Achievement Preparatory Acad. Pub. Charter Sch. v. Williams
| Decision Date | 25 August 2020 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action No. 19-cv-2596 (BAH) |
| Parties | ACHIEVEMENT PREPARATORY ACADEMY PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL, Plaintiff, v. CAROLYN WILLIAMS, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Columbia |
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Plaintiff Achievement Preparatory Academy, a public charter school for disabled children in Washington, D.C., seeks $107,950.56 in attorneys' fees, plus associated attorneys' fees from the instant lawsuit, from a parent, Carolyn Williams, and her attorneys (collectively, "defendants"), for fees incurred by plaintiff in successfully defending against three due process complaints filed under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act ("IDEA"), 20 U.S.C. §§ 1400 et seq., on behalf of Williams' two grade school children, referred to as A.B. and C.W., each of whom is entitled to receive special education services. See Pl.'s Compl. ("Complaint") ¶¶ 7, 44, 45, 83, 86, ECF No. 1; see id. 29-30, "Relief" ¶¶ F-J.1 In plaintiff's view, an administrative complaint filed on behalf of A.B. and two other such complaints filed on behalf of C.W. were "frivolous, unreasonable and without foundation." Id. at 29, "Relief" ¶¶ A-D. Pending before the Court are the parties' cross motions for summary judgment. Pl.'s Mot.Summ. J. ("Pl.'s MSJ"), ECF No. 18; Defs.' Cross Mot. Summ. J. ( ), ECF No. 20. For the reasons explained below, plaintiff's motion is denied, and defendants' motion is granted.
Between 2015 and 2019, Williams' two minor children, A.B. and C.W., attended school at plaintiff Achievement Preparatory Academy. The record reflects that Williams paid close attention to her sons' progress—or not—in school and monitored their behavior closely, including by ensuring that both children had the benefit of mental health care outside of the school with their own psychiatrists. Administrative Record ("AR") 8 at R-15-2, ECF No. 15-8 (); AR 25 at R-3-13, ECF No. 15-27 (); AR 27 at 16, ECF No. 15-29 (); id. at 52 ().2 During that time, while represented by attorneys employed by Williams' counsel, co-defendant James E. Brown & Associates ("JEB Firm"), a law firm that advocates exclusively on behalf of disabled children and their parents, Williams "filed six separate administrative due process complaints, three on behalf of each of her sons, against [plaintiff]." Compl. ¶ 7. Williams settled two of these six administrative complaints and withdrew one. The remaining three were dismissed with prejudice or denied, after administrative hearings, in Hearing Officer's Determinations ("HODs"). The issues that led to each of those six administrative complaints, including the three in which plaintiff prevailed and now seeks attorneys' fees in this lawsuit, arebriefly reviewed below to provide context for plaintiff's claim that these complaints were frivolous.
A.B. suffers from a variety of mental health conditions, including ADHD, bipolar disorder and anxiety, for which he has been prescribed several psychotropic drugs. See AR 8, R-1-11, ECF No. 15-8. After A.B. exhibited disruptive behaviors at school, including talking out of turn, failing to follow directions, throwing materials and name calling in classroom settings, plaintiff administered, on December 23, 2015, a psychological evaluation. Id. at R-1-1. Despite these behaviors, plaintiff found A.B. to be ineligible for special education services under the IDEA. Id. at R-2-4. A.B.'s behaviors persisted, however, leading to Williams' and her counsel to disagree with the ineligibility designation and to insist on a second psychological evaluation, which occurred on May 24, 2017. Id. at R-3-1. In that evaluation, the psychological evaluator found A.B. eligible for services under the IDEA. Id. at R-3-18.
