Opinion ID: 6332559
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Access-to-Courts Claims

Text: Leek argues that he has sufficiently alleged access-to-courts claims. Prisoners do not have a “freestanding right to a law library or legal assistance.” Lewis v. Casey, 518 U.S. 343, 351 (1996). Thus, to state an access-to-courts claim, the plaintiff must satisfy a “threshold determination” that he or she has “standing to assert” such a claim by alleging actual injury. Simkins v. Bruce, 406 F.3d 1239, 1244 n.5 (10th Cir. 2005). To establish actual injury, the plaintiff “must show that any denial or delay of access to the court prejudiced him [or her] in pursuing litigation.” Trujillo v. Williams, 465 F.3d 1210, 1226 (10th Cir. 2006) (quoting Treff v. Galetka, 74 F.3d 191, 194 (10th Cir. 1996)). A plaintiff, therefore, “cannot establish relevant actual injury simply by establishing that his [or her] prison’s law library or legal[- ]assistance program is subpar in some theoretical sense.” Lewis, 518 U.S. at 351. Rather, the plaintiff “must go one step further and demonstrate that the alleged shortcomings in the library or legal[-]assistance program hindered his [or her] efforts to pursue a legal claim.” Id. The plaintiff “need not show,” however, that he or she would have prevailed on the interfered-with claim, “only that it was not frivolous.” Simkins, 406 F.3d at 1244. To be nonfrivolous, the plaintiff’s underlying claim must be “described well enough . . . to show that the ‘arguable’ nature of the underlying claim is more than hope.” Christopher v. Harbury, 536 U.S. 403, 416 (2002). In his appellate brief and second amended complaint, Leek identifies four instances of alleged prejudice: 8 Appellate Case: 21-3165 Document: 010110672389 Date Filed: 04/18/2022 Page: 9 1. At Hutchinson, he and another prisoner were prohibited from working together to file an untimely habeas petition; 2. At Lansing, Leek was not permitted to conduct research with another prisoner to challenge the conditions of confinement in the restrictive-housing unit; 3. At both facilities, Leek could not draft his appellate brief in compliance with his deadline in the Kansas Court of Appeals; and 4. At Lansing, Leek could not adequately respond to the district court’s order to show cause in Scoggin, his now-dismissed federal case alleging unconstitutional conditions of confinement at Hutchinson. The district court concluded that all of Leek’s allegations of prejudice were “merely general assertions that fail to show that he has been unable to present his cases and claims.” R. 213. For all but the last instance listed above, we agree that Leek fails to allege a nonfrivolous claim. See Simkins, 406 F.3d at 1244. First, Leek fails to explain how his potential habeas petition, which he admits would be filed “out of time,” would not be frivolous. R. 225. Second, regarding his conditions-of-confinement claim in Lansing’s restrictive-housing unit, Leek’s complaint says nothing about the nature of the alleged unconstitutional conditions of confinement, much less describes them “well enough . . . to show that the ‘arguable’ nature of the underlying claim[s] is more than hope.” Christopher, 536 U.S. at 416. Third, our review of the Kansas state-court appellate docket shows that Leek’s motion for appointment of counsel has been granted and his opening brief has been filed. And as we have recognized, “[i]t is well established that providing legal 9 Appellate Case: 21-3165 Document: 010110672389 Date Filed: 04/18/2022 Page: 10 counsel is a constitutionally acceptable alternative to a prisoner’s demand to access a law library.” United States v. Taylor, 183 F.3d 1199, 1204 (10th Cir. 1999). But when it comes to Leek’s allegations about his attempt to litigate Scoggin while at Lansing, we disagree with the district court. Leek alleged that when he arrived at Lansing, he was immediately placed in segregation in the restrictivehousing unit where there is no law library. Leek was informed that to obtain cases, he had to submit forms “requesting specific cases by cit[ation]” and that “no law books would be delivered” to the restrictive-housing unit. R. 230. When Leek submitted forms requesting cases from the library, he received some cases but was informed that he could only request “three cases at a time” and had to return them within one week. Id. Some forms Leek submitted went unprocessed. And when Leek requested additional cases, prison officials would not provide any until he returned the ones he had previously requested. Consequently, Leek was consigned to respond to the district court’s show-cause order in Scoggin “with only the few cases, notes, and books he had in his personal property.” Id. at 231. Since then, the district court in that case (the same district judge who presided over this one) has dismissed the case for failure to state a claim. 