Calloway v. Dist. of Columbia

• Decision Date: 30 June 2000
• Docket Number: No. 99-5215,99-5216,99-5215
• Citation: 216 F.3d 1
• Parties: (D.C. Cir. 2000) Brandon Calloway, et al.,Appellants/Cross-Appellees v. District of Columbia, et al.,Appellees/Cross-Appellants
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

Page 1

216 F.3d 1 (D.C. Cir. 2000)

Brandon Calloway, et al.,Appellants/Cross-Appellees v. District of Columbia, et al.,Appellees/Cross-Appellants

No. 99-5215, 99-5216

United States Court of Appeals FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued November 8, 1999

Decided June 30, 2000

Appeals from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia(No. 99cv00037)

Steven L. Leifer argued the cause for appellants/cross appellees. With him on the briefs were Lois McKenna

Henry, Joshua B. Frank, Paul Levy, Beth Goodman, Mathew Bogin, Margaret Kohn,and Paul Dalton.

Edward E. Schwab, Assistant Corporation Counsel, Office of the Corporation Counsel, argued the cause for appellees/cross-appellants District of Columbia, et al. With him on the brief were Robert R. Rigsby, Interim Corporation Counsel, and Charles L. Reischel, Deputy Corporation Counsel. Donna M. Murasky, Assistant Corporation Counsel, entered an appearance.

Alfred Mollin, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice, argued the cause for appellee/cross-appellant United States of America. With him on the brief were David W. Ogden, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Michael Jay Singer, Attorney, and Wilma A. Lewis, U.S. Attorney.

Before: Ginsburg, Tatel and Garland, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge Tatel.

Separate opinion dissenting in part filed by Circuit Judge Ginsburg.

Tatel, Circuit Judge:

A rider to the District of Columbia Appropriations Act imposes limits on fees the District may pay under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, known as IDEA, to attorneys who represent prevailing parties in actions against the D.C. Public Schools. In this suit by disabled students and their parents, the district court rejected challenges to the fee cap, finding it neither preempted by IDEA nor contrary to the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. The district court also held that the rider restricts only the District's authority to pay attorneys' fees, not court authority to award fees pursuant to IDEA. Finding no error, we affirm in all respects.

I

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act seeks to "ensure that all children with disabilities have available to them a free appropriate public education that emphasizes special education and related services designed to meet their unique needs and prepare them for employment and independent living." 20 U.S.C. § 1400(d)(1)(A). As a condition of receiving funds under the Act, IDEA requires school districts to adopt procedures to ensure appropriate educational placement of disabled students. See 20 U.S.C. § 1413. In addition, school districts must develop comprehensive plans for meeting the special educational needs of disabled students. See 20 U.S.C. § 1414(d)(2)(A). Known as "individualized education programs," or IEPs, these plans must include "a statement of the child's present levels of educational performance, ... a statement of measurable annual goals, [and] a statement of the special education and related services ... to be provided to the child...." 20 U.S.C. § 1414(d)(1)(A).

IDEA guarantees parents of disabled children an opportunity to participate in the identification, evaluation, and placement process. See 20 U.S.C. §§ 1414(f), 1415(b)(1). Parents who object to their child's "identification, evaluation, or educational placement" are entitled to an "impartial due process hearing," 20 U.S.C. §§ 1415(b)(6), (f)(1), at which they have a "right to be accompanied and advised by counsel." 20 U.S.C. § 1415(h)(1). Parents "aggrieved by" a hearing officer's findings and decision may bring a civil action in either state or federal court without regard to the amount in controversy.20 U.S.C. § 1415(i)(2).

Section 1415(i)(3)(B) of IDEA gives courts authority to "award reasonable attorneys' fees as part of the costs to the parents of a child with a disability who is the prevailing party." Prevailing parents may also recover fees incurred during administrative proceedings. See Moore v. District of Columbia, 907 F.2d 165 (D.C. Cir. 1990) (en banc). The amount of fees awarded "shall be based on rates prevailing in the community in which the action or proceeding arose for the kind and quality of services furnished." 20 U.S.C. § 1415(i)(3)(C).

The District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) has failed to meet its obligations under IDEA, a fact no one disputes. In its brief, the United States describes DCPS's situation this way:

By 1998, the District of Columbia School System's ...failure to fulfill its obligations under IDEA reached crisis proportions. The District had virtually ceased to con-duct timely hearings requested by parents under IDEA and to issue final decisions within the required timelines. Other of its obligations under IDEA were also not beingmet to a significant extent.

