Court Opinion

ID: 9499488
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:49:39.950415+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:59:32.310103
License: Public Domain

O’SCANNLAIN, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent from the court’s holding that prison librarian Hust’s refusal to allow inmate Phillips access to the prison comb-binding machine hindered his ability to file his petition for certiorari timely in the Supreme Court. I must also *1083dissent from the court’s holding that Hust is not entitled to qualified immunity.
I
In Bounds v. Smith, 430 U.S. 817, 97 S.Ct. 1491, 52 L.Ed.2d 72 (1977), the Supreme Court held that “the fundamental constitutional right of access to the courts requires prison authorities to assist inmates in the preparation and filing of meaningful legal papers by providing prisoners with adequate law libraries or adequate assistance from persons trained in the law.” Id. at 828, 97 S.Ct. 1491. In Lewis v. Casey, 518 U.S. 343, 116 S.Ct. 2174, 135 L.Ed.2d 606 (1996), the Court subsequently recognized the limits of Bounds when it held that an inmate must demonstrate that official acts or omissions “hindered his efforts to pursue a [non-frivolous] legal claim.” Id. at 351, 116 S.Ct. 2174; see also id. at 365, 116 S.Ct. 2174 (Thomas, J., concurring) (“[T]he majority opinion ... places sensible and much-needed limitations on the seemingly limitless right to assistance created in Bounds .... ”). While Lewis recognized that the tools of litigation must be made available when necessary to ensure “meaningful access” to the courts, the majority opinion goes beyond that to require prison officials to provide inmates with whatever tools seem reasonable in a given situation, even if not necessary to vindicate the inmate’s right of action. In so doing, today’s decision ignores the sensible limitations recognized by the Supreme Court in Lewis.
A
At the outset, I note several points of agreement with the majority. First, the court correctly recognizes that in order to prevail on a motion for summary judgment and to merit a remedy for a lost opportunity to present a legal claim, Phillips must affirmatively establish three elements: (1) actual injury in the form of a loss of a non-frivolous underlying legal claim; (2) that official acts hindered his pursuit of the legal claim; and (3) that he is pursuing a remedy that may be awarded as recompense but that is not otherwise available in a future suit. Maj. Op. at 1075-76 (citing Christopher v. Harbury, 536 U.S. 403, 413-14, 122 S.Ct. 2179, 153 L.Ed.2d 413 (2002)).
I also agree with the majority that it is “arguable,” Lewis, 518 U.S. at 351, 116 S.Ct. 2174, that at least one of Phillips’s claim was nonfrivolous. Maj. Op. at 1076. Specifically, I accept as nonfrivolous Phillips’s claim that the state court applied a standard that differed from that set forth in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). Finally, I agree with the court that Phillips is able to point to a “specific instance” in which he was denied access to the courts: his petition for a writ of certiorari was denied as untimely by the Supreme Court. See Lewis, 518 U.S. at 356, 116 S.Ct. 2174 (describing the loss of an actionable claim).
B
Despite these points of agreement, I cannot agree with the majority’s resolution of this case. Simply stated, Phillips has failed to establish, at the summary judgment stage, that the official actions of the prison librarian were the proximate cause of his loss. See Arnold v. IBM Corp., 637 F.2d 1350 (9th Cir.1981) (“The causation requirement of Section 1983 is not satisfied by showing of mere causation in fact. Rather the plaintiff must establish proximate causation.”) (internal citations omitted); Stevenson v. Koskey, 877 F.2d 1435, 1438-39 (9th Cir.1989).
