations of department policy and state law. In 2007 he was reprimanded for violating department policy for his role in a residential search without lawful justification. In 2018 the Wisconsin Department of Justice caught him soliciting an undercover agent for sex over the internet; he pleaded guilty to misde- meanor disorderly conduct and was disciplined by the de- partment. Also in 2018: Streicher was involved in another on- duty auto accident. In July of that year, he drove straight through a controlled intersection from a left-turn-only lane, colliding with the vehicle in the lane next to him that had the right-of-way. Streicher’s career as a deputy sheriff came to an end after the January 2020 crash that caused Stinson’s death. He re- signed his position and pleaded guilty to one count of homi- cide by negligent operation of a vehicle. See WIS. STAT. § 940.10(1). Stinson’s wife and estate filed suit in state court against Streicher, Milwaukee County, and the county’s insurer, seek- ing damages under § 1983 for violation of Stinson’s Fourteenth Amendment right to due process and several state-law theories of recovery. The defendants removed the case to federal court. The district judge narrowed the claims 6 No. 22-3043 at the pleading stage, dismissing the § 1983 claim brought by Stinson’s wife and the estate’s § 1983 claim against the county’s insurer. 1 The case then proceeded to discovery, and the defendants eventually moved for partial summary judgment on the § 1983 claim—both on the merits and based on Streicher’s as- sertion of qualified immunity. The parties submitted an agreed statement of facts in connection with the motion; our account of the facts is drawn from that statement. The crux of the defendants’ merits argument was that the evidence we’ve just recounted falls short of the demanding legal standard for a due-process claim. In brief, the substantive component of the Fourteenth Amendment right to due process protects against arbitrary or oppressive abuses of government power, but “only the most egregious official conduct can be said to be arbitrary in the constitutional sense.” Lewis, 523 U.S. at 846 (quotation omit- ted). The misconduct must “shock the conscience.” Id. at 855. Only intentionally inflicted harm, or harm caused by a public official’s deliberate indifference to impending harm, rises to the level of a potential due-process violation. Id. at 848–54. Negligence doesn’t suffice. Id. at 848–49. The defendants argued that the evidence does not support an inference that Streicher acted intentionally or with deliber- ate indifference to imminent harm. With respect to qualified immunity, Streicher argued that it was not clearly established 1 The parties included Stinson’s wife’s name in the caption of their appel- late filings. But the district judge dismissed her § 1983 claim in its entirety and this appeal concerns only the estate’s claim against Streicher, so she is not a proper appellee. We thus omit her name from the caption. No. 22-3043 7 at the time of the accident that distracted driving constitutes a due-process violation. The judge denied the motion, holding that a jury should decide whether Streicher’s degree of inattention amounted to a violation of Stinson’s right to due process. The judge rea- soned that the question of Streicher’s intent was best left to jurors who could assess his credibility and any competing in- ferences. But the judge also concluded that the reason for Streicher’s inattention was immaterial, so a jury would not need to resolve that question. In the judge’s view, it did not matter whether the officer was looking at his law-enforcement computer or his cellphone at the time of the accident. Nor was Streicher’s past misconduct relevant. The judge determined that the officer’s misdemeanor conviction, disciplinary his- tory, and prior on-duty collision were both immaterial and in- admissible. Finally, the judge concluded that a ruling on the question of qualified immunity should await the jury’s find- ing on the constitutional question. As permitted by Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511 (1985), Streicher appealed the denial of his motion as it pertained to his assertion of qualified immunity. 2 II. Discussion “Government officials enjoy qualified immunity from suit under § 1983 unless their conduct violates clearly established 2 Milwaukee County initially appealed along with Streicher. We issued an order noting that the county is not a proper appellant because the defense of qualified immunity may be asserted only by public officials, not by the agencies that employ them. Allman v. Smith, 790 F.3d 762, 763 (7th Cir. 2015). The county agreed and moved to voluntarily dismiss its appeal. We granted the motion. 