A.F. ex rel. Christine B. v. Española Pub. Sch.

• Decision Date: 15 September 2015
• Docket Number: No. 14–2139.,14–2139.
• Citation: 801 F.3d 1245
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit
• Parties: A.F., by and through her parent and next friend, CHRISTINE B., Plaintiff–Appellant, v. ESPAÑOLA PUBLIC SCHOOLS ; Board of Education for the Española Public School District, Defendants–Appellees.

801 F.3d 1245

A.F., by and through her parent and next friend, CHRISTINE B., Plaintiff–Appellant

v.ESPAÑOLA PUBLIC SCHOOLS ; Board of Education for the Española Public School District, Defendants–Appellees.

No. 14–2139.

United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit.

Sept. 15, 2015.

Nancy L. Simmons of Law Offices of Nancy L. Simmons, P.C., Albuquerque, New Mexico, for Plaintiff–Appellant.

Elizabeth L. German (Mary Keleher Castle, with her on the brief), German & Associates, LLC, Albuquerque, New Mexico, for Defendants–Appellees.

Before BRISCOE, Chief Judge, MURPHY and GORSUCH, Circuit Judges.

Opinion

GORSUCH, Circuit Judge.

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act requires public school districts that accept federal funding to furnish a “free appropriate public education” to their disabled students. 20 U.S.C. § 1412(a)(1). Sometimes, of course, disputes arise over whether the school district is doing the job it's agreed to do. This is one of those cases. Christine B., the mother of a student known in these proceedings as A.F., contends that the school district failed to address appropriately her daughter's disabilities in the educational program it formulated for her.

When a dispute like this emerges, the parent and student must file an administrative complaint with local school officials. See id. § 1415(b)(6), (f)(1)(A). Then the parties are instructed by statute to hold a “[p]reliminary meeting” with an eye toward talking through the grievance and trying for an early resolution. Id. § 1415(f)(1)(B)(i). They can also choose to resolve their differences through mediation. Id. § 1415(e). But if no settlement satisfactory to both sides comes to pass, the parties must proceed to a sort of trial, what IDEA calls an “[i]mpartial due process hearing.” Id. § 1415(f). If the hearing still doesn't satisfy parent and student, an administrative appeal may follow. Id. § 1415(g)(1). If the parent and student still remain “aggrieved by the findings and decision made” after this appeal process, they may then (and only then) “bring a civil action” in federal court. Id. § 1415(i)(2)(A). At the same time, if the state fails to provide an appeals process, a party who is aggrieved by the findings and decision in the subsection (f) trial-like proceeding may also proceed to court. Id. Plainly in all this, Congress sought to ensure access to courts for IDEA claims but only failing the success of the many alternative dispute opportunities it provided.

This case ended almost before it began. Christine B. filed her administrative complaint, just as she had to. But before any hearing could be held, she sought to mediate her dispute. And the choice proved fruitful, for in the end the parties signed a settlement agreement. Indeed, as a result of the settlement, Christine B. asked the administrative agency to dismiss her IDEA claims with prejudice, something the agency duly did.

But after ending her suit she sought to begin it again. Despite the satisfactory result she received through mediation, Christine B. later took to mind the thought she might sue—and she did. To be sure, her lawsuit didn't seek to press a claim under IDEA, itself a tacit acknowledgment that her mediated settlement precluded that option. Instead, she sued under the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Rehabilitation Act, and 42 U.S.C. § 1983, though the allegations in her federal court complaint and those in her original IDEA administrative complaint are nearly identical: both allege that A.F. suffers from the same disabilities and both contend that the school district failed to take her disabilities into account in her educational program.

Agreeing with the school district that Christine B. failed to exhaust available administrative remedies, the district court dismissed her lawsuit and it is this result she now asks us to overturn.

There's no doubt that it's often possible to pursue claims under IDEA and other federal statutes seriatim just as Christine B. wishes to do. Indeed, Congress expressly guaranteed as much, stating that IDEA's promises and procedures don't necessarily extinguish one's “rights ... and remedies” under other federal laws like the ADA and Rehabilitation Act. 20 U.S.C. § 1415(l ). In fact, Congress added this language to clarify its disagreement with the Supreme Court's suggestion in Smith v. Robinson, 468 U.S. 992, 104 S.Ct. 3457, 82 L.Ed.2d 746 (1984), that a claim under IDEA (or, really, its predecessor statute, the Education of the Handicapped Act) should be the exclusive federal statutory remedy for any education-related complaint by disabled public school students.

