Crocker v. Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Ass'n

• Decision Date: 01 May 1989
• Docket Number: 88-6185,Nos. 88-6063,s. 88-6063
• Citation: 873 F.2d 933
• Parties: 53 Ed. Law Rep. 440 Ray CROCKER; Susan Crocker, as legal guardians and next friends of Michael Crocker, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. TENNESSEE SECONDARY SCHOOL ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION, Defendant-Appellant, (88-6063) Charles Smith, Commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Education; Metro Nashville-Davidson County, Tennessee, Defendants-Appellants. (88-6185)
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

Page 933

873 F.2d 933

53 Ed. Law Rep. 440

Ray CROCKER; Susan Crocker, as legal guardians and next friends of Michael Crocker, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. TENNESSEE SECONDARY SCHOOL ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION Defendant-Appellant, (88-6063) Charles Smith, Commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Education; Metro Nashville-Davidson County Tennessee, Defendants-Appellants. (88-6185)

Nos. 88-6063, 88-6185.

United States Court of Appeals Sixth Circuit.

Argued Dec. 13, 1988.

Decided May 1, 1989.

David T. Hooper, W. Gary Blackburn (argued), Alagia, Day, Marshall, Mintmire & Chauvin, Nashville, Tenn., for Ray Crocker, et al.

Charles Hampton White (argued), Richard L. Colbert, Cornelius & Collins, W. Gregory Miller, Nashville, Tenn., for Tennessee Secondary School.

W.J. Michael Cody, Atty. Gen., Jane W. Young, Myra L. Sanderson (argued), Asst. Attys. Gen., Charles W. Burson, Atty. Gen., Nashville, for Charles Smith, Commissioner of the Tennessee Dept. of Educ. and Metro Nashville-Davidson County, Tenn.

William M. Safley (argued), Susan Short Jones, Director of Law, Nashville, Tenn., for Metropolitan Government of Nashville & Davidson County.

Before MERRITT, MARTIN and JONES, Circuit Judges.

MERRITT, Circuit Judge.

These consolidated cases arise under the Education of the Handicapped Act, 20 U.S.C. Sec. 1415(e). Susan and Ray Crocker, as legal guardians of their son Michael Crocker, sued in District Court seeking to enjoin the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association, the Tennessee Department of Education and Metro Nashville-Davidson County, from applying to Michael Crocker the TSSAA transfer rule. That rule bars a secondary school student in a TSSAA member school who has transferred from one school to another from playing in any interscholastic sport for one year. The Crockers obtained a preliminary injunction from District Judge Nixon restraining the TSSAA and the governmental defendants from imposing the one-year rule in this case. Judge Merritt, sitting as a single judge under Rule 27(c), Fed.R.App.P., declined to stay the injunction pending appeal, advised the parties to brief the exhaustion issue, and ordered the appeal expedited. We now dissolve the injunction and dismiss this action, because the plaintiffs have failed to exhaust their administrative remedies.

Michael Crocker, now a student in the tenth grade, transferred from Ezell-Harding Christian School to McGavock Senior High School (a public school in Nashville) on March 2, 1988. Application of the transfer rule to him would result in his being barred from participation in interscholastic athletic contests until March 3, 1989. He has been found since his transfer to McGavock to have a learning disability, and his parents claim that the reason for the transfer was the same disability. The Crockers claim that application of the transfer rule to their son would violate his right, as a handicapped student within the meaning of the EHA, to obtain a free, appropriate public education.

The EHA requires that states which rely on certain federal funds to support public education shall not deny a free appropriate public education to handicapped students. 20 U.S.C. Sec. 1412. To effectuate the substantive rights it creates, the Act requires that states shall establish procedures "to assure that handicapped children and their parents or guardians are guaranteed procedural safeguards with respect to the provision of free appropriate public education[.]" 20 U.S.C. Sec. 1415(a). Indeed, the minimum requisites for due process in this context are specified with painstaking care both in the Act and in regulations promulgated under it. States must provide to any parent or guardian who complains that his or her child has been denied rights secured by the Act with an opportunity for an impartial due process hearing. The Act specifies that the due process hearing may be conducted either by the state educational agency, the local educational agency, or an intermediate educational unit, but may not be conducted by any state agency directly involved in the education or care of the child. 20 U.S.C. Sec. 1415(b)(2). If a local or intermediate body provides the initial due process hearing the state must also provide a direct appeal to the state educational agency. 20 U.S.C. Sec. 1415(c). Finally, the Act provides that any party aggrieved by the decision reached in the administrative process that the Act mandates may file suit in state court or in federal district court. 20 U.S.C. Sec. 1415(e)(2).

