C.G. ex rel. A.S. v. Five Town Community School

• Decision Date: 18 January 2008
• Docket Number: No. 07-1708.,07-1708.
• Citation: 513 F.3d 279
• Parties: C.G. and B.S., As Parents and Next Friends of A.S., A Minor, Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. FIVE TOWN COMMUNITY SCHOOL DISTRICT et al., Defendants, Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

513 F.3d 279

C.G. and B.S., As Parents and Next Friends of A.S., A Minor, Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. FIVE TOWN COMMUNITY SCHOOL DISTRICT et al., Defendants, Appellees.

No. 07-1708.

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

Heard November 7, 2007.

Decided January 18, 2008.

Staci K. Converse, with whom Richard L. O'Meara and Murray, Plumb & Murray were on brief, for appellants.

James C. Schwellenbach, with whom Drummond Woodsum & MacMahon was on brief, for appellees.

Before LYNCH, Circuit Judge, CAMPBELL and SELYA, Senior Circuit Judges.

SELYA, Senior Circuit Judge.

This case requires us to examine the rights of a disabled child under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), 20 U.S.C. §§ 1400-1415. The principal issue, scantily addressed in the case law, involves how judicial review should proceed when the last individualized education program (IEP) proposed by the school system is incomplete.

Here, the district court found that the IEP's incompleteness was due to the parents' obstruction of the developmental process. It proceeded to consider extrinsic evidence and concluded that, had the parents permitted the process to run its course, the school system would have provided the child with a satisfactory IEP. On that basis, it decreed that the parents were not entitled either to reimbursement for costs incurred in a private placement or to compensatory education benefits.

The parents now appeal. We conclude that the lower court committed no clear error in weighing the facts. While we reach the same ultimate conclusion as did the court below, that court's meticulous factfinding allows us to take a different, more direct analytic path. In the end, we affirm the judgment below.

I. BACKGROUND

The district judge, in the first instance, referred this case to a magistrate judge for a report and recommendation. See 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1); Fed.R.Civ.P. 72(b). The magistrate judge canvassed the record, made extensive findings of fact, and set forth various conclusions of law. C.G. & B.S. v. Five Town Cmty. Sch. Dist., Civ. No. 05-237 (D.Me. Feb. 12, 2007) . The, district judge, in a summary order, adopted the magistrate judge's recommended analysis in its entirety and entered judgment accordingly. C.G. & B.S. v. Five Town Cmty. Sch. Dist., Civ. No. 05-237 (D.Me. Apr. 6, 2007). For simplicity's sake, we do not distinguish further between the magistrate judge and the district judge but, rather, take an institutional view and refer only to "the district court."¹

We recount the background facts as supportably found by the district court. C.G. and B.S. are the parents of A.S., a teenage girl who suffers from an emotional disability. The family resides in Camden, Maine. Five Town Community School District (the School District) is the school system in which A.S. is entitled to receive public education.

The parents first met formally with Five Town about A.S.'s potential to qualify for services under the IDEA on March 3, 2004. They requested that the School District pay for A.S., who was then fourteen years old, to enroll in a private residential placement. Before the School District could evaluate the bona fides of this request, A.S. hit a crisis point and her parents unilaterally transferred her into a private residential placement outside of Maine. The parents do not seek to recover the costs of that placement in this appeal, so we make no further mention of it.

Notwithstanding efforts on the part of the School. District to re-start the IDEA eligibility process, nothing of consequence happened for well over a year. In the interim (unbeknownst to the School District), A.S. returned to Maine, enrolled for several months as a residential student in a private school, and upon leaving spent two additional months without any scholastic affiliation.

In June of 2005, A.S.'s parents demanded a due process hearing under the IDEA. See 20 U.S.C. § 1415(f). The School District sought to meet with them in order to resume the earlier eligibility discussions. The due process hearing was deferred pending the completion of this attempt to reach a consensus.

The common practice is to form a team of parents, teachers, school administrators, and others to evaluate a child with a disability and, if she is found eligible for remedial services, to develop an IEP. See id § 1414(d)(1)(8) & (d)(3). In Maine, this cohort is called a Peer Evaluation Team (PET). See 05-071-101 Me.Code R. §:§ 1.4, 8.1. The School District assembled such a team and scheduled the initial PET meeting for September 1, 2005. During that session, the parents agreed that an independent evaluator, Dr. Frank McCabe, could assess A.S.