8 No. 22-3043 law.” Zorn v. Linton, 607 U.S. 568, 571 (2026) (per curiam). Im- munity attaches unless the official (1) “violated a federal stat- utory or constitutional right, and (2) the unlawfulness of [his] conduct was clearly established at the time.” District of Colum- bia v. Wesby, 583 U.S. 48, 62–63 (2018) (quotation omitted). “[Q]ualified immunity is an immunity from suit rather than a mere defense to liability.” Plumhoff v. Rickard, 572 U.S. 765, 771–72 (2014) (alteration in original) (quotation omitted). Accordingly, although an order denying summary judgment ordinarily is not an appealable final decision under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, an order denying a motion for judgment based on im- munity is immediately appealable under § 1291 and the collateral-order doctrine. Mitchell, 472 U.S. at 527–30. As the Supreme Court has explained, the “immunity issue is both important and completely separate from the merits of the ac- tion.” Plumhoff, 572 U.S. at 772. It cannot be “effectively re- viewed on appeal from a final judgment because by that time the immunity from standing trial will have been irretrievably lost.” Id. Without an immediate appeal, “a pretrial order denying qualified immunity is effectively unreviewable.” McGee v. Parsano, 55 F.4th 563, 570 (7th Cir. 2022). The estate nonetheless urges us to dismiss Streicher’s ap- peal for lack of jurisdiction because the district judge did not specifically address the substance of the qualified-immunity defense. This argument relies on the Supreme Court’s deci- sion in Johnson v. Jones, 515 U.S. 304 (1995). But the Johnson exception to the Mitchell rule is “narrow” and applies only to appeals of rulings “center[ed] on pure questions of historical No. 22-3043 9 fact—questions of who did what, when or where, how or why.” McGee, 55 F.4th at 570–71 (quotation omitted). Put more succinctly, Johnson holds only that “a pretrial ap- peal based on a defense of qualified immunity cannot be used to contest issues of fact.” Blackmon v. Jones, 132 F.4th 522, 524 (7th Cir. 2025). But “a defendant who denies some or all of a complaint’s factual allegations is free to argue that, even if all factual matters are taken favorably to the plaintiff, qualified immunity is available.” Id. A pretrial immunity appeal is ap- propriate when the defendant focuses on legal issues—most notably, whether the plaintiff’s claim “rests on clearly estab- lished law.” Watts v. Jones, 177 F.4th 820, 822 (7th Cir. 2026). Streicher is not using this appeal to challenge factual mat- ters. He confines himself to the agreed facts and argues that he is entitled to qualified immunity even if the evidence is viewed in the estate’s favor. It’s not entirely clear why the dis- trict judge declined to engage with the immunity issue, which was fully raised and briefed in the district court. But the judge’s decision to sidestep it does not deprive Streicher of his right to an immediate appeal to “present arguments about the state of the law.” Id. Appellate jurisdiction is secure, so we return to the main event. To repeat, qualified immunity shields public officials from suits for damages under § 1983; the “shield is pierced” only if “(1) officers violate the Constitution or a federal statu- tory right and (2) their conduct is clearly established as un- lawful.” Davis v. City of Elgin, 180 F.4th 1023, 1026 (7th Cir. 2026) (citing Wesby, 583 U.S. at 62–63). Qualified immunity is an affirmative defense, but when it’s asserted at summary judgment, the plaintiff has “the 10 No. 22-3043 burden of demonstrating both that the defendant violated a constitutional right and that the constitutional right was clearly established at the time.” Mabes v. Thompson, 136 F.4th 697, 705 (7th Cir. 2025). In short, qualified immunity is the baseline; the plaintiff has the burden to defeat it. Russell v. Comstock, 167 F.4th 984, 989 (7th Cir. 2026). Accordingly, Streicher is entitled to judgment unless the estate can show that (1) the evidence is sufficient to support a finding that he violated Stinson’s right to substantive due pro- cess, and (2) it was clearly established at the time of the acci- dent that his conduct was unconstitutional. We review an or- der denying summary judgment de novo, construing