Less than a month after A.B.'s second evaluation, Williams, represented by the JEB Firm, filed a due process complaint for A.B. ("A.B.'s First Complaint") on June 27, 2017. See AR 1 at 5, ECF No. 15-1. The following day, at an IEP meeting, plaintiff determined that A.B. was in fact eligible as a student with a disability under the IDEA and proceeded to develop his Individualized Education Program ("IEP"), which was completed on July 26, 2017, a month after A.B.'s First Complaint was filed. See AR 8 at R-4-6, R-8-3, ECF No. 15-8. Nearly a month later, on August 21, 2017, Williams and plaintiff "entered into settlement agreement resolving A.B.'s First Complaint," Compl. ¶ 11, which resulted in additional services for A.B. that had been requested by Williams and attorneys' fees for the JEB Firm, AR 2 ¶¶ 1-2, ECF No. 15-2. A.B.'s behavioral issues persisted, and Williams and her counsel asserted several times that A.B. needed a full-time therapeutic environment. See AR 8 at R-4-4, R-7-2, R-8-3. By the middle of the next school year, on November 17, 2017, both plaintiff and Williams finally agreed that A.B. needed to be placed at a therapeutic school. See id. at R-11-2 - R-11-3 (). A.B.'s IEP team finalized A.B.'s change in placement on December 19, 2017. See id. at R-14-3. Less than two weeks later, on December 26, 2017, Williams, represented by the JEB Firm, filed a second complaint ("A.B.'s Second Complaint") alleging that plaintiff had denied A.B. a free appropriate public education ("FAPE") between June 2017 and December 2017 by failing to provide an appropriate IEP with sufficient hours outside of general education and an appropriate placement. See AR 3 at 10, ECF No. 15-3. On January 16, 2018, A.B. began attending Accotink Academy, which is a private therapeutic day school in Virginia. Comp. ¶ 13; see also AR 8 at R-15-1, ECF No. 15-8. Thereafter, on February 7, 2018, defendants moved to withdraw the complaint, id. at R-28-1, and on February 26, 2018, the hearing officer granted the withdrawal request without prejudice, Compl. ¶16; AR 8 at R-27-51, ECF No. 15-8.
A.B. continued to attend school and receive services at Accotink Academy, but plaintiff remained A.B.'s local educational agency ("LEA"). The IEP team held nine IEP-related meetings for A.B. between February 15, 2017 and April 12, 2018, seven of which occurred prior to his change in placement to Accotink.3 Williams or her husband were always in attendance. See id. at R-2-1, R-4-1, R-7-1, R-8-1, R-11-1, R-13-1, R-14-1, R-15-1, R-19-1.
A.B.'s behavior escalated alarmingly on March 23, 2018, when he threatened to kill a teacher and tied a shoestring around his own neck while in class. Id. at R-17-2. These actionsprompted plaintiff to perform an informal psychiatric assessment and prompted defendants to request a formal psychiatric evaluation. See id. at R-17-1 - R-17-2. Plaintiff declined to pay for the requested psychiatric evaluation. See id. at R-21-1, R-22-2. This incident, paired with plaintiff's subsequent refusal to agree to Williams' request for a psychiatric evaluation of A.B., led Williams to file a third administrative complaint on July 26, 2018. See AR 4 at 5, ECF No. 15-4. At an administrative hearing, Williams, represented by JEB Firm, presented testimony from three expert witnesses, two of whom were medical professionals and each of whom opined that A.B.'s increasingly aggressive behavior and homicidal and suicidal threats warranted a psychiatric evaluation. AR 10 at 29, ECF No. 15-12 (Testimony of Tom Dennis Gates, FPMHNP4) ( that A.B. "would definitely need a psychiatric evaluation" because "[A.B.] has a lot of behavioral problem[s] that can be a safety risk not only to himself but to others, teacher[s], staff and students" and suggesting that "there is a chemical imbalance somewhere [in A.B.] where he is unable to control himself or his impulses"); id. at 62 (Testimony of Leah Kennedy, Special Education Advocate for JEB Firm) (articulating opinion that A.B. needed a psychiatric evaluation because of "the increase in the nature of his behaviors, [including] him getting a shoe lace and showing that he wanted to try to commit suicide twice and because of his homicidal threats to staff"); id. at 91 (Testimony of Dr. Ashley Elliott, Psy.D.) ( that A.B. may require a psychiatric evaluation to get "more data and get a little bit more clarity on what was fueling [A.B.'s] behaviors and what was behind the internalizing of his emotional state"). Nevertheless, the hearing officer concluded that Williams "did not sustain the burden of persuasion by a preponderance of the evidence that [plaintiff] denied [A.B.] a FAPE by failing [to] conduct or authorize funding of a psychiatric evaluation," and therefore dismissedher complaint, with prejudice, on November 10, 2018. AR 13 at 10, 13, ECF No. 15-15. As the prevailing party, plaintiff now seeks $30,900 in attorneys' fees for its successful defense of A.B.'s Third Complaint. Compl. at 29, "Relief" ¶ F.
Like his brother, C.W. suffers from mental health conditions that affect his behavior in school. He was diagnosed with ADHD in September 2015. See AR 25 at R-7-2, ECF No. 15-27. One of his psychological evaluators commented that he also exhibits "significant characteristics of . . . [a c]onduct [d]isorder." Id. at R-10-12. During the time C.W. was plaintiff's student, he exhibited disruptive behaviors, including exposing himself to other students, see id. at R-23-1 - R-23-8, refusing to follow directions, see id. at R-25-2, exhibiting aggressive behaviors and engaging in negative interactions with school personnel and his peers, see id. at R-26-1, and inappropriate sexual comments, see id. at R-23-1. Notwithstanding...
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