Clay v. Dist. of Columbia

Decision Date14 December 2011
Docket NumberCivil Action No. 09–1612 (BAH)(DAR).
Citation831 F.Supp.2d 36,279 Ed. Law Rep. 847
PartiesAnnie CLAY, et al., Plaintiffs, v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, Defendant.
CourtU.S. District Court — District of Columbia

OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE

Karen D. Alvarez, Washington, DC, for Plaintiffs.

Richard Allan Latterell, Office of Attorney General, Washington, DC, for Defendant.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

BERYL A. HOWELL, District Judge.

This case is a civil action to enforce rights under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (“IDEA”), as amended, 20 U.S.C. §§ 1400 et seq., as well as under the Fifth Amendment's due process clause. Compl. at 1. Congress enacted the IDEA “to ensure that all children with disabilities have available to them a free appropriate public Education [ (‘FAPE’) ] that emphasizes special education and related services designed to meet their unique needs and prepare them for further education, employment, and independent living.” Petties ex rel. Martin v. District of Columbia, 662 F.3d 564, 566 (D.C.Cir.2011) (quoting 20 U.S.C. § 1400(d)(1)(A)). The defendant in this case, the District of Columbia, filed a partial motion to dismiss, which the Court referred to a Magistrate Judge for a Report and Recommendation. Presently before the Court are the plaintiffs' objections to the Report and Recommendation dated September 9, 2011 of Magistrate Judge Deborah A. Robinson, ECF No. 29 (the “Report”), as well as the plaintiffs' motion to treat certain allegations in the Amended Complaint as admitted, ECF No. 24. For the reasons explained below, the Court will accept and adopt the Magistrate Judge's recommendations, with the clarifications and modifications explained in this Memorandum Opinion, and will grant the defendant's partial motion to dismiss. In addition, the Court will deny the plaintiffs' motion to treat certain allegations in the Amended Complaint as admitted.

I. DEFENDANT'S PARTIAL MOTION TO DISMISSA. Background

Magistrate Judge Robinson has described the background of this case in the Report. See Report at 47–50. The Court will therefore provide only a brief overview of the relevant facts. On August 25, 2009, Plaintiff Annie Clay, [i]n her own right” and on behalf of her granddaughter, commenced this civil action against the District of Columbia to enforce rights under the IDEA and the Fifth Amendment due process cause. Report at 47. The plaintiffs filed an Amended Complaint with leave of court on September 30, 2010.1Id.; ECF No. 18, Am. Compl. In the Amended Complaint, the plaintiffs “seek reversal of a Hearing Officer's Determination (HOD) issued May 28, 2009, which denied them [their rights under IDEA and the Fifth Amendment] in violation of 20 U.S.C. §§ 1415(b)(6), 1415(b)(7), 1415(c)(2), 1415(f), 1415(h) and the Fifth Amendment.” Report at 49. Plaintiffs “seek damages and injunctive relief for Defendant['s] violation of Plaintiff's Fifth Amendment and IDEA rights in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1983.” Id. The plaintiffs' Fifth Amendment and Section 1983 claims are based on allegations that the District violated the plaintiffs' IDEA and due process rights, inter alia, because the attorney who represented the District in the IDEA administrative proceeding filed a late and deficient response to the plaintiffs' complaint and a late notice of insufficiency and motion to dismiss, and because the hearing officer dismissed the plaintiffs' complaint at the administrative hearing. Am. Compl. ¶¶ 58–72.

The District of Columbia has filed a partial motion to dismiss the Amended Complaint pursuant to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6). Report at 49. Pursuant to Rule 12(b)(1), the District seeks to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction (1) the plaintiffs' IDEA claims involving school years 20032006 as barred by the statute of limitations, 2 and (2) the plaintiffs' Fifth Amendment and Section 1983 claims for failure to exhaust administrative remedies. Id. The partial motion to dismiss also seeks to dismiss the Fifth Amendment and Section 1983 claims under Rule 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. Id.

In the Report and Recommendation issued on September 9, 2011, the Magistrate Judge recommended dismissing the plaintiffs' claims involving school years 20032006 as barred by the statute of limitations. Id. at 51–53. The Magistrate Judge also recommended that the plaintiffs' Fifth Amendment and Section 1983 claims be dismissed for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. Id. at 53–55.

On September 23, 2011, the plaintiffs filed five objections to the Magistrate Judge's Report and Recommendation.3See Pls.' Objections to the Report and Recommendations of the Magistrate Judge (“Pls.' Obj.”), ECF No. 30. The District has responded to the objections. Def.'s Resp. to Pls.' Objections to the Report and Recommendations of the Magistrate Judge (“Def.'s Resp.”), ECF No. 31.