the evi- dence in the light most favorable to the estate. McGee, 55 F.4th at 570. “A right is clearly established when it is sufficiently clear that every reasonable official would have understood that what he is doing violates that right.” Zorn, 607 U.S. at 572 (quotation omitted). Conversely, “[a] right is not clearly estab- lished if existing precedent does not place the constitutional question beyond debate.” Id. (quotation omitted). The legal rule “must have a sufficiently clear foundation in then- existing precedent”—that is, it “must be settled law.” Wesby, 583 U.S. at 63 (quotation omitted). There is also a requirement of specificity: The legal rule on which the claim relies must be particularized to the facts of the case. Id. The Supreme Court has “repeatedly stressed that courts must not define clearly established law at a high level of generality.” Id. (quotation omitted). The relevant precedent must be specific enough so that “every reasonable official would interpret it to establish No. 22-3043 11 the particular rule the plaintiff seeks to apply.” Id. The Court has described this as a “demanding standard.” Id. The estate has not carried its burden to overcome qualified immunity. As we’ve explained, the substantive component of the Due Process Clause protects against arbitrary or abusive official conduct, but “only the most egregious official con- duct” is arbitrary as a constitutional matter. Lewis, 523 U.S. at 846. The “shocks the conscience” requirement is the touch- stone. Id. This standard does not lend itself to easy applica- tion, but in Lewis the Supreme Court provided some general principles. Lewis involved a § 1983 claim arising from a high-speed police chase of a fleeing motorcycle; the pursuit reached speeds of 100 miles per hour and ended in a crash, killing the fleeing suspect’s 16-year-old passenger. Id. at 836–37. The teenager’s parents and estate sued for damages alleging a vi- olation of the victim’s right to substantive due process. The Court rejected the claim, emphasizing that “the Fourteenth Amendment is not a font of tort law to be super- imposed upon whatever systems may already be adminis- tered by the States.” Id. at 848 (quotation omitted). The Court grounded its analysis on the “shocks the conscience” stand- ard and sketched a range of conduct that “points clearly away from liability, or clearly toward it” by loosely analogizing to the “spectrum of culpability” in tort law. Id. at 846–48. At one end of the spectrum is “negligently inflicted harm,” which falls “categorically beneath the threshold of constitutional due process.” Id. at 849. At the other end is conduct “intended to injure in some way unjustifiable by any government inter- est,” which is the sort of conduct “most likely to rise to the conscience-shocking level.” Id. 12 No. 22-3043 Between these two poles lies a gray area: Conduct that is “more than negligence but less than intentional conduct … is a matter for closer calls.” Id. (quotation omitted). The Court said that some cases falling within this “middle range”—for example, abuses of power committed with the degree of in- tent akin to the “deliberate indifference” standard in Eighth Amendment law—might be actionable as a Fourteenth Amendment violation if the conduct is egregious enough to shock the conscience. Id. at 849–54. The police chase at issue in Lewis fell within this middle range, but it failed “to meet the shocks-the-conscience test.” Id. at 854. The Court held that in cases involving a high-speed police chase aimed at appre- hending a fleeing suspect, “only a purpose to cause harm un- related to the legitimate object of arrest will satisfy the ele- ment of arbitrary conduct shocking to the conscience.” Id. at 836. Our case involves a police officer’s distracted driving, not a high-speed chase of a fleeing suspect. But the principles ar- ticulated in Lewis establish general guideposts. We’ve had oc- casion in the past to consider due-process claims arising from traffic accidents caused by police officers in nonemergency situations, but no case has addressed inattentive driving. Hill v. Shobe involved an on-duty police officer who ran a red light and crashed into another car, killing the driver. 