Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-1539_09m1.pdf
Page Number: 5

Cite as:  595 U. S. ____ (2021) 

5 

Per Curiam 

also Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U. S. 1, 11 (1985) (“Where the 
officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses 
a threat of serious physical harm, either to the officer or to
others, it is not constitutionally unreasonable to prevent es-
cape by using deadly force”).  However, Graham’s and Gar-
ner’s  standards  are  cast  “at  a  high  level  of  generality.” 
Brosseau,  543  U. S.,  at  199.    “[I]n  an  obvious  case,  these 
standards can ‘clearly establish’ the answer, even without 
a body of relevant case law.”  Ibid.  But this is not an obvi-
ous case.  Thus, to show a violation of clearly established
law, Cortesluna must identify a case that put Rivas-Ville-
gas on notice that his specific conduct was unlawful. 

Cortesluna has not done so. Neither Cortesluna nor the 
Court  of  Appeals  identified  any  Supreme  Court  case  that
addresses  facts  like  the  ones  at  issue  here.  Instead,  the 
Court of Appeals relied solely on its precedent in LaLonde. 
Even assuming that Circuit precedent can clearly establish 
law  for  purposes  of  §1983,  LaLonde  is  materially  distin-
guishable and thus does not govern the facts of this case.

In LaLonde, officers were responding to a neighbor’s com-
plaint that LaLonde had been making too much noise in his 
apartment.  204 F. 3d, at 950–951.  When they knocked on
LaLonde’s  door,  he  “appeared  in  his  underwear  and  a  T-
shirt,  holding  a  sandwich  in  his  hand.”    Id.,  at  951. 
LaLonde  testified  that,  after  he  refused  to  let  the  officers 
enter his home, they did so anyway and informed him he
would be arrested for obstruction of justice.  Ibid.  One of-
ficer then knocked the sandwich from LaLonde’s hand and 
“grabbed LaLonde by his ponytail and knocked him back-
wards to the ground.”  Id., at 952.  After a short scuffle, the 
officer sprayed LaLonde in the face with pepper spray.  At 
that  point,  LaLonde  ceased  resisting  and  another  officer,
while handcuffing LaLonde, “deliberately dug his knee into 
LaLonde’s back  with a force that  caused him long-term if 
not permanent back injury.”  Id., at 952, 960, n. 17. 

The situation in LaLonde and the situation at issue here