6 6 We note that neither the district court’s dismissal order in Scoggin nor the subsequent judgment in that case specifies whether that dismissal was with or without prejudice. We have previously explained that when a district court fails to specify whether its dismissal was with or without prejudice, we treat the decision as a dismissal was with prejudice. Nasious v. Two Unknown B.I.C.E. Agents, 492 F.3d 1158, 1162 (10th Cir. 2007); see also Holden v. GEO Grp. Priv. Prison Contractors, 767 F. App’x 692, 696 (10th Cir. 2019) (unpublished) (applying that principle to § 1915A dismissal). 10 Appellate Case: 21-3165 Document: 010110672389 Date Filed: 04/18/2022 Page: 11 We conclude that the district court should not have dismissed Leek’s accessto-courts claim stemming from the impediments he faced in litigating Scoggin while at Lansing. 7 The facts here resemble those in Trujillo. There, we reversed the district court’s dismissal after the pro se plaintiff complained about an “exact[-]cite system” much like the one Leek describes here—the prisoner in Trujillo alleged that he was “expected to know exactly what [legal materials] he need[ed] without any knowledge of what materials might be available to him.” 465 F.3d at 1226. We observed that the allegations relating to the exact-citation system “may state a viable claim of denial of access to courts.” Id.; see also Clayton v. Tansy, 26 F.3d 980, 982 (10th Cir. 1993) (remanding for district court to consider whether “exact[-]cite paging system for access to the law library” amounted to violation of prisoner’s constitutional rights); Corgain v. Miller, 708 F.2d 1241, 1244, 1250 (7th Cir. 1983) (noting that prison’s library system had not satisfied constitutional demands because “the inmate could obtain state[-]law materials only by providing precise citations[] and could obtain precise citations only if he could refer to state[-]law materials”); Griffin v. Grijalva, 773 F. App’x 1003 (9th Cir. 2019) (unpublished) (reversing and remanding dismissal where prisoner alleged he was “required to use a paging system in order to obtain access to legal materials” and “that his requests through the paging system were 7 We also conclude, however, that Leek was not prejudiced by any such impediments at Hutchinson: Because the district court held the Scoggin defendants’ motion to dismiss in abeyance while the show-cause order was pending, Leek was never required to respond to that motion. He therefore experienced no actual injury to his ability to litigate Scoggin during his time at Hutchinson. 11 Appellate Case: 21-3165 Document: 010110672389 Date Filed: 04/18/2022 Page: 12 denied”). Here, as in Trujillo, Leek specifically alleges that he was seeking “legal materials relevant” to his underlying federal case, Scoggin, but that the restrictivehousing unit’s “exact[-]cite system left him with inadequate materials to pursue such litigation.” 465 F.3d at 1227. To be sure, on its face, Leek’s second amended complaint does not “specifically explain” how his now-dismissed federal case “was nonfrivolous.” Id. But Leek does allege that he was prevented from effectively responding to the district court’s show-cause order in an already-filed conditions-of-confinement case. See Penrod v. Zavaras, 94 F.3d 1399, 1403 (10th Cir. 1996) (explaining that “‘actual injury’” requirement can be satisfied by showing plaintiff was “hindered [in his or her] efforts to pursue a nonfrivolous claim” (quoting Lewis, 518 U.S. at 356)). And in so doing, he references his underlying Scoggin complaint, his response to the district court’s show-cause order drafted while in the restrictive-housing unit at Lansing, and the district court’s dismissal order. Because Leek references