93 F.3d at 420. The officer was not responding to any emer- gency, yet he was driving well over the speed limit after mid- night with his headlights off and without emergency lights or a siren to alert other drivers. Id. The victim’s estate sued the officer for damages under § 1983 alleging a violation of sub- stantive due process. We rejected the claim, holding that a due-process violation requires a heightened degree of intent No. 22-3043 13 equivalent to “[c]riminal recklessness—which is the same as ‘deliberate indifference.’” Id. at 421 (citation omitted). We em- phasized that the test is subjective: “[I]t is not enough to show that a state actor should have known of the danger his actions created. Rather, a plaintiff must demonstrate that the defend- ant had actual knowledge of impending harm [that] he con- sciously refused to prevent.” Id. Hill was decided before Lewis, but our analysis anticipated the Supreme Court’s. We stressed that § 1983 is not “the equivalent of a body of general federal tort law,” and “[t]he fact that a public official committed a common law tort with tragic results” does not “rise to the level of a violation of sub- stantive due process.” Id. at 421–22. It was not enough to show that the official “acted in the face of a recognizable but generic risk to the public at large.” Id. Instead, we held that an auto accident caused by a public official is not actionable as a con- stitutional violation “absent a showing that the official knew an accident was imminent but consciously and culpably re- fused to prevent it.” Id. at 421. Because the estate’s claim was “grounded in negligence,” it did not rise to the level of a due- process violation. Id. In Bublitz v. Cottey, 327 F.3d 485 (7th Cir. 2003), we applied the Lewis framework in a case involving a high-speed police chase, though with a factual twist. An off-duty officer heard a radio exchange between other officers who were pursuing a fleeing robbery suspect. Id. at 486–87. The off-duty officer was given permission to assist; he drove to the scene and deployed the “Stinger Spike System” in the path of the fleeing car. The suspect hit the spikes and careened into another vehicle, kill- ing the driver and her son. Id. at 487. The victims’ estate sued the officer alleging a violation of substantive due process. 14 No. 22-3043 Drawing on the principles announced in Lewis, we af- firmed an order granting summary judgment for the officer. The “shocks-the-conscience standard,” we said, “require[s] substantial culpability,” and the “sine qua non of liability in cases analogous to high-speed chases … is a purpose to cause harm.” Id. at 491 (quotation omitted). The officer’s conduct in Bublitz was “[a]t most” negligent; we explained that “mere negligence is insufficient to give rise to a constitutional viola- tion.” Id. At the other end of the spectrum, our decision in Flores v. City of South Bend illustrates the degree of culpability needed for a potential due-process claim arising from an officer’s reckless driving. 997 F.3d 725. Flores involved an officer who took it upon himself to respond to a routine traffic stop that two other officers already had under control. Id. at 728. After hearing exchanges about the stop on his radio, he drove to the scene even though “no one was asking for external assis- tance.” Id. It was not an emergency, yet he “roared through a residential neighborhood” at speeds tripling the posted limit, reaching 98 miles per hour in a 30-mph zone and making only “infrequent use of his lights or sirens.” Id. He approached a controlled intersection with an obstructed view of oncoming traffic and still blazed ahead, running a red light and crashing into a car lawfully in the intersection, killing the driver. Id. The victim’s estate filed a § 1983 suit alleging a claim for violation of substantive due process. We held that the forego- ing allegations plausibly stated a claim for a constitutional vi- olation. Essential to this conclusion was the officer’s inten- tional decision to drive “blind through an intersection.” Id. at 730. He saw the red light and knew he did not have a clear view of oncoming traffic, yet he entered the intersection No. 22-3043 15 anyway at a speed of nearly 100 miles per hour. Id. We con- trasted these allegations with those in Hill, which “at most” supported “the inference that the officer created a ‘generic risk to the public at large.’” Id. at 729 (quoting Hill, 93 F.3d at 421–22). The allegations in Flores, we said, were far more ex- treme and, if true, could support an inference that the officer was deliberately indifferent to imminent harm. We held that the complaint “paint[ed] a far more troubling picture” than in Hill, stating a plausible due-process claim under the “shocks the conscience” standard. Id. at 730. Most