Colin K. by John K. v. Schmidt

• Decision Date: 25 July 1983
• Docket Number: Nos. 82-1461,82-1475,s. 82-1461
• Citation: 715 F.2d 1
• Parties: 13 Ed. Law Rep. 221 COLIN and Alan K., Minors by JOHN K., Their Next Friend and Father, Plaintiffs, Appellees, v. Thomas C. SCHMIDT, et al., Defendants, Appellees. Middletown School Committee, et al., Appellants. COLIN K., et al., Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. Thomas C. SCHMIDT, et al., Defendants, Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

Page 1

715 F.2d 1

13 Ed. Law Rep. 221

COLIN and Alan K., Minors by JOHN K., Their Next Friend and Father, Plaintiffs, Appellees, v. Thomas C. SCHMIDT, et al., Defendants, Appellees.

Middletown School Committee, et al., Appellants.

COLIN K., et al., Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. Thomas C. SCHMIDT, et al., Defendants, Appellees.

Nos. 82-1461, 82-1475.

United States Court of Appeals First Circuit.

Argued May 6, 1983.

Decided July 25, 1983.

Joseph B. Going, Newport, R.I., with whom Going & Miller, Ltd., Newport, R.I., was on brief, for Middletown School Committee.

Patricia M. Beede, Newport, R.I., with whom John M. Roney and Roney & Labinger, Providence, R.I., were on brief, for Colin and Alan K.

Before COFFIN and BREYER, Circuit Judges, and BONSAL, ^* Senior District Judge.

COFFIN, Circuit Judge.

These cross appeals challenge two rulings of the United States District Court for the district of Rhode Island. The first is that two learning disabled children cannot consistently with the Education of All Handicapped Children Act (EAHCA), 20 U.S.C. § 1401 et seq., be required to accept placement in the public school system but may remain at a private school at the expense of the municipality's school committee. The second is that the plaintiffs, the children and their father are not entitled to damages for the past refusal of the school committee to fund the private school placement. We affirm both rulings.

Background

The background and facts of this case are set out in detail in the district court's opinion, printed at 536 F.Supp. 1375 (D.R.I.1982). We rehearse them briefly here.

Colin and Alan K. are learning disabled children. Prior to September, 1979, they lived in Montgomery County, Maryland. Pursuant to the EAHCA, Montgomery County had funded their placement at the Kingsbury Lab School, a private day school for severely learning disabled children in Washington, D.C.

In the summer of 1979, the children moved with their father, John K., to Middletown, Rhode Island. Middletown participates with three other communities in a regional program, entitled Newport County Regional Special Education Program (NCRSEP), the purpose of which is to provide special education services for handicapped children. John K. requested that NCRSEP fund special education for the children at the Landmark School, a private, residential school in Pride's Crossing, Massachusetts, that had been recommended to him by the Lab School.

The special education administrator of NCRSEP had medical, psychiatric, social and psychological assessments of the children conducted. The specialists also reviewed the children's Lab School records. Based on those evaluations and records, the administrator prepared an "individualized education program" (IEP) for each child, as required by statute, see 20 U.S.C. § 1414(a)(5). See also 34 C.F.R. § 300.340-.346. The administrator found the children to be moderately handicapped and recommended placement in self-contained special education classrooms in the regional public school program.

Dissatisfied with the administrator's recommendation, John K. requested and received administrative review, which, in Rhode Island, includes a hearing before an officer designated by the local Superintendent of Schools and a right of appeal to the state Commissioner of Education (Commissioner). ¹ The local hearing officer designated by the Middletown School Committee (MSC) concluded that the children were severely learning disabled and rejected the proposed placement in self-contained classrooms in the public school system. Rather than ruling on the appropriateness of plaintiffs' requested placement at Landmark, he ordered MSC to develop new IEPs. On April 24, 1980, a review officer, Christopher O'Neil, designated by the Commissioner, affirmed the local hearing officer's decision.

MSC did not immediately develop new IEPs. On May 29, 1980, plaintiffs brought suit in federal district court against the Commissioner, the MSC and its individual members, members of the Newport County Regional School Committee, and the Superintendent of the NCRSEP. ² The complaint asserted causes of action under the EAHCA, the Rehabilitation Act (RHA), 29 U.S.C. § 794, the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment and 42 U.S.C. § 1983. It challenged defendants' policy of retaining all learning disabled children in the public school system, defendants' failure to provide appropriate placements as mandated by the Commissioner and the Commissioner's failure to consider and accept the appropriateness of the Landmark placement they requested. On June 6, 1980, the court ordered MSC to formulate new IEPs, which would be reviewed through the state administrative process, and to reserve conditionally a place for the children in Landmark for the 1980-81 school year. The court stayed further proceedings in the case.