those documents in his complaint and they are central to his claim, we may—and do—consider them to determine whether he has plausibly alleged that he was hindered in pursuing a nonfrivolous claim. See Gee, 627 F.3d at 1186 (explaining that extrinsic documents may be considered at dismissal stage when they are central to plaintiff’s claim). In addition, we take judicial notice of the documents in Leek’s underlying proceedings. Id. at 1191. Looking at those documents reveals that in Scoggin, Leek alleged (among other claims) that his Eighth Amendment rights were violated after Linda Scoggin, a 12 Appellate Case: 21-3165 Document: 010110672389 Date Filed: 04/18/2022 Page: 13 supervisor in the prison’s kitchen, told other prisoners that Leek was a snitch after Leek reported her to a superior for making rude comments. Leek further alleged that Scoggin had worked in the prison for over ten years and so understood the consequences that can follow from labeling a prisoner a snitch. He also alleged that, after Scoggin labeled him a snitch, he was stressed and concerned about being assaulted. The district court dismissed Leek’s Eighth Amendment claim because he did not allege that he faced any repercussions, that he suffered any physical injury, or that Scoggin intended other prisoners to injure Leek. We express no ultimate opinion on the merits of the district court’s dismissal in Scoggin. We note, however, that this court—and our sibling circuits—have repeatedly held that labeling a prisoner a snitch can rise to the level of deliberate indifference to a substantial risk of serious harm, in violation of the Eighth Amendment. 8 See Benefield v. McDowall, 241 F.3d 1267, 1271 (10th Cir. 2001) (collecting cases from this circuit and sibling circuits); Northington v. Marin, 102 F.3d 1564, 1567–68 (10th Cir. 1996) (explaining that “telling inmates [plaintiff] was a snitch” was “not inconsistent with a knowing disregard of a substantial risk to [plaintiff’s] safety”). We have also held that the PLRA’s physical-injury requirement under 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(e)—one of the district court’s grounds for dismissing Leek’s Eighth Amendment claim—does not restrict recovery of punitive damages 8 Because we conclude Leek’s Eighth Amendment claim is nonfrivolous, we need not address Leek’s other Scoggin claims. That is, the nonfrivolous nature of one claim in Scoggin is sufficient to support our conclusion in this case that Leek has adequately alleged prejudice for purposes of his access-to-court claim. 13 Appellate Case: 21-3165 Document: 010110672389 Date Filed: 04/18/2022 Page: 14 when a prisoner establishes a constitutional violation. See Searles v. Van Bebber, 251 F.3d 869, 881 (10th Cir. 2001) (explaining that jury verdict finding constitutional violation without any physical injury entitles plaintiff to award of nominal damages and observing that physical-injury requirement does not preclude punitive damages). And Leek’s prayer for relief in Scoggin requests punitive damages. But for purposes of assessing Leek’s access-to-courts claim at issue in this litigation, we need not determine that his Eighth Amendment claim in the underlying Scoggin action would or should have succeeded if Leek had been allowed greater access to the law library. See Simkins, 406 F.3d at 1244. Instead, the actual-injury requirement for Leek’s access-to-courts claim requires “only that [the underlying claim] was not frivolous.” Id. We think Leek has cleared that bar and, for screening purposes under § 1915A, hold that the district court erred when it concluded Leek did not plausibly allege interference in pursuing a nonfrivolous claim in the Scoggin litigation. Accordingly, we reverse the district court’s dismissal of Leek’s access-to-court claim against the Lansing defendants stemming from the alleged hinderances he faced in attempting to litigate Scoggin while housed in Lansing’s restrictive-housing unit and remand for further proceedings. But we affirm the dismissal of his access-tocourt claims against the Hutchinson defendants because those claims are too 14 Appellate Case: 21-3165 Document: 010110672389 Date Filed: 04/18/2022 Page: 15 speculative and fail to allege any nonfrivolous claims that Leek was prevented from or hindered in pursuing. 9