Federal appellate Judge Jacques Wiener urged his colleagues to join a majority of other circuits that allow constitutional claims against state actors when they create a danger that results in injury, saying the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit should be “dragged screaming into the 21st century.”

The “state-created danger” doctrine, an exception to the principle that the government doesn’t have an obligation to keep people safe from private harms, has been recognized by nine federal appeals courts, according to the opinion.