1
In Lewis, the Supreme Court made clear that Bounds “guarantee^] no particular methodology but rather the conferral *1084of a capability — the capability of bringing challenges to sentences or conditions of confinement before the courts.” 518 U.S. at 356, 116 S.Ct. 2174 (emphasis added). Capability is defined as the “quality or state of ability; having the physical, mental or legal power to perform.” WEBSTER’S NINTH NEW COLLEGIATE DICTIONARY 203 (1986). The conferral of a capability to bring a non-frivolous legal action does not, however, require states to turn prisoners into litigation machines. As the Supreme Court stated in Lewis,
[Bounds ] does not guarantee inmates the wherewithal to transform themselves into litigating engines ... The tools it requires to be provided are those that the inmates need in order to attack their sentences, directly or collaterally, and in order to challenge the conditions of their confinement. Impairment of any other litigating capacity is simply one of the incidental (and perfectly constitutional) consequences of conviction and incarceration.
518 U.S. at 355, 116 S.Ct. 2174 (emphasis in original).
Thus, in Lindquist v. Idaho State Bd. of Corrections, 776 F.2d 851, 856 (9th Cir. 1985), we rejected the contention of inmates that a prison library must contain the Pacific Reporter 2d, Shepard’s Citations and a number of other reference books. We noted that Bounds did not require a prison to provide its inmates with “a library that results in the best possible access to the courts.” Id. (emphasis added). Instead, what Bounds required was that the resources meet minimum constitutional standards sufficient to provide meaningful, though perhaps not “ideal,” access to the courts. Id. We thus had no trouble also concluding that inmates had no right to a typewriter to prepare their legal documents where the court rules permit pro se litigants to hand-write their pleadings.
The situation in Lindquist may be contrasted with that with which we were presented in Allen v. Sakai, 40 F.3d 1001 (9th Cir.1994). In that case, Allen’s notice of appeal to the Hawaii Circuit Court was rejected because it was written in pencil and not ink. Allen claimed that the outright denial of a pen deprived him of access to the courts. We held:
Hawaii’s Circuit Court Rule 3(a) requires that all “handwritten entries on papers shall be in black ink,” and defendants concede that this mandate was “clear and explicit” and provided no exceptions. In light of the clarity of the pre-existing law, it should have been apparent to the defendants that a ban on the use of pens would seriously hamper an inmate’s access to the courts and therefore constitute a violation of his rights under Bounds.
40 F.3d at 1006. Allen presented a stark example of how the complete denial of a “clear[ly]” necessary writing utensil — specifically mentioned as a required tool by the Bounds court — could effectively deprive an inmate of their right of access to the courts. The result in Allen is thus unremarkable. See also Sands v. Lewis, 886 F.2d 1166, 1169 (9th Cir.1989) (“[We] have considered claims based on Bounds’s teaching that the State must provide ‘indigent’ prisoners with basic supplies which ensure that their access is ‘meaningful.’ In evaluating this latter type of claim, we have declined to read into the Constitution any specific minimum requirements beyond those mentioned in Bounds itself.”) (emphasis added); OR. ADMIN. R. 291-139-0005 (requiring prison officials to make available “necessary supplies for the preparation and filing of legal documents”) (emphasis added).
Our precedents, therefore, require that for Phillips to prevail on summary judgment, he must make a showing that use of *1085the comb-binding machine was a necessary-pre-requisite to allowing him “meaningful access” to the courts.
2
The majority opinion appears to acknowledge that what is required is the provision of tools sufficient to afford a “capability” of litigation, but then, with a magician’s sleight of hand, the focus of the inquiry is shifted to the apparent “arbitrary” nature of Hust’s denial. The majority gets it mostly correct, however, in its initial statement that “[njevertheless, it remains true that some means of preparing legal documents, including a means of binding them where required, must be made available.” Maj. Op. at 1077 (emphasis added). Unfortunately, rather than adhering to the clear limits established by Supreme Court precedent, the majority here mandates prison employees to anticipate when the denial of unnecessary services will so fluster an inmate that his filing, though in no way actually frustrated, might be delayed. Such a rule amounts to an unreasonable demand that prison librarians be not only experts on their actual duties, but also clairvoyant.
