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A federal judge in Utah has dismissed an Ogden woman's civil rights lawsuit saying a Utah Highway Patrol trooper used excessive force when he violently dragged her from her vehicle during a July 2015 traffic stop.

In the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in 2015, Kara Lynn Castaldo says the UHP trooper used excessive force and unreasonable seizure after he pulled her from her pickup truck when he stopped her for a faulty brake light at 1 a.m. as she was driving home from her job as a bartender.

UHP officials have denied that excessive force was used, saying Trooper Owen Horne used "the least amount of force" to further his investigation into what initially appeared to be a case of driving under the influence of alcohol.

U.S. District Magistrate Judge Brooke Wells on Monday dismissed the case, finding that the officer did not use excessive force and did not violate Castaldo's constitutional rights.

Castaldo's attorney, Robert Sykes, said Tuesday that his client was "disappointed" with the ruling.

"The judge has the black robe, and that's what we respect," Sykes said. "But we disagree, respectfully, and believe it was excessive force."

Now, Sykes said his client is weighing an appeal to a higher court, or pursuing similar claims in the state court system.

Horne pulled Castaldo over in a dark area near 2350 Adams Avenue on July 18, 2015. Castaldo was afraid because the location was unlit and remote, and because the stop occurred a few days after a woman was pulled over in a Texas traffic stop and later died in jail, according to her lawsuit.

A dashboard camera video shows Horne ask the woman to roll down the window, but she refuses.

"You need to hop out of the car," Horne tells the driver.

"I'm sorry, sir," Castaldo replies, "I don't feel safe."

The trooper again orders her to get out of the car, and when she doesn't, he opens her truck door, the video shows. This happens about 30 seconds after Horne made initial contact with the driver.

In the video, Castaldo repeatedly offers her driver's license and registration, and asks why she was pulled over. When Horne tells her it is because her brake light is out, she asks why she has to get out of her car for an equipment violation.

"Your brake lights are out, and I'd like to talk about that outside," the trooper tells her. "Get out now, or you are going to jail."

The video then shows Horne pulling the woman from her truck as she yells, "This is not acceptable. Please do not pull me out of my car, sir!"

She was then put in handcuffs, and spent the night in jail.

Castaldo suffered cuts and bruises and aggravated a shoulder injury during the episode, she said.

In her ruling, the judge wrote that Castaldo escalated the situation herself when she refused to follow the trooper's orders.

"From the dash-cam video, it appears that any struggle in removing [Castaldo] was caused by [her] own resistance from grabbing the steering wheel," the judge wrote.

Wells noted that after Castaldo was out of the vehicle, Horne was not forceful.

Castaldo had sought at least $100,000 in damages in her lawsuit.

The woman was charged in Ogden's justice court with class B misdemeanor interference with an arresting officer, but that count was dismissed as part of a deal in which she pleaded guilty to the brake light violation, an infraction, for which she was fined $40.