## Facts

- A Georgia deputy attempted to stop Victor Harris for speeding; Harris fled, initiating a nighttime high-speed pursuit over multiple miles.
- The chase reached roughly 85–90 mph and continued from a two-lane road onto a larger highway, with Harris committing traffic violations and endangering other motorists.
- Deputy Timothy Scott joined the pursuit and obtained permission to use a PIT maneuver.
- Scott instead struck (“bumped”) Harris’s rear bumper at high speed, causing Harris’s car to leave the roadway, crash down an embankment, and leaving Harris quadriplegic.
- Harris sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, claiming Scott used excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
- The record included a dashboard-camera video of the chase that the parties characterized differently.

## Issues

1. Whether an officer violates the Fourth Amendment by ending a dangerous high-speed chase by ramming the fleeing motorist’s vehicle, creating a substantial risk of serious injury or death to the motorist.
2. Whether, given the summary-judgment record (including video), the officer was entitled to qualified immunity.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the Eleventh Circuit and ordered summary judgment for Scott.
- Viewing the facts as shown by the video, the Court held Harris’s driving posed a substantial and immediate risk of serious physical harm to others.
- The Court held Scott’s use of force to terminate the chase was objectively reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.
- Because there was no constitutional violation, Scott was entitled to summary judgment without needing to resolve the “clearly established” prong.

## Legal Principles

- Fourth Amendment excessive-force claims are governed by an objective reasonableness test that balances the intrusion on the individual against the governmental interests at stake.
- An officer may use force likely to cause serious injury or death to terminate a high-speed chase when the fleeing driver’s conduct creates a substantial and immediate threat to others, and the chosen force is reasonable in context.
- Tennessee v. Garner does not impose a rigid categorical trigger based solely on labeling force as “deadly”; it reflects an application of the general reasonableness standard to a particular situation.
- At summary judgment, courts need not accept the nonmovant’s version of events when it is blatantly contradicted by the record (including video) such that no reasonable jury could credit it.

## Conclusion

The Court held that forcing a fleeing driver off the road to end a recorded high-speed chase was a reasonable seizure where the driver’s actions posed an immediate danger to the public, and it instructed that plainly contradictory video evidence can control the factual view used at summary judgment.


Scott v. Harris, 550 U.S. 372 (2007)