For the reasons explained below, the Court adopts the Magistrate Judge's recommendations, with the modifications and clarifications reflected in this Memorandum Opinion, and grants the partial motion to dismiss.

B. The Plaintiffs' Objections1. Objection Regarding The Designation Of The Complaint

The plaintiffs' first objection concerns whether the operative Complaint in this action, ECF No. 18, should be termed a “first” amended complaint or a “second” amended complaint. The plaintiffs object to parts of the Report that refer to the document as a “second” amended complaint, since the plaintiffs contend that they have only amended their complaint once, despite the procedural confusion that accompanied the amendment. See supra n. 1. This objection lacks legal significance. The Report has clearly identified the relevant version of the Complaint. Accordingly, this objection does not provide any basis for rejecting the Report's conclusions.

2. Objection Regarding The Designation Of School Years

The plaintiffs' second objection concerns the way the Report and the partial motion to dismiss have designated different school years for statute of limitations purposes. IDEA contains a two-year statute of limitations, see20 U.S.C. § 1415(b)(6)(B), (f)(3)(C), and the plaintiff filed the administrative claim underlying this case on March 19, 2009. Mem. in Supp. of Def.'s Mot. for Partial Dismissal of the Am. Compl., ECF No. 19, (“Def.'s Mot. to Dismiss Mem.”) at 7. Thus, the date occurring two years prior to the claim was March 19, 2007. The Report recommended that the Defendant's motion to dismiss Plaintiffs' IDEA claim for school years 20032006 be granted.” Report at 53. At the same time, the Report stated that it “makes no finding ... with respect to any claims regarding the 20062007 school year, since the Defendant did not move to dismiss Plaintiffs' IDEA claims concerning the 20062007 school year.” Id. The plaintiffs point out, correctly, that this section of the Report uses potentially misleading nomenclature to address the relevant school years. The plaintiffs contend, and the Court agrees, that it is clear from the Defendant's motion to dismiss that the Defendant did originally intend to seek dismissal of claims for the entirety of the 20062007 school year. See Def.'s Mot. to Dismiss Mem. at 7 ([A]ny claims prior to the 2007–08 school year are barred by the IDEA's two-year limitations period.”).

The defendant's response to the plaintiffs' instant objection now appears to concede that the plaintiff may have timely claims that originated during the latter part of the 20062007 school year, after the March 19, 2007 bar date. See Def.'s Resp. at 2. Thus, the defendant states that Plaintiffs' objections in this regard are moot.” Id. The defendant therefore appears to have responded to the plaintiffs' objection to the Report by narrowing the original grounds of its partial motion to dismiss in a manner consistent with the recommendation and the understanding of the Magistrate Judge. In other words, the defendant's motion, which originally sought to dismiss all claims prior to the 20072008 school year, now seeks only to dismiss all claims prior to the 20062007 school year, as recommended by the Magistrate Judge. In accordance with this understanding, the Magistrate Judge's recommendation to dismiss all claims prior to the 20062007 school year is accepted and those claims will be dismissed.

The plaintiff asserts that claims arising at any point during the 20062007 school year should be deemed timely, despite the fact that September 2006 through early March 2007 falls outside the limitations period. No authority for this argument of stretching the IDEA limitations period is cited by either party, however. See Report at 53 n. 4. In any event, whether the entire 20062007 school year is covered or just the final few months is of little practical import. The defendant's compliance with IDEA will be evaluated as of the March 19, 2007 bar date and the minor child's needs on that date will be cumulative of the entire year.

3. Objections Regarding Dismissal of the Fifth Amendment and Section 1983 Claims

The plaintiffs' third and fourth objections are that the Magistrate Judge improperly dismissed the Fifth Amendment and Section 1983 claims asserted in Counts VI and VII of the Amended Complaint. The claim in Count VI asserts that the Hearing Office, District of Columbia Public Schools, the Office of the State Superintendent of Education, and the District of Columbia violated the Fifth Amendment and Section 1983 “by depriving [the plaintiffs] of their claim for adjudication of their administrative complaint, without due process of law” and that these entities have a “custom or practice” of doing so. Am. Compl. ¶¶ 91–93. The claim in Count VII asserts that the same entities deprived the plaintiffs of their rights under IDEA, in violation of Section 1983, and that they have “custom or practice” of doing so. Id. ¶¶ 95–96.

The Magistrate Judge dismissed these claims because she found, inter...

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