MSC developed new IEPs which, with some modifications, the local hearing officer approved. Like the first IEPs, the new IEPs recommended placement in the regional public school system. The Commissioner again designated Christopher O'Neil to review the hearing officer's determination. Mr. O'Neil reversed the hearing officer's decision. Emphasizing his determination that the children were severely handicapped, he found the recommended public school placement inadequate. Because he understood that the parties had agreed in the proceeding before the local hearing officer to limit the placement options to the recommended public school placement or Landmark, the review officer ordered MSC to fund placement at Landmark.

MSC appealed to the Rhode Island Family Court for the County of Newport. John K. filed a petition to remove the state suit to federal district court. The district court granted the motion and denied MSC's motion to remand.

On December 14, 1981, the court dismissed plaintiffs' claims for declaratory and injunctive relief under the EAHCA on the ground that plaintiffs were not "parties aggrieved" by an administrative ruling. See 20 U.S.C. § 1415(e)(2). The court found damages unavailable under the EAHCA and therefore granted summary judgment to defendants on that aspect of plaintiffs' claim. The court then consolidated plaintiffs' claims for damages and injunctive relief under the RHA and 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and their claims for attorney's fees and costs with MSC's challenge under the EAHCA to the Commissioner's order. On April 21, 1983, the district court issued its final order, containing the two rulings we have earlier described.

I. MSC's Appeal

A. The District Court's Review of the State Administrative Process

In Board of Education of the Hendrick Hudson Central School District v. Rowley, --- U.S. ----, 102 S.Ct. 3034, 73 L.Ed.2d 690 (1982), the Supreme Court discussed the proper scope of judicial review in suits brought under 20 U.S.C. § 1415(e)(2): "First, has the State complied with the procedures set forth in the Act? And second, is the individualized educational program developed through the Act's procedures reasonably calculated to enable the child[ren] to receive educational benefits?" --- U.S. at ----, 102 S.Ct. at 3051 (footnotes omitted). MSC challenges both the failure of the district court to ensure that the state administrative process was procedurally sound and its failure to recognize that the IEPs, as formulated by MSC, were "reasonably calculated to enable the child[ren] to receive educational benefits."

1. Procedural Defects in the Administrative Hearing

Defendants complain of the fact that the state review officer who reversed the August 11, 1980 decision of the local hearing officer and ordered MSC to fund plaintiffs' placement at Landmark was an employee of the state educational agency. The hearing there did not satisfy the requirement of the EAHCA that it not "be conducted by an employee of [the local or state educational] agency ... involved in the education or care of the child." 20 U.S.C. § 1415(b)(2). ³

The district court rejected defendants' request that it remand the case for an impartial administrative review. Based on the legislative history of the statute, the court concluded that Congress intended the prohibition against review by employees of an agency involved to benefit only handicapped children and their parents and guardians. See Sen.Conf.Rep. No. 455, 94th Cong., 1st Sess. 49, reprinted in [1975] U.S.Code Cong. & Ad.News 1425, 1502. MSC therefore was not within the "protected class" that Congress envisioned when it prohibited employees of the state educational agency from acting as review officers and could not challenge the alleged defect in the state review procedure. In this case, the court noted that it would not necessarily remand the under EAHCA for a new administrative review, because of its own mandate to assess the evidence independently, not simply to ensure that the administrative determination was supported by substantial evidence. See 20 U.S.C. § 1415(e)(2). Thus, the court concluded, even if the challenged procedural defect would render an educational agency a "party aggrieved" and entitle it to review in the district court, the remedy for that defect is de novo review by the court, not a second chance in the administrative process. See Kruelle v. New Castle County School District, 642 F.2d 687, 692 (3d Cir.1981); Grymes v. State Bd. of Educ., 3 EHLR 552:279, :281 (D.Del. Jan. 7, 1981).

Since the district court's decision, the Supreme Court has indicated that the court's review is to be something short of a complete de novo review of the state educational program, see Rowley, supra, --- U.S. at ----, 102 S.Ct. at 3051 ("The fact that § 1414(e) requires that the reviewing court 'receive the records of the [state] administrative proceedings' carries with it the implied requirement that due weight shall be given to these proceedings"), a decision that casts some doubt on the district court's conclusion that even if there were procedural error in the administrative...