Patterson Buchanan Wins Special Education Case in Ninth Circuit

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a 2-1 decision on March 18, 2010 affirming the dismissal of a lawsuit against the Peninsula School District in Washington. A parent alleged that the district’s use of time out in a “safe room” as one intervention method to address her autistic son’s behavioral issues was negligent and unconstitutional. Judge Ronald B. Leighton of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington dismissed the plaintiff’s claims on summary judgment, concluding that his court lacked jurisdiction over the case because the plaintiff, before bringing the lawsuit in federal court, was first required to attempt to resolve the conflict using the administrative remedies available under by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). IDEA gives parents the right to have the matter heard by an impartial hearing officer.

In the appeal before the Ninth Circuit, Patterson Buchanan attorneys Mike Patterson and Don Austin argued on behalf of the school district that the IDEA’s administrative procedures could provide the plaintiff the relief she sought in the case. Because the use of the safe room here was intended as part of an educational strategy, they argued, the case was governed by Ninth Circuit precedent requiring the parent to exhaust the IDEA’s administrative remedies before suing, and not by Ninth Circuit precedent about a situation in which this requirement did not apply because the disputed school actions had “no legitimate educational purpose.”

The appeals court agreed, affirming the district court’s decision:

Simply put, [the plaintiff] is contesting one part of the comprehensive educational strategy used to address [the student’s] unique situation. The safe room was included in his IEP, is a recognized educational tool under Washington statutes, … and its use allegedly led to injuries that the services provided under the IDEA are meant to address. This is not to say we condemn or endorse the manner in which the safe room was used here. Rather we believe that, as an educational strategy (even if a misguided or misapplied one), it was better addressed initially by the administrative process.

The case is D.P. v. Peninsula School District.

Postscript: On December 15, 2010, an en banc panel comprising the Ninth Circuit's Chief Judge and 10 additional judges reheard the case. In a July 29, 2011 decision, the en banc court affirmed the part of the panel decision that struck the plaintiff’s request for relief under the IDEA, but reversed several of its own earlier rulings to conclude that the district court should not have dismissed the case. Even where plaintiffs allege injuries that could conceivably have been redressed by the IDEA, the court held, they are not required to avail themsleves of the administrative process before suing in court if they make non-IDEA claims for relief not available under the IDEA. The dissenting opinion in the case argued that this ruling "will allow plaintiffs—through gamesmanship and cleverly-crafted pleadings—to subject school districts to civil liability for money damages, without first giving school districts the opportunity to remedy the plaintiff's injuries under the IDEA." The decision is reported here in the National School Boards Association's Legal Clips and here in Education Week's School Law Blog.

On October 26, 2011, Patterson Buchanan filed a petition for certiorari on behalf of the school district asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case. The petition argues that the Ninth Circuit's en banc decision creates one significant split among the circuit courts over how courts decide whether plaintiffs are “seeking relief also available under [IDEA]” and exacerbates a second circuit court split over whether a plaintiff who seeks some relief that is available under IDEA must exhaust IDEA's administrative remedies before filing suit under other federal laws.