Opinion ID: 2451
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Dismissal of Claims of Denial of Access to Courts and Counsel

Text: With respect to the dismissal of Arar's claim for interfere[nce] with his access to lawyers and the courts while he was incarcerated by United States officials, Compl. ¶ 93, we think the district court erred here, too. An access to courts claim requires the pleading of (1) a nonfrivolous, arguable underlying claim that has been frustrated by the defendants' actions, and (2) a continued inability to obtain the relief sought by the underlying claim. Christopher, 536 U.S. at 415-16, 122 S.Ct. 2179 (internal quotation marks omitted). The district court decided that Arar failed to plead with sufficient precis[ion] the existence of a sought-for underlying claim for relief, Arar, 414 F.Supp.2d at 286, which means it decided that, for purposes of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8, [17] the defendants were not put on notice of the existence of such a claim. See Christopher, 536 U.S. at 416, 122 S.Ct. 2179 (Like any other element of an access claim, the underlying cause of action and its lost remedy must be addressed by allegations... sufficient to give fair notice to a defendant.). But taking the allegations in the complaint as true, as we must, the complaint clearly implies the existence of an underlying claim for relief under CAT. The defendants can hardly argue that under Arar's assertions, which we take to be true, they lacked notice of such a claim, since the complaint says that it was they who first notified Arar about it: Arar alleges that on October 8, 2002, two INS officials told him that ... Defendant Blackman ... had decided to remove [him] to Syria, and Defendant Blackman also stipulated that [such action] would be consistent with Article 3 of CAT. Compl. ¶ 47. Indeed, the complaint alleges that Arar asked defendants for reconsideration of that decision i.e., relief from itin light of the prospect of torture in Syria, but the officials said that the INS is not governed by the `Geneva Conventions.' Id. Insofar as the district court's requirement that Arar articulate more precisely the judicial relief he was denied, Arar, 414 F.Supp.2d at 286, related to its holding that  Bivens did not extend a remedy to Arar for his deportation to Syria, id., we disagree for the reasons set forth below. Insofar as the district court thought Arar's underlying CAT claim would have been frivolous, it was mistaken. Cf. Ramsameachire v. Ashcroft, 357 F.3d 169, 184 (2d Cir.2004) (pursuant to the CAT, the United States may not remove an alien to a country if `it is more likely than not that he or she would be tortured if removed to [that country]' (quoting 8 C.F.R. § 208.16(c)(2))). Nor was CAT the only relief Arar was denied. As the government pointed out at oral argument, th[e] decision [in Michael v. INS, 48 F.3d 657 (2d Cir.1995),] shows that in extraordinary cases, and no one can dispute that this is an extraordinary case, the plaintiff could have filed a habeas [petition] and sought a stay pursuant to the All Writs Act. Tr. at 82 (Cohn). [18] Contrary to the district court's ruling, then, Arar's complaint put the defendants on notice of claims seeking relief to bar his removal that were frustrated by the defendants' actions. Whatever the ultimate merits of those claims, they would not have been frivolous. And absent a remedy for the rendition and torture themselves the district court, and the majority, of course, conclude there is noneno contemporaneous legal relief is now possible except through the access to courts and counsel claim. See generally Br. of Amici Norman Dorsen et al. at 12-14. The Fourth Claim for Relief therefore states a sufficient due process access claim.