Supreme Court Rule 33.2 governs the form of documents to be filed with the Court. It provides that every document “shall be stapled or bound at the upper left-hand corner.” In turn, Supreme Court Rule 39.3 governs proceedings in forma pauperis and requires every document presented by a party to be “prepared as required by Rule 33.2 (unless such preparation is impossible).” (emphasis added) It further requires that the petition be legible, obviously expecting most filings to be handwritten. Finally, the rule directs the Clerk to “mak[e] due allowance for any case presented under this Rule by a person appearing pro se.”
Three simple points may be made. First, while an initial reading suggests that stapling or binding is affirmatively required, Rule 39.3 provides ah exception when such methods are not possible. Second, Rule 33 requires the staple or binding to be at the upper left-hand corner. A comb-binding machine, in contrast, binds an entire side of a petition, and thus does not even come within the rule. Finally, the rule specifically mandates leniency for pro se litigants, many of whom the Court is fully aware are indigent prisoners.
The district court’s grant of summary judgment, however, did not take into account the flexible — or at least disputed— nature of these rules. The district court ruled:
[Hust’s] actions caused him to face the difficult choice of violating a Supreme Court Rule by submitting a partially bound brief, or missing his deadline. Plaintiff chose to comply with the Supreme Court Rule, and missed the filing deadline; his petition was subsequently denied as untimely by the Supreme Court. Viewing the facts in a light most favorable to plaintiff, it appears from the factual allegations and from the record on summary judgment that defendant violated plaintiffs constitutional right to access the courts.
The district judge’s conclusion is incorrect.1 The applicable Supreme Court rule neither requires nor allows comb-binding. The only way a comb-bound petition would be compliant with the clear text of this rule is by virtue of the impossibility clause in Rule 39.3. Reference to that rule, however, would defeat Phillips’s claim that the rule is clear and provides for no exceptions. See Allen, 40 F.3d at 1006. Thus, *1086there is no nexus between the denial of access to the comb-binding machine and the late filing of Phillips’s petition. It was only Phillips’s dogged insistence on this particular means of binding that caused his petition to be filed late and therefore rejected.2 The district court’s erroneous conclusion that Phillips was attempting to bind his petition in accordance with Supreme Court Rules finds no support in the record or in the text of the provisions. Accordingly, Hust’s actions cannot be the proximate cause of Phillips’s alleged loss.
Second, the record also reflects that the district court’s analysis of the merits of the issue was permeated with incorrect presumptions for the summary judgment stage of this case. While the above-quoted analysis was performed as the first step of the Saucier qualified-immunity analysis, see Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 121 S.Ct. 2151, 150 L.Ed.2d 272 (2001), the district court expressly referred back to it with a supra citation in concluding that summary judgment for Phillips was warranted. On the merits of plaintiffs summary judgment motion, however, it is well-established that the evidence must be viewed in a light most favorable to the non-moving party, in this case Hust. See T.W. Electric Service, Inc. v. Pacific Elec. Contractors Ass’n, 809 F.2d 626, 630-31 (9th Cir.1987) (“[A]t the summary judgment, the judge must view the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party ... [I]f a rational trier of fact might resolve the issue in favor of the nonmoving party, summary judgment must be denied. Inferences must also be drawn in the light most favorable to the nomnoving party.”). The court’s analysis of the merits of the issue, however, which expressly incorporated its earlier analysis and not much more, viewed the facts in a light most favorable to plaintiff.
A de novo review of the record shows that Phillips failed to establish there were no disputed material issues of fact. There was not “but one reasonable conclusion as to the verdict” in this case, Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 250, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986), and thus summary judgment was not appropriate.