See also Blackman v. District of Columbia, 185 F.R.D. 4, 5 (D.D.C. 1999) (finding that DCPS's noncompliance with IDEA has resulted in "significant delays both in the placement of children in appropriate educational settings and in the provision of crucial medical services, delays that have the potential to permanently harm the physical and emotional health of many young children."). At a June 1997 public hearing, DCPS identified several factors responsible for its noncompliance, including "inadequate management[,].... poor information management systems, lack of staff training, inappropriate staff allocation and lack of appropriate programs." Notice of Written Findings and Decision and Compliance Agreement, 63 Fed. Reg 41370, 41373. A year later, the Secretary of Education stated that, after "working with DCPS over a number of years to address its serious and ongoing failure to comply with the requirements of [IDEA]," he determined that immediate compliance was "not feasible."Id. at 41371. The Secretary and DCPS entered into a Compliance Agreement mandating that DCPS "be in full compliance with the requirements of [IDEA in] no later than three years." Id. at 41374.

DCPS's failure to meet the special education needs of its disabled students has resulted in an exceedingly large number of parental complaints. The record shows that in 1995, although DCPS served less than two-thousandths of one percent of the nation's disabled students, over forty-five percent of requests for due process hearings nationwide were made in D.C.

Because IDEA authorizes the award of attorneys' fees, parental complaints have been costly for DCPS. In fiscal year 1998, for example, the school district paid over $10 million to attorneys. That same year, the Washington Post reported that legal representation of special education students, once "an obscure niche," had developed into a "booming, lucrative industry." Doug Struck and Valerie Strauss, Special Ed Law Is Big Business; Students' Attorneys Collectively Receiving Millions in Fees, The Wash. Post, July 20, 1998, at B7. Describing special education cases as "easy [to] win," the Post stated that "when the city's school system is crying for money to try to build an adequate special education system--and thereby begin to lessen the flood of legal challenges--these attorney fees rankle school officials who say the money should be spent on children." Id.

Responding to the concerns expressed in the Post article, the House Committee on Appropriations, while considering the District's fiscal year 1999 appropriations request, acted to stem "the growth in legal expenses ... and the usurping of resources from education to pay attorney fees." H.R. Rep. 105-670, at 50 (1998). The Committee adopted an appropriations rider that, in order to allow DCPS to "focus more clearly on teaching and learning rather than on litigation and expensive legal fees," limited the District's fee payments under IDEA. Id. Eventually becoming section 130 of the 1999 D.C. Appropriations Act, the rider imposed caps on both the hourly rate and total amount of compensation the District could pay lawyers of parents who prevail in IDEA actions and proceedings. See Section 130 of the Omnibus Consolidated and Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act of 1999, Pub. L. 105-277, 112 Stat. 2681 (October 21, 1998) (hereinafter, section 130). Specifically, section 130 provided that 1999 funds could not be used to pay attorneys' fees in excess of the amount at which the D.C. Code fixes compensation of attorneys who represent indigent defendants charged with misdemeanors: $50 per hour and $1,300 overall. See section 130;D.C. Code Ann. § 11-2604(a); D.C. Code § 11-2604(b)(1).Section 130 allowed the maximum total payment, but not the maximum hourly rate, to be waived for "extended or complex representation." See section 130; D.C. Code Ann. § 11-2604(c). In its entirety, section 130 reads as follows:

None of the funds contained in this Act may be madeavailable to pay the fees of an attorney who represents aparty who prevails in an action, including an administra-tive proceeding, brought against the District of Columbia Public Schools under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (20 U.S.C. § 1400 et seq.) if--

(1) the hourly rate of compensation of the attorney exceeds [$50]; or

(2) The maximum amount of compensation of the attorney exceeds [$1,300], except that compensation and reimbursement in excess of such maximum may be approved for extended or complex representation in accordance with section 11-2604(c), District of Columbia Code.

Congress included a similar rider in the District's fiscal year 2000 appropriations bill. Fearful of the rider's impact on disabled children, President Clinton vetoed the bill. "In the long run," the President's veto message explained, "this provision would likely limit the access of the District's poor families to quality legal representation, thus impairing their due process protections provided by ... IDEA." See District of Columbia Appropriations Act, 2000--Veto Message from The President of The United States (H. Doc. No. 106-135), 145 Cong. Rec. H8941,...