Nahmod Law

            Procedural issues are generally beyond the scope of this blog. Still, it may be worth briefly mentioning that the Fourth Circuit, in reversing the district court’s dismissal of plaintiff’s complaint in a Fourth Amendment excessive force case, ruled that a federal district court may consider a video recording at the motion to dismiss stage and must credit the plaintiff’s version of the facts “to the extent they are not ‘blatantly contradicted’ by the recording.” Doriety for Estate of Crenshaw v. Sletten, 109 F.4^th 670, 679 (4^th Cir. 2024).

The video in this case, which was publicly available, was not introduced by the plaintiff but rather by the defendant police officer who had moved to dismiss. In response to this motion to dismiss, the plaintiff did not object to the district court’s consideration of the video and even referred to it as part of the “record.” But the plaintiff argued that the video did not support the motion to dismiss. The district court disagreed.

In reversing the district court’s grant of the defendants’ motion to dismiss, the Fourth Circuit found that the officer’s body-worn video did not blatantly contradict the plaintiff’s plausible allegations that the officer was not in danger at the time he fired additional shots at the plaintiff driver.

Note that the Fourth Circuit treated the defense motion to dismiss as just that: neither it nor the district court converted the motion into one for summary judgment. The Fourth Circuit also made clear that it did not have to reach the question whether the video was “integral to the complaint” and authentic because the plaintiff did not object to its use and indeed relied on it.

Finally, the Fourth Circuit commented that its use of the video in this case was a matter of first impression in its circuit. It also observed that such use was already the rule in at least two other circuits.