Opinion ID: 179531
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Hebbe's Eighth Amendment claim survives the motion to dismiss

Text: Hebbe also alleges that the prison officials violated his Eighth Amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment during the period of time totaling eight months in which he was permitted to leave his cell for only two hours per day, four days per week. He asserts that, during that time, the prison officials impermissibly forced him to choose between spending the eight hours per week on either using the law library or exercising outdoors. Forcing a prisoner to choose between using the prison law library and exercising outdoors is impermissible because an inmate cannot be forced to sacrifice one constitutionally protected right solely because another is respected. Allen v. City and County of Honolulu, 39 F.3d 936, 940 (9th Cir.1994). [8] As we discuss supra, the Supreme Court in Lewis emphasized the continued vitality of this rule, but held that an inmate's constitutional right to use of a law library was not freestanding, but rather predicated upon the pursuit of an arguably actionable legal claim. Id. at 351, 116 S.Ct. 2174. Here, as Hebbe's counsel underscored at oral argument, Hebbe wished to use the law library to research and file his § 1983 complaint. The prison officials do not dispute that Hebbe's § 1983 action involves one or more non-frivolous, arguably actionable legal claimsnor could they, given that one of those claims, Hebbe's claim that his Eighth Amendment rights were violated when he was denied all out-of-cell exercise during the seven month period that he was held on lockdown, was tried to a jury. In addition to that claim, Hebbe had other nonfrivolous claims to research as well. The two counts that are now on appeal before us are certainly not frivolous. Hebbe also wished to use the law library to research the state habeas petition that he filed in Sacramento Superior Court, a purpose that falls squarely under Lewis's definition of nonfrivolous legal research. See Lewis, 518 U.S. at 355, 116 S.Ct. 2174 (interpreting Bounds as requiring prisons to provide inmates with the legal research facilities that they need in order to attack their sentences, directly or collaterally). That Hebbe used the law library to research the § 1983 action during the time that he specifies in his complainti.e. from November 1998 to February 2000is apparent both from the face of the complaint and the timing of its filing. The same is true of Hebbe's state habeas petition, which was filed on May 20, 1999. Construing Hebbe's pro se complaint liberally, as we are required to do under Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 94, 127 S.Ct. 2197, 167 L.Ed.2d 1081 (2007) (per curiam), we hold that Hebbe has plausibly alleged for the purposes of surviving a motion to dismiss that he wished to research a nonfrivolous legal claim and thus had a cognizable constitutional right to use the law library. For the purposes of surviving a motion to dismiss, Hebbe has therefore sufficiently alleged that prison officials violated his Eighth Amendment rights because they forced him to choose between his constitutional right to exercise and his constitutional right of access to the courts for at least eight months. Allen, 39 F.3d at 940. We therefore reverse the district court's ruling and remand for further proceedings. REVERSED and REMANDED.