recently in Lisby v. Henderson we addressed a due- process claim arising out of a fatal traffic accident caused by a law-enforcement officer driving his police vehicle on his way to work. 74 F.4th 470. The officer was speeding as he merged onto a highway, traveling at 78 miles per hour— 33 mph over the limit. Id. at 472. He “illegally changed lanes over a solid white line” and “partially crossed the fog line into the shoulder of the road.” Id. He did not see a man and woman walking along the shoulder. Id. Traveling at a speed of 55 miles per hour, he struck the woman, killing her and her unborn child. Id. The victims’ estate sued the officer under § 1983 alleging a due-process violation, but we rejected the claim. Id. at 471–72. Synthesizing Hill and Flores, we explained that an officer’s “mere knowledge that driving at high speed at night could have fatal consequences is not enough to allege a constitu- tional violation.” Id. at 473. Instead, the plaintiff must allege facts supporting an inference that the officer had actual knowledge of imminent harm and consciously refused to pre- vent it. Id. The allegations in Lisby did not support such an 16 No. 22-3043 inference, so we affirmed an order entering judgment on the pleadings in the officer’s favor. Id. at 474. Each of these cases reaffirmed the principle, drawn from Lewis, that an actionable claim for violation of substantive due process requires evidence sufficient to support a reasonable inference that the defendant officer acted with a heightened degree of intent—specifically, deliberate indifference to a known and imminent harm (or criminal recklessness, which is the same thing). The evidence in this case does not support such an inference. Officer Streicher’s conduct was less egre- gious than the conduct alleged in Lisby and Hill, which in- volved dangerous, high-speed driving by police officers in nonemergency circumstances. And yet in those cases, we held that the allegations fell short of the high bar for an actionable due-process claim. The evidence here likewise falls short. The agreed facts are that Streicher took his eyes off the road and looked down at his phone or dashboard computer (or both) for 15.5 seconds, driving at the speed limit through a red light from the right- turn-only lane. Those tragic 15.5 seconds of distracted driving amounted to negligence—perhaps gross negligence. But these facts, construed in the estate’s favor, do not support a reasonable inference that Streicher knew of impending harm and consciously refused to prevent it. That is, there is no evi- dence that he acted with deliberate indifference to imminent harm. Even if we set the merits question aside and assume for the sake of argument that the evidence of Streicher’s inatten- tion is sufficiently egregious for a jury to draw the required inference of intent, it was not clearly established at the time of No. 22-3043 17 the accident that a police officer’s distracted driving amounts to a due-process violation. 3 We’ve already discussed the state of circuit law. The estate points to our decision in Flores, but as we’ve explained, that case did not involve distracted driving and thus is not closely analogous. More to the point, it’s not analogous enough to support a clearly established constitutional rule that controls the outcome here. On the contrary, as our opinion in Flores itself explains, the facts alleged there were extreme, and the officer’s conduct was criminally reckless. 997 F.3d at 730. No circuit precedent clearly establishes that an officer’s distracted driving violates substantive due process. The estate also relies on several out-of-circuit cases, but none involves an officer’s distracted driving. And one post- dates the accident at issue here, so it’s irrelevant for that ad- ditional reason. We begin with the Tenth Circuit’s decision in Browder v. City of Albuquerque, 787 F.3d 1076 (10th Cir. 2015), which in- volved a fatal accident caused by a police officer’s reckless joyriding in his police vehicle. After finishing his shift, the of- ficer returned to his cruiser, “flipped on the emergency lights, and drove off at an average of about 66 miles an hour on city surface streets through ten different intersections over a stretch of 8.8 miles.” Id. at 1077. As he approached the elev- enth intersection, he saw the light turn red and intentionally 3 The Supreme Court has authorized the lower courts to bypass the step- one merits question and focus instead on whether the claim rests on clearly established law. Camreta v. Greene, 563 U.S. 692, 707 (2011); Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 236–42 (2009). 