Patricia P. v. Bd. Education Oak Park

• Decision Date: 31 January 2000
• Docket Number: No. 98-3012,98-3012
• Parties: (7th Cir. 2000) PATRICIA P., on her own behalf and as parent of Jacob P., Plaintiff-Appellant, v. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF OAK PARK and RIVER FOREST HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 200 and THE ILLINOIS STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION, Defendants-Appellees
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 462

203 F.3d 462 (7th Cir. 2000)

PATRICIA P., on her own behalf and as parent of Jacob P., Plaintiff-Appellant, v. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF OAK PARK and RIVER FOREST HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 200 and THE ILLINOIS STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 98-3012

In the United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

Argued May 18, 1999

Decided January 31, 2000

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. No. 97 C 5225--Milton I. Shadur, Judge. [Copyrighted Material Omitted] Before COFFEY, KANNE and DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judges.

COFFEY, Circuit Judge.

Plaintiff-Appellant Patricia P. ("Patricia"), on behalf of her son Jacob P. ("Jacob"), sued the Board of Education of Oak Park and River Forest High School District No. 200 ("School District") and the Illinois State Board of Education ("State Board") under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act ("IDEA"), 20 U.S.C. sec. 1400, et seq. (1996),¹ seeking reimbursement for the cost of Jacob's private schooling at the Elan School in Maine ("Elan"). Plaintiff appeals the district court's granting of summary judgment in favor of Defendants and denial of her Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59 and 60 motions. We AFFIRM.

I. BACKGROUND

Patricia's suit arises from events that began the summer before Jacob was scheduled to enter Oak Park and River Forest High School ("District High School") as a freshman during the 1994-95 school year. Due to Jacob's history of emotional and behavior problems, at the end of his eighth grade year, his elementary school and the School District jointly conducted a two-day evaluation and held a multi-disciplinary conference to develop an individualized education program ("IEP") for his freshman year at the District High School. Both the elementary school and the School District recommended that Jacob be placed in a behavior disorder resource program with 30 minutes per week of social work services. Patricia disagreed with the recommendation and believed that the proposed placement would be insufficient to address Jacob's special needs. Consequently, Patricia enrolled him in a private parochial school that had no formal special education behavior disorder program: Fenwick High School ("Fenwick"). Jacob spent the 1994-95 school year at Fenwick, during which he did not receive any special services from the School District. Patricia did not seek reimbursement for her unilateral placement of Jacob at Fenwick. Before the end of the school year, however, Fenwick school officials informed Patricia that Jacob would not be allowed to return the following school year due to his behavior problems.

On June 2, 1995, Patricia enrolled Jacob in the District High School for the 1995-96 school year. Sometime between June 2 and June 15, however, Patricia applied to have Jacob attend Elan, a State Board approved residential special education school in Poland Spring, Maine. On July 17, 1995, Patricia placed Jacob at Elan where he remained for the duration of his high school education.

In an effort to obtain reimbursement for the cost of Jacob's placement at Elan, on July 25, 1995, Patricia requested a Level I due process hearing to obtain a determination that Elan was an appropriate educational placement for Jacob. On October 12, 1995, the School District moved to dismiss Patricia's request, which was granted two months later on December 12, 1995 when Level I Hearing Officer Bonnie Simon ("Simon") ruled that Patricia saw fit to effectuate a unilateral transfer of Jacob which thus deprived the School District of an opportunity to conduct its own case study evaluation.

Patricia did not appeal the Level I Simon decision; instead, Plaintiff requested a second Level I due process hearing on January 2, 1996.² Again, the School District moved to dismiss Patricia's hearing request, but this time basing its motion on the doctrine of claim preclusion. Level I Hearing Officer Keith E. Stearns ("Stearns") rejected the School District's claim preclusion argument and conducted a full hearing on the merits of Plaintiff's claim. However, at the conclusion of the hearing, Stearns agreed with Level I Hearing Officer Simon and denied Patricia's request for reimbursement.

Both parties then cross-appealed the Stearns Level I decision to a Level II hearing officer. On Level II appeal, Patricia sought to overturn Stearns' adverse ruling on the merits while the School District challenged the decision on claim preclusion grounds. On March 28, 1997, Level II Hearing Officer Lisa Salkovitz Kohn ("Kohn") affirmed the Level I Stearns decision not to reimburse Patricia for the Elan placement on the merits. Dissatisfied with Level II Hearing Officer Kohn's decision, Patricia sued the School District and the State Board for reimbursement under the IDEA in federal district court.