But Congress didn't stop there. After emphasizing that IDEA doesn't always preclude relief under laws like the ADA and Rehabilitation Act, Congress added this caveat:

except that before the filing of a civil action under such laws seeking relief that is also available under [IDEA], the procedures under subsections (f) and (g) shall be exhausted to the same extent as would be required had the action been brought under [IDEA].

20 U.S.C. § 1415(l ). So it is that, to bring a lawsuit under federal law that “seek[s] relief that is also available under” IDEA, you first must exhaust the procedures set forth in subsections (f) and (g) “to the same extent as would be required had the action been brought under” IDEA. And, as we've seen, to “bring a civil action” under IDEA you must be “aggrieved by the findings and decision made” after the administrative appeals process (or trial process if no appeal process is provided). Id. § 1415(i)(2)(A).

It's here where Christine B. faces a problem, just as the district court recognized. She accepts that her current lawsuit “seek[s] relief that is also available under” IDEA and thus triggers subsection (l )'s exhaustion requirement. To be sure, her lawsuit seeks damages—a remedy that's “ordinarily unavailable in administrative [IDEA] hearings.” Cudjoe v. Indep. Sch. Dist. No. 12, 297 F.3d 1058, 1066 (10th Cir.2002). But some time ago this court held that the “dispositive question” when assessing the applicability of subsection (l )'s exhaustion requirement isn't whether the plaintiff seeks damages or some other particular remedy, but “whether the plaintiff has alleged injuries that could be redressed to any degree by the IDEA's administrative procedures and remedies.” Padilla ex rel. Padilla v. Sch. Dist. No. 1, 233 F.3d 1268, 1274 (10th Cir.2000) (emphasis added). Neither does Christine B. ask us to revisit Padilla or otherwise dispute that the injuries she seeks to redress in her lawsuit are indeed capable of being redressed to some degree by IDEA's administrative procedures. And with that, with an admission of subsection (l )'s applicability, it's very hard to see how she can satisfy it. Subsection (l ) required her to exhaust the procedures set forth in subsections (f) and (g) to the same extent necessary to bring a civil action under IDEA itself. And to bring such an action she must be able to show that she's “aggrieved by the findings and decision” of the administrative trial authorities described in subsection (f) or the administrative appellate authorities described in subsection (g). Something she manifestly is not.

Coming at the point from a different angle, Christine B.'s problem is that there's only one exhaustion rule for IDEA claims and other federal claims seeking relief also available under IDEA. It's clear Christine B. cannot bring an IDEA lawsuit in federal court after choosing to settle her IDEA claims and agreeing to their dismissal with prejudice. She even tacitly concedes this by declining any attempt to raise them here. And from this it follows ineluctably that an ADA or Rehabilitation Act or § 1983 lawsuit seeking the same relief is also barred.

Christine B. responds this way. She notes that subsection (f) permits the parties to opt out of the trial-like administrative process and pursue mediation under subsection (e). See id. § 1415(f)(1)(B)(i). So by mediating her IDEA claim under subsection (e), she says, she necessarily satisfied the procedures described in subsection (f). And given that no appeal is necessary or even available after a mediated settlement, subsection (g) is beside the point. It's in this way, she argues, that she exhausted the administrative procedures available to her. Our dissenting colleague seems to adopt this same line of reasoning too.

The problem is this vision of exhaustion just isn't the one embodied in the plain text of the statute. If subsection (l ) said that to bring a federal lawsuit under the ADA or Rehabilitation Act or Section 1983 you merely had to “satisfy the administrative procedures under subsection (f),” we might be able to say that, because subsection (f) references subsection (e) and its provision of mediation as an alternative means of dispute resolution, Christine B. is free and clear to pursue her lawsuit. But that's not what subsection (l ) says. It says that to bring a civil action under federal law seeking the same relief IDEA supplies, you must exhaust the procedures in subsections (f) and (g) “to the same extent” as you must to bring a civil action under IDEA itself. And to earn the right to bring a civil action under IDEA, it's just an implacable fact that you must qualify under subsection (i) as a party “aggrieved by the findings and decision” of administrative trial or appellate authorities. And neither Christine B. nor the dissent even attempts to suggest she qualifies as that.

Without statutory text to help her, Christine B. urges us to examine precedent. And it's true enough that otherwise unlikely statutory interpretations sometimes look more attractive when backed by the force of precedent we're obliged to obey. But that's just not the case here either. Christine B. directs us first to Ellenberg ex rel. S.E. v. New Mexico Military Institute, 478 F.3d 1262 (10th Cir.2007). But Ellenberg held that subsection (l )'s exhaustion requirement didn't apply to the plaintiff's...