After the PET participants received the evaluator's report, the School District scheduled a second PET meeting for October 12, 2005. At that session, the participants discussed the evaluator's assessment, concluded that A.S. qualified for services as a disabled child, and began work to develop an IEP. The participants jointly delineated the main components to be included in the IEP and noted areas of the IEP that would require additional input from A.S., her therapist, and her parents.

During the same meeting, some placement options were discussed. The independent evaluator indicated that A.S. could receive an adequate and appropriate education in a public school day program. In response, the School District described some public school options, including Camden Hills Regional High School (CHRHS) and the Zenith program. A.S. previously had attended CHRHS, and her parents expressed concern about a placement there. They seemed willing, however, to learn more about the Zenith non-residential day program or any similar regime.

The School District indicated that it would send the parents a copy of a proposed IEP prior to the next PET meeting. On October 18, 2005, it transmitted an IEP document to the parents by facsimile. The October 18 version of the IEP included the main components of the program to which the participants previously had agreed. Consistent with the discussions at the October 12 conclave, however, the IEP left open other areas for later development. It is nose-on-the-face plain from even a cursory inspection of the October 18 submission that the IEP was not intended to constitute a completed IEP.²

The next PET meeting took place on October 20, 2005. At that session, the participants discussed placement options. The meeting was "very contentious." Five Town, 2007 WL 494994, at *18. The participants quickly reached an impasse: the parents insisted that A.S. be educated in a therapeutic residential setting, whereas the School District insisted that a non-residential public school placement could provide A.S. with an adequate and appropriate education. The meeting ended abruptly when the parents announced that they had decided to send A.S. to the F.L. Chamberlain School (an out-of-state residential institution) and would seek reimbursement for the costs incurred. The meeting never progressed to a discussion either of the IEP or of low to fill the gaps in it.

A.S.'s parents memorialized their unilateral placement decision in a letter sent the following week to the School District. Given this parting of the ways, the due process hearing moved forward. Arguing that the School District's proposed IEP and refusal to sanction a residential placement betokened a failure to provide A.S. with a free and appropriate public education (FAPE), the parents sought compensatory education and/or reimbursement for the expenses incurred in educating A.S. at Chamberlain. The School District denied any breach of its duties under the IDEA. The hearing went forward, and the hearing officer ultimately rejected the parents' entreaties.

Undaunted, the parents shifted the battleground to the federal district court. See 20 U.S.C. § 1415(i)(2)(A). As previously noted, the district judge, on de novo review of the magistrate judge's report and recommendation, upheld the hearing officer's ukase. This appeal followed.

II. ANALYSIS

In IDEA cases, as elsewhere, we review the district court's answers to questions of law de novo and its findings of fact for clear error. Lenn v. Portland Sch. Comm., 998 F.2d 1083, 1087 (1st Cir.1993); Roland M. v. Concord Sch. Comm., 910 F.2d 983, 990-91 (1st Cir.1990). Clear-error review demands substantial deference to the trier; under that standard, we may reverse only if the record, read as a whole, gives rise to a "strong, unyielding belief that a mistake has been made." Lenn, 998 F.2d at 1087 (quoting Cumpiano v. Banco Santander P.R., 902 F.2d 148, 152 (1st Cir.1990)). Whether an IEP is adequate and appropriate is a mixed question of law and fact. Thus, appellate review involves a degree-of-deference continuum, which takes into account whether particular aspects of that determination are fact-dominated or law-dominated. Mr. I. v. Me. Sch. Admin. Dist. No. 55, 480 F.3d 1, 10 (1st Cir.2007); see In re Extradition of Howard, 996 F.2d 1320, 1327-28 (1st Cir.1993).

Here, the parents' chief argument is that the district court applied an improper legal rule in evaluating the October 18 IEP. In turn, this argument depends on whether the IEP was complete (and if not, why not). In addressing it, we will first step back and sketch the architecture of the IDEA. Once this is done, we will consider the completeness of the proffered IEP, the cause of its stunted growth, whether the die was cast at that point, and the parents' prayers for relief.

A. The IDEA.

Congress designed the IDEA as part of an effort to help states provide educational services to disabled children. Each state receiving federal funding through its provisions must ensure that every disabled school-age child receives a FAPE. 20 U.S.C. § 1412(a)(1)(A). A FAPE encompasses special education and support services provided free of charge. See id. § 1401(9). A school system has met this obligation as long as the program that it offers to a...