After Plaintiff filed her complaint but before the State Board filed an answer, the School District filed a motion for summary judgment. In response, Patricia requested additional time for discovery pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56(f). On June 9, 1998, the district court granted the School District's motion for summary judgment, ruling that: (1) the Simon Level I decision on the merits precluded Plaintiff from raising a virtually identical IDEA claim before Level I Hearing Officer Stearns; and (2) notwithstanding claim preclusion grounds, on the merits of Patricia's claim for reimbursement, Defendants did not violate the requirements of the IDEA. Accordingly, the court dismissed Patricia's suit with prejudice and her subsequent Rule 59 and 60 motions. Patricia appealed.

II. ISSUES

Plaintiff argues on appeal that the district court erred when it granted summary judgement in favor of Defendants based on the doctrine of claim preclusion and the court's finding on the merits that the School District did not violate the IDEA. Patricia also claims that the district court abused its discretion when it granted summary judgment without allowing her an opportunity to conduct discovery. Lastly, Plaintiff asserts that the court erred by dismissing her claims against the State Board.

III. DISCUSSION

Although we typically review a district court's decision to grant summary judgment de novo, the standard of review for Patricia's challenge differs from that governing the typical review of summary judgment. See Lagrange School Dist. v. Illinois State Bd. of Educ., 184 F.3d 912, 914-15 (7th Cir. 1999). Here, because the district court did not hear additional evidence beyond what was in the records at the Level I and II stages, "[t]he motion for summary judgment is simply the procedural vehicle for asking the judge to decide the case on the basis of the administrative record." Heather S. v. State of Wisc., 125 F.3d 1045, 1052 (7th Cir. 1997) (citation omitted). Accordingly, despite being termed summary judgment, the district court's decision is based on the preponderance of the evidence. See 20 U.S.C. sec. 1415(e)(2) (1996);³ Hunger v. Leininger, 15 F.3d 664, 669 (7th Cir. 1994). Indeed,

a district court must independently determine whether the requirements of the Act have been satisfied. In developing this standard, Congress specifically rejected language which would have made state administrative findings conclusive if supported by substantial evidence. However, because courts do not have special expertise in the area of educational policy, they must give 'due weight' to the results of the administrative decisions and should not substitute 'their own notions of sound educational policy for those of the school authorities which they review."

Board of Educ. of Murphysboro v. Illinois Bd. of Educ., 41 F.3d 1162, 1166 (7th Cir. 1994) (citations omitted) (emphasis added); see Morton Community Unit Sch. Dist. v. J.M., 152 F.3d 583, 587-88 (7th Cir. 1998) ("[C]ourts (the district court and then this court, using the same standard) should give due deference to the hearing officers' judgments."); Heather S., 125 F.3d at 1052-53. Thus, on appeal, Patricia bears the burden of proof as the party challenging the outcome of the state administrative hearings, see Board of Educ. of Murphysboro, 41 F.3d at 1167, and "in the absence of a mistake of law, we may only reverse the district court if its findings were clearly erroneous." Lagrange, 184 F.3d at 915.

The purpose of the IDEA is "to ensure that children with disabilities receive an education that is both appropriate and free." Florence County Sch. Dist. Four v. Carter, 510 U.S. 7, 13 (1993) (citing School Comm. of Burlington v. Department of Educ. of Mass., 471 U.S. 359, 373 (1985)). A free appropriate public education ("FAPE") is one "specially designed to meet the unique needs of the handicapped child, supported by such services as are necessary to permit the child 'to benefit' from the instruction." See Board of Educ. v. Rowley, 458 U.S. 176, 188-89 (1982).

The IDEA also provides federal funds intended to "assist State and local efforts to provide programs to meet the educational needs of children with disabilities in order to assure equal protection of the law." 20 U.S.C. sec. 1400(b)(9) (1996). The Act requires a state to determine what is uniquely "appropriate" for each child's education by preparing an IEP developed through the joint participation of the local education agency, the teacher, and the parents. 20 U.S.C. sec.sec. 1401(a)(18)-(20), 1412(4), 1414(a)(5) (1996).

Section 1415 of the IDEA provides for a hearing process

to challenge the adequacy of the IEP when informal procedures have failed. After a complaint is brought to initiate such a formal hearing, an impartial Level I hearing is conducted by a local administrative officer. The Level I decision then may be appealed to a Level II hearing before another administrative officer appointed by the state department of education. Following the final administrative determination, the party aggrieved by the...