3
The majority’s focus on the allegedly arbitrary manner in which the prison enforced its policy against allowing inmates to use the comb-punch is thus beside the point. Under Christopher v. Harbury, 536 U.S. at 413-14, 122 S.Ct. 2179, Phillips must show that even an unreasonable prison policy was the cause of his loss. Our decision in Gluth v. Kangas, 951 F.2d 1504, 1508 (9th Cir.1991), cited by the majority, does not counsel differently. There, we simply recited the unremarkable conclusion that the existence of a law library does not provide for meaningful access when inmates are not afforded, in part because of arbitrary denials, a reasonable amount of time to use the facility. Id. Moreover, Gluth was a case decided before Lewis, when our circuit law did not require *1087inmates alleging “core” Bounds violations to establish actual injury. Id. at 1509 n. 2; see also Sands, 886 F.2d at 1171.
C
Today’s holding may seem eminently reasonable to some. As the court notes, “[W]e simply reach the unexceptional conclusion that otherwise valid prison policies may not be selectively or arbitrarily enforced in such a way as to interfere with prisoners’ access to the courts to pursue litigation arising from their incarceration.” Maj. Op. at 1078 n. 2 (emphasis added). In applying such an approach, however, the majority focuses only on the apparent arbitrary nature of Hust’s denial to the detriment of the causation analysis. Because I am persuaded that the majority errs in applying its own rule, and because I believe the record does not establish, at the summary judgement stage, that Hust’s actions were the proximate cause of Phillips’s injury, I would reverse the grant of summary judgment and remand for trial.
II
Nor am I persuaded by the majority’s view of Hust’s qualified immunity claim.
A
A state officer is not protected by qualified immunity where he or she has violated a clearly established constitutional right. Under Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 121 S.Ct. 2151, 150 L.Ed.2d 272 (2001), “[t]he relevant, dispositive inquiry in determining whether a right is clearly established is whether it would be clear to a reasonable officer his conduct was unlawful in the situation he confronted.” Id. at 201, 121 S.Ct. 2151; see also Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987) (“The contours of the right must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right.”). Although the author’s subjective intent is irrelevant, id. at 641, 107 S.Ct. 3034, the information actually possessed by the officer is relevant to this determination. Hunter v. Bryant, 502 U.S. 224, 227, 112 S.Ct. 534, 116 L.Ed.2d 589 (1991) (per curiam).
The Lewis court made clear that the right at issue in a case such as this is not “an abstract, freestanding right to a law library or legal assistance.” 518 U.S. at 351, 116 S.Ct. 2174. Instead, the right vindicated by Bounds was a right of “meaningful access to the courts.” Id. Thus, the question before us is whether a reasonable prison official would believe that denying access to the prison comb-binding machine would violate an inmate’s right of access to file a brief for a writ of certiorari in the Supreme Court of the United States.
B
There are three key facts that establish Hust’s entitlement to qualified immunity. First, despite her unfamiliarity with the explicit holding of Lewis v. Casey, she was clearly aware of her affirmative duty to aid inmates in the filing of legal documents.3 *1088She stated that her job was not to provide legal assistance to inmates, but instead to supervise inmates in accord with ODOC Administrative Rules. Those rules provide:
Policy: “Within the inherent limitations of resources and the need for facility security, safety, health and order, it is the policy of the Department of Corrections to satisfy its legal obligation to provide inmates meaningful access to the courts by affording inmates reasonable access to a law library or contract legal services, and to necessary supplies for the preparation and filing of legal documents.... ”
OR. ADMIN. R. 291-139-0005. That Hust was aware of this policy requiring her to aid in the preparation of legal materials is not disputed in the record.
Second, the delay in time responding to Phillips’s request was not unreasonable based upon the information known to Hust at the time. See Anderson, 483 U.S. at 641, 107 S.Ct. 3034 (noting that the determination of whether official action is objectively legally reasonable “will often require examination of the information possessed by” the state actor). Here, the undisputed record shows that the June 13 request which Phillips sent to Hust did not indicate the date which his petition was due.