Every court that has considered the question has read this statutory scheme as a requirement for the exhaustion of administrative remedies. In case after case courts have read the statutory scheme to require parents and guardians to use the state process which the act specifies shall be provided to them. Ass'n for Retarded Citizens of Alabama v. Teague, Inc., 830 F.2d 158, 160 (11th Cir.1987); Doe ex rel. Gonzales v. Maher, 793 F.2d 1470, 1490 (9th Cir.1986), modified on other grounds sub nom. Honig v. Doe, 484 U.S. 305, 108 S.Ct. 592, 98 L.Ed.2d 686 (1988); Timms v. Metro. School Dist. of Wabash County, Ind., 722 F.2d 1310, 1316 (7th Cir.1983); Monahan v. State of Neb., 687 F.2d 1164, 1168 (8th Cir.1982), cert. denied sub nom. Rose v. State of Neb. 460 U.S. 1012, 103 S.Ct. 1252, 75 L.Ed.2d 481 (1983); McGovern v. Sullins, 676 F.2d 98, 99 (4th Cir.1982); Riley v. Ambach, 668 F.2d 635, 640 (2d Cir.1981); Ezratty v. Com. of Puerto Rico, 648 F.2d 770, 775 (1st Cir.1981); Secor v. Richmond School Joint Dist. No. 2 Lisbon-Pewaukee, 689 F.Supp. 869, 873 (E.D.Wis.1988); Mitchell v. Walter, 538 F.Supp. 1111, 1113 (S.D.Oh.1982); Parks v. Pavkovic, 536 F.Supp. 296, 302 (N.D.Ill.1982). See also Eggers v. Bullitt County School Dist., 854 F.2d 892, 894 (6th Cir.1988).

Indeed, we cannot imagine any other reading of the statute. Only parties "aggrieved" by the results of the administrative process are granted a right of action in state or federal court. 20 U.S.C. Sec. 1415(e)(2). To allow parents to come directly to federal courts would render the entire scheme of Sec. 1415 nugatory. Smith v. Robinson, 468 U.S. 992, 1011, 104 S.Ct. 3457, 3468, 82 L.Ed.2d 746 (1984). In particular, it would frustrate the Act's specific direction that in "any action" brought in state or federal court under this section, "the court shall receive the records of the administrative proceedings[.]" 20 U.S.C. Sec. 1415(e)(2).

The policies underlying this exhaustion requirement are both sound and important. States are given the power to place themselves in compliance with the law, and the incentive to develop a regular system for fairly resolving conflicts under the Act. Federal courts--generalists with no expertise in the educational needs of handicapped students--are given the benefit of expert factfinding by a state agency devoted to this very purpose. Such a mechanism is necessary to give effect to a fundamental policy underlying the EHA: "that the needs of handicapped children are best accommodated by having the parents and the local education agency work together to formulate an individualized plan for each handicapped child's education." Smith v. Robinson, 468 U.S. at 1012, 104 S.Ct. at 3468. Were federal courts to set themselves up as the initial arbiters of handicapped children's educational needs before the administrative process is used, they would endanger not only the procedural but also the substantive purposes of the Act. And both states and the federal government have a recognized interest in providing enforcement of the Act that is not only just but efficient. Riley v. Ambach, 668 F.2d at 640; Mitchell v. Walter, 538 F.Supp. at 1113. See also McKart v. United States, 395 U.S. 185, 193-95, 89 S.Ct. 1657, 1662-63, 23 L.Ed.2d 194 (1969) (reasons for doctrine of exhaustion of administrative remedies include need to allow administrative agency to apply its expertise and to develop the facts, efficiency, and protection of the authority of the administrative process).

In the present case the Commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Education raised the defense of the Crockers' failure to exhaust their administrative remedies in his answer, and he has raised the issue again on appeal. We need not, therefore, reach the question whether the exhaustion requirement is sufficiently jurisdictional that a court must, and may, raise it sua sponte, although we note that one court has so held. Parks v. Pavkovic, 536 F.Supp. at 302.

We agree with the Commissioner that the procedures which Tennessee provides under the EHA are adequate to provide them with any relief to which they are entitled under the Act, and that the plaintiffs were bound to avail themselves of those procedures. Tennessee provides a fully articulated process by which parents who are dissatisfied with the educational program provided for their handicapped child can obtain the due process hearing required under the Act. The relevant state statute and regulations specify that a parent can request a hearing by making a written complaint to the superintendent of the local school system, who must then contact the division of the state Department of Education charged with responsibility for overseeing implementation of the EHA. A hearing must then occur within 30 days, and a final decision must be reached within 45 days. The regulations specify the qualifications of the hearing officer and require that no appointment be given to any employee of a local school system or to anyone involved in the formulation of state policies for the education of handicapped children. Tenn.Code Ann. Sec. 49-10-601; Tenn.Comp.R. & Reg. ch. 0520-1-3-.09(5)(f).

The Crockers have not pointed out any deficiency in the administrative process devised by the state of Tennessee. Rather, they claim that the administrative process is unavailable to them because the state has delegated to the TSSAA its decisionmaking authority on the question of access to varsity sports...