18 No. 22-3043 ignored it, hitting the gas and speeding into the intersection where he crashed into an oncoming car, killing one and griev- ously injuring another. Id. The Tenth Circuit concluded that the officer’s intentional abuse of power was the “very model” of capriciousness—“all for his personal pleasure, on no governmental business of any kind.” Id. at 1080. Although speeding and running a red light may often “signify no more than negligence,” the officer saw the traffic light turn red and yet intentionally increased his speed and barreled into the intersection. Id. at 1081. That con- duct was quintessentially deliberately indifferent, displaying “a conscious contempt of the lives of others.” Id. It shocked the conscience. Id. Needless to say, the circumstances in Browder are far more egregious than the conduct in this case. A police officer’s in- attentive driving—even the tragic 15.5 seconds of distracted driving at issue here—is different in kind. The estate also relies on Sauers v. Borough of Nesquehoning, 905 F.3d 711 (3d Cir. 2018), but that case likewise involved an officer’s criminally reckless driving. The officer in question observed a minor traffic offense and started following the car, then radioed officers in the next community to take over the pursuit and stop the car when it reached their jurisdiction. Id. at 715. But he changed his mind and began to chase the traffic offender at speeds exceeding 100 miles per hour. Id. Members of the public observed the officer driving recklessly. He even- tually lost control of his vehicle while navigating a curve; the officer crossed the center line and crashed into another car. Id. One person was killed and another was seriously injured. The officer pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide and reckless en- dangerment. Id. No. 22-3043 19 The Third Circuit held that these allegations plausibly stated a due-process claim under a state-created danger the- ory. Id. at 718. The court also held, however, that it was not clearly established at the time of the officer’s actions that his conduct could give rise to constitutional liability. Id. at 718– 22. Sauers, like Browder, has nothing to say about a police of- ficer’s driving while distracted. The estate also cites the Fourth Circuit’s decision in Dean ex rel. Harkness v. McKinney, 976 F.3d 407 (4th Cir. 2020), but that opinion was issued after the accident in this case and thus does not inform the qualified-immunity analysis. It’s also of little or no relevance. Dean involved an officer’s reckless, high-speed driving while en route to a scene—initially in re- sponse to an emergency dispatch. Id. at 411. After the request for assistance was downgraded to a nonemergency, the of- ficer continued to drive at a high rate of speed—83 miles per hour, far exceeding the 45-mph limit—driving recklessly on a winding and unlit road, without his lights or siren. Id. at 412. He lost control on a curve and struck an oncoming car “nearly head-on.” Id. The court held that the officer’s reckless driving exhibited deliberate indifference, particularly after he knew he was no longer responding to an emergency. Id. at 416–17. He “had over two minutes to deliberate” after the call was downgraded to a nonemergency, yet he did not change his behavior. Id. at 417. Dean has little to say about an officer’s distracted driving. In a fallback argument, the estate suggests that this is the “rare ‘obvious case’” where an officer’s conduct is clearly un- constitutional “even though existing precedent does not ad- dress similar circumstances.” Wesby, 583 U.S. at 64 (quoting Brosseau v. Haugen, 543 U.S. 194, 199 (2004) (per curiam)). This 20 No. 22-3043 narrow exception applies only when an officer’s actions are “so outrageous” that no reasonable officer “would have be- lieved [his] conduct was legal,” Leiser v. Kloth, 933 F.3d 696, 704 (7th Cir. 2019), even in the absence of closely analogous precedent, Wesby, 583 U.S. at 64. The conduct at issue here does not rise to this level. As we have discussed at length, Officer Streicher’s distractedness— regardless of the source—was negligent, perhaps even grossly negligent; it was not obviously unconstitutional. For the foregoing reasons, Officer Streicher is entitled to qualified immunity. We REVERSE the judgment of the district court and REMAND with instructions to enter judgment in his favor.