Finally, the record establishes that Hust was knowledgeable about filing requirements in courts. Hust stated in her affidavit that in her experience as a prison law librarian the courts accept pro se briefs without comb-binding. Her view that comb-binding was not required was reasonable, as the majority opinion itself recognizes before ultimately dismissing her interpretation of the rules as “not the only reasonable interpretation.” Maj. Op. at 1078. Furthermore, it is not disputed that Hust “even contacted Trent Axen, Law Librarian at the Oregon State Penitentiary (OSP) in Salem, Oregon, who has experience with this matter to confirm what [she] already knew. Mr. Axen confirmed that he does not bind inmate briefs and the court has accepted unbound inmate briefs.” This type of reference to an outside, knowledgeable source is ample proof of the reasonableness of Hust’s actions.
The “unlawfulness” of Hust’s actions is simply not apparent. Anderson, 483 U.S. at 640, 107 S.Ct. 3034. It was not an unreasonable reading of the rules of the Supreme Court to conclude that they do not require, nor even allow, the comb-binding of petitions. Furthermore, in light of the general tenor of Lewis v. Casey and our previous cases which have held that only basic legal supplies, and not unnecessary amenities, are to be provided to inmates, see Sands v. Lewis, 886 F.2d at 1170, Hust’s denial of access was not “willfully blind” to the requirements of law. Accordingly, it was “objectively legally reasonable,” even if ultimately mistaken, Anderson, 483 U.S. at 641, 107 S.Ct. 3034; Act Up!/Portland v. Bagley, 988 F.2d 868, 872 (9th Cir.1993), for Hust to conclude that her denial of access to the comb-binding machine would not hinder Phillips’s “capability” to file his petition. She is therefore entitled to qualified immunity. *1089I respectfully dissent from the court’s holding otherwise.

. We review the grant of summary judgment de novo, Messick v. Horizon Industries, Inc., 62 F.3d 1227, 1229 (9th Cir.1995).

. The majority contends, "Hust’s refusal to allow Phillips to use the comb-binder placed him in the untenable position of having to decide whether to file the petition on the date it was due in the hopes that it would be accepted unbound or partially bound, or to wait until he could bind the petition in the hopes that it would be accepted late.” Maj. Op. at 1078. While this is literally true because the rules do not guarantee under what circumstances the clerk will deem proper presentation to have been "impossible,” this is simply the nature of a general standard and cannot be grounds for finding the denial of access to the courts. To do so would be to directly countermand the two explicit provisions in the Supreme Court rules that suggest leniency for pro se litigants. The argument also ignores that Phillips would have assumed an even greater risk in filing a comb-bound cert, petition when the rules explicitly require binding at the upper left-hand corner of the document.

. The district court’s reading of Hust's response to Phillips's interrogatory about Lewis v. Casey is clearly erroneous. The court found Hust to be "willfully blind” to the applicable law when she "denied” the statement that she was "somewhat familiar with Lewis v. Casey, 518 U.S. 343, 116 S.Ct. 2174, 135 L.Ed.2d 606 (1996).” That statement, when read in context, merely denies a precise knowledge of the Lewis case. It in no way suggests that Hust was "willfully blind” to the requirement that the basic supplies of litigation be afforded to inmates. Indeed, in the very same affidavit, Hust asserts that part of her position is to supervise inmates "in accordance” with the ODOC Administrative Rules governing "Legal Affairs (Inmate),’’ which requires prison officials to make available "necessary supplies.” The district court’s reading is akin to requiring a state official, even one *1088not required to be trained in the law, to be intimately familiar with the names and holdings of decided cases. We have never required as much. See Cox v. Roskelley, 359 F.3d 1105, 1115 n. 1 (citing McCullough v. Wyandanch Union Free Sch. Dist., 187 F.3d 272, 278 (2d Cir.1999)) ("The question is not what a lawyer would learn or intuit from researching case law, but what a reasonable person in the defendant's position should know about the constitutionality of the conduct. The unlawfulness must be apparent.”). The context of Hust’s statements makes clear that she was generally knowledgeable about what was required of her as a law librarian. Nothing more is required.