Connecticut Opa v. Hartford Bd. of Educ.
| Decision Date | 15 September 2006 |
| Docket Number | Docket No. 05-1240 CV. |
| Citation | 464 F.3d 229 |
| Parties | STATE OF CONNECTICUT OFFICE OF PROTECTION AND ADVOCACY FOR PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES and James McGaughey, Executive Director, State of Connecticut, Office of Protection & Advocacy for Persons with Disabilities, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. HARTFORD BOARD OF EDUCATION, Hartford Public Schools and Robert Henry, Supt. of Schools, Defendants-Appellants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit |
Nancy B. Alisberg, Managing Attorney, Office of Protection & Advocacy for Persons with Disabilities, Hartford, Connecticut, for Plaintiffs-Appellees.
Ann F. Bird, Assistant Corporation Counsel, City of Hartford, Hartford, Connecticut, for Defendants-Appellants.
Peter D. Keisler, Assistant Attorney General, United States Dept. of Justice, Washington, D.C.; Kevin J. O'Connor, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, New Haven, Connecticut; Gregory G. Katsas, Deputy Assistant Attorney General; Mark B. Stern and Sharon Swingle, Attorneys, Civil Division, United States Dept. of Justice, Washington, D.C., for Amici Curiae the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services.
Saul P. Morgenstern, Kaye Scholer LLP, New York, New York, for Amicus Curiae National Association of Protection and Advocacy Systems, Inc.
Kelly Balser, Senior Staff Attorney, Connecticut Association of Boards of Education, Wethersfield, Connecticut, for Amicus Curiae Connecticut Association of Boards of Education.
Before: SOTOMAYOR and RAGGI, Circuit Judges, and CEDARBAUM, District Judge.*
This appeal raises the question of whether the Protection and Advocacy for Individuals with Mental Illness Act ("PAIMI"), 42 U.S.C. §§ 10801-10851 (2000),1 the Developmental Disabilities Assistance and Bill of Rights Act of 2000 ("DD Act"), 42 U.S.C. §§ 15001-15115 (2000), and the Protection and Advocacy of Individual Rights Act ("PAIR"), 29 U.S.C. § 794e (2000) (collectively, the "P & A Acts") authorize plaintiffs-appellees the State of Connecticut Office of Protection and Advocacy ("OPA") and its executive director, James McGaughey, (1) to observe and interview students at the Hartford Transitional Learning Academy (the "Academy"), a therapeutic school for students who are seriously emotionally disturbed, in order to investigate complaints of abuse and neglect at the school, and (2) to obtain a directory of students with contact information for their parents or guardians. For the reasons that follow, we hold that the P & A Acts authorize OPA to access the Academy during school hours and to obtain a directory of students and contact information for their parents or guardians.
Defendants-appellants Hartford Board of Education, Hartford Public Schools, and Superintendent of Schools Robert Henry (collectively, "defendants") initially argued on appeal that, even if the P & A Acts authorize OPA to access the Academy and its students and to obtain a list of students and contact information for their parents or guardians, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act ("FERPA"), 20 U.S.C. § 1232g (2000 & Supp. IV), and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act ("IDEA"), 20 U.S.C. §§ 1400-1487 (2000 & Supp. IV), nonetheless bar their compliance with OPA's requests. Following oral argument and the submission of a joint amicus brief by the United States Departments of Education and Health and Human Services, however, defendants abandoned their arguments based on FERPA and the IDEA, and we therefore do not address them. We affirm the injunction.
The Academy is a public school in Hartford, Connecticut, that is under defendants' authority. The Academy provides a "therapeutic educational program" for children who are seriously emotionally disturbed and who present challenging behavioral problems. All students enrolled at the Academy have been identified as requiring special education or related services under the IDEA. The parents or guardians of students enrolled there are required to sign a document acknowledging the school's use of physical restraints and seclusion.
OPA is a state-created agency that is authorized to investigate suspected abuse or neglect of individuals with disabilities or mental illness in Connecticut and to advocate on their behalf. See Conn. Gen.Stat. §§ 46a-10 to 46a-11 (2004). It serves as Connecticut's protection and advocacy system ("P & A system") for purposes of PAIMI, 42 U.S.C. § 10801(b)(2), the DD Act, id. § 15043(a), and PAIR, 29 U.S.C. § 794e(f), which provide federal funding only for states with qualifying P & A systems that monitor the care of and advocate on behalf of individuals with mental illness and developmental or other disabilities. See 29 U.S.C. § 794e(a)(1), (f); 42 U.S.C. §§ 10801, 15001.
OPA alleges that it received complaints from parents of students at the Academy about the inappropriate use of physical restraints and seclusion at the school.2 Parents also complained that students had been injured during the restraint process. As a result of these complaints, as well as allegations that students had been placed at the Academy without proper behavioral assessments or adequate individualized educational plans as required by the IDEA, OPA determined that it had probable cause to suspect that Academy students had been, or were at risk of being, subject to abuse and neglect. In conjunction with the State of Connecticut Office of the Child Advocate ("OCA"), OPA opened an investigation into possible abuse and neglect at the Academy. OCA is a state-created agency charged with monitoring services provided to children by the State of Connecticut or by organizations, such as school districts, that receive state funds, and with reviewing complaints about those services. See Conn. Gen.Stat. § