Opinion ID: 186750
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Elements of a Denial-of-Access Claim.

Text: 34 The Supreme Court has long recognized that citizens have a right of access to the courts. See Chambers v. Baltimore & Ohio R.R. Co., 207 U.S. 142, 148, 28 S.Ct. 34, 52 L.Ed. 143 (1907) ([T]he right to sue and defend in the courts is the alternative of force. In an organized society it is the right conservative of all other rights, and lies at the foundation of orderly government. It is one of the highest and most essential privileges of citizenship. . . .). The Supreme Court has grounded the right at various times in different provisions of the Constitution: the Article IV Privileges and Immunities Clause, the First Amendment Petition Clause, the Fifth Amendment Due Process Clause, and the Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses. Christopher v. Harbury, 536 U.S. 403, 415 n. 12, 122 S.Ct. 2179, 153 L.Ed.2d 413 (2002) ( Harbury III ) (citations omitted). Furthermore, [t]he right not only protects the ability to get into court, but also ensures that such access be adequate, effective, and meaningful. Harbury v. Deutch, 233 F.3d 596, 607 (D.C.Cir.2000) ( Harbury I ) (quotation marks and citations omitted), reh'g denied 244 F.3d 956 (D.C.Cir.2001) ( per curiam ) ( Harbury II ). 6 35 [T]wo categories of denial of access cases emerge from the case law of the Supreme Court and the Courts of Appeals. Harbury III, 536 U.S. at 413, 122 S.Ct. 2179. In the first category, 36 the essence of the access claim is that official action is presently denying an opportunity to litigate for a class of potential plaintiffs. The opportunity has not been lost for all time, however, but only in the short term; the object of the denial-of-access suit, and the justification for recognizing the claim, is to place the plaintiff in a position to pursue a separate claim for relief once the frustrating condition has been removed. 37 Id. The Court calls these forward-looking claims. Id. at 414 n. 11, 122 S.Ct. 2179. Examples include a prisoner seeking access to a law library for use in preparing a court filing, id. at 413, 122 S.Ct. 2179 (citing Lewis v. Casey, 518 U.S. 343, 346-48, 116 S.Ct. 2174, 135 L.Ed.2d 606 (1996); Bounds v. Smith, 430 U.S. 817, 828, 97 S.Ct. 1491, 52 L.Ed.2d 72 (1977)), or an indigent plaintiff seeking waiver of a filing fee that he cannot afford to pay, id. (citing MLB v. SLJ, 519 U.S. 102, 106-07, 117 S.Ct. 555, 136 L.Ed.2d 473 (1996); Boddie v. Connecticut, 401 U.S. 371, 372, 91 S.Ct. 780, 28 L.Ed.2d 113 (1971)). 38 The second category covers claims not in aid of a class of suits yet to be litigated, but of specific cases that cannot now be tried (or tried with all material evidence), no matter what official action may be in the future. Id. at 413-14, 122 S.Ct. 2179 (emphasis added). The Court explained: 39 These cases do not look forward to a class of future litigation, but backward to a time when specific litigation ended poorly, or could not have commenced, or could have produced a remedy subsequently unobtainable. The ultimate object of these sorts of access claims, then, is not the judgment in a further lawsuit, but simply the judgment in the access claim itself, in providing relief obtainable in no other suit in the future. 40 Id. at 414, 122 S.Ct. 2179 (emphasis added). The Court calls these backward-looking claims. Id. at 414 n. 11, 122 S.Ct. 2179. Examples include cases where a cover-up caused the loss or inadequate settlement of a meritorious case, id. at 414, 122 S.Ct. 2179 (citing Foster v. Lake Jackson, 28 F.3d 425, 429 (5th Cir.1994); Bell v. Milwaukee, 746 F.2d 1205, 1261 (7th Cir.1984)), or where a cover-up caused the loss of an opportunity to sue because it extended through the limitations period, id. (citing Swekel v. City of River Rouge, 119 F.3d 1259, 1261 (6th Cir.1997)). 41 Although the plaintiffs use the bulk of their arguments on appeal to discuss backward-looking claims, they appear to have brought both forward-looking and backward-looking claims against the defendants. We say appear because neither the plaintiffs' complaint nor the briefs follow the approach of the Supreme Court in Harbury III to specifically identify claims as backward-looking or forward-looking. But the complaint does seek the immediate[] release . . . [of] all records and documents, of whatever type or classification and wherever located, that in any way contain information regarding the radiation exposure received by any Atomic Veteran, or that could be used to produce a realistic and scientifically-valid reconstruction of such exposure. This seems to raise what Harbury III would call a forward-looking claim. By retrieving these documents, the plaintiffs hope to be able to meaningfully pursue a separate claim for relief once the frustrating condition has been removed. Harbury III, 536 U.S. at 413, 122 S.Ct. 2179. 42 The complaint also alleges that the cover-up denied six of the nine plaintiffs a meaningful opportunity to seek benefits on their underlying claims. In the view of the plaintiffs, these opportunities have now been permanently lost. These allegations seem to raise what Harbury III would call backward-looking claims. The ultimate object of these claims appears to be judgment in the access claim itself, in providing relief obtainable in no other suit in the future. Id. Because plaintiffs' complaint and briefs focus primarily on these backward-looking claims, we look first to their necessary elements. 43
44 The only case in our Circuit to address a backward-looking denial-of-access claim is Harbury I, 233 F.3d 596. Because that decision, our opinion denying rehearing, Harbury II, 244 F.3d 956, and the Supreme Court's disposition on review, Harbury III, 536 U.S. 403, 122 S.Ct. 2179, 153 L.Ed.2d 413, are central to our analysis, we describe them in some detail. 45 In Harbury I Jennifer Harbury, a United States citizen and the widow of a murdered Guatemalan citizen, claimed that officials from the State Department and the National Security Council denied her meaningful access to the courts. She alleged that these officials intentionally deceived her about what they knew about her husband, who had been kidnapped by Guatemalan army forces affiliated with the Central Intelligence Agency. Before her husband's death, Harbury repeatedly contacted State Department and National Security Council officials to try to obtain information about his condition. According to Harbury, even though these officials knew that her husband had been captured alive, they intentionally misled [her, by making] deceptive statements and omissions, into believing that concrete information about her husband's fate did not exist. Harbury I, 233 F.3d at 600 (quotation marks and internal citation omitted). Had these officials not misled her, she argued on appeal, she could have filed a tort claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress and, as relief, sought an injunction requiring the officials to protect her husband. Id. at 609. The District Court dismissed Harbury's denial-of-access claims, concluding that she had failed to allege that the defendants violated a clearly established constitutional right. Harbury v. Deutch, No. 96-00438, 1999 WL 33456919, at -10 (D.D.C. Mar. 23, 1999). 46 On appeal, we reversed and held that Harbury had alleged a violation of a clearly established constitutional right because she alleged that the defendants' actions prevented her from obtaining an injunction in time to save her husband's life. Harbury I, 233 F.3d at 609. Because his death completely foreclosed this avenue of relief'—an injunction that could have prevented the death of her husband—we allowed Harbury's denial-of-access suit to proceed. Id (emphasis added); see also Harbury II, 244 F.3d at 957 (The panel opinion permits Harbury to bring her access to courts claim now only because, if the facts she pleads are correct . . . , defendants' actions `completely foreclosed' one of her primary avenues of relief.) (citation omitted). 47 On review in Harbury III, 536 U.S. 403, 122 S.Ct. 2179, 153 L.Ed.2d 413, the Supreme Court reversed, holding that we erred two ways. First, the Court disagreed with our conclusion that Harbury had identified a non-frivolous, arguable underlying claim. The underlying claim, the Court held, must be described in the complaint: [T]he underlying cause of action . . . is an element that must be described in the complaint, just as much as allegations must describe the official acts frustrating the litigation. Id. at 415, 122 S.Ct. 2179. 7 Although Harbury had argued successfully in this Court that absent a cover-up, she would have brought an action for intentional infliction of emotional distress, presumably alleging that the mistreatment of her husband had injured her, she raised this underlying claim only on appeal and not in her complaint. Id. at 418-19, 122 S.Ct. 2179. That, the Court held, was insufficient. The underlying claim, the Court concluded, is essential to a well-pled complaint; otherwise the plaintiff's claim for denial of access must fail. Because Harbury's complaint failed to identify the underlying cause of action that the alleged deception had compromised, it did not come even close to stating a constitutional claim. Id. at 418, 122 S.Ct. 2179. 48 The Court found Harbury's complaint deficient in yet another way. Her complaint did not seek a particular type of remedy that the Court concluded is essential to a backward-looking denial-of-access claim: 49 [T]he complaint must identify a remedy that may be awarded as recompense but not otherwise available in some suit that may yet be brought. There is, after all, no point in spending time and money to establish the facts constituting denial of access when a plaintiff would end up just as well off after litigating a simpler case without the denial-of-access element. 50 Id. at 415, 122 S.Ct. 2179. The purpose of this requirement is to hedge against the risk that an access claim be tried all the way through, only to find that the court can award no remedy that the plaintiff could not have been awarded on a presently existing claim. Id. at 416, 122 S.Ct. 2179. Just as the underlying claim must be described in accordance with Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a) . . . as if it were being independently pursued, a like plain statement [in the complaint] should describe any remedy available under the access claim and presently unique to it. Id. at 417-18, 122 S.Ct. 2179. 51 Harbury failed to seek any remedy that could not be obtained on an existing claim. Id. at 421, 122 S.Ct. 2179. She could still obtain damages through her tort claim against those who tortured her husband. Damages, therefore, were not a remedy . . . presently unique to her access claim. Id. at 417-18, 122 S.Ct. 2179. Perhaps recognizing that fact, Harbury argued that, but for the cover-up, she would have sought an injunction that might have saved her husband's life. Id. at 421-22, 122 S.Ct. 2179. But although an injunction might have prevented her husband's death, it was not available under the access claim, the Court noted, because Harbury's husband had, tragically, already died. Id. at 417-18, 422, 122 S.Ct. 2179. 52 Harbury III, and the portions of our decisions in Harbury I and II which have not been disturbed, 8 evidence at least three elements necessary to prove a backward-looking denial-of-access claim: an arguable underlying claim, complete foreclosure, and causation. First, to state a denial-of-access claim, plaintiffs must identify in the complaint a non-frivolous, arguable underlying claim. Id. at 415, 122 S.Ct. 2179. Second, and dispositive in this case, the plaintiffs must show that they have been denied a remedy for their underlying claims. This remedy must have been completely foreclosed. Harbury I, 233 F.3d at 610; see also Harbury II, 244 F.3d at 957. Thus, if relief on the underlying claims is still available in a suit that may yet be brought, Harbury III, 536 U.S. at 415, 122 S.Ct. 2179, or a presently existing claim, id. at 416, 122 S.Ct. 2179, the plaintiffs cannot meet this element of their claims. See also id. at 413-14, 122 S.Ct. 2179 (stating that backward-looking denial-of-access claims must identify an underlying claim that cannot now be tried (or tried with all material evidence) no matter what official action may be in the future). Third, the plaintiffs must show that it was the defendants' actions that have cut off their remedy. See Harbury II, 244 F.3d at 957 (The panel opinion permits Harbury to bring her access to courts claim now only because, if the facts she pleads are correct . . . defendants' actions completely foreclosed one of her primary avenues of relief.) (citation and quotation marks omitted.). 53
54 The Supreme Court's jurisprudence on forward-looking claims reveals at least two necessary elements: an arguable underlying claim and present foreclosure of a meaningful opportunity to pursue that claim. First, just as with backward-looking claims, a plaintiff who alleges a forward-looking claim must plead a non-frivolous, arguable underlying claim. See Lewis v. Casey, 518 U.S. 343, 353, 116 S.Ct. 2174, 135 L.Ed.2d 606 (1996) (holding that inmate bringing a forward-looking claim must point to a nonfrivolous legal claim [that was] being frustrated [or] impeded); see also Harbury III, 536 U.S. at 415, 122 S.Ct. 2179 (even in forward-looking prisoner class actions to remove roadblocks to future litigation, the named plaintiff must identify a `nonfrivolous,' `arguable' underlying claim). 55 Second, a plaintiff who alleges a forward-looking claim must be presently den[ied] an opportunity to litigate. Harbury III, 536 U.S. at 413, 122 S.Ct. 2179. Such plaintiffs must show that a meaningful opportunity to pursue their underlying claims was completely foreclosed. Harbury I, 233 F.3d at 609; Harbury II, 244 F.3d at 957. 9 In the prison context, for example, prisoners bringing a forward-looking claim must show an actual injury to [their] litigation. Crawford-El v. Britton, 951 F.2d 1314, 1321 (D.C.Cir.1991). No such injury exists if a plaintiff can still meaningfully press his underlying claims because the plaintiff is not being presently den[ied] an opportunity to meaningfully litigate, even in the short term. Harbury III, 536 U.S. at 413, 122 S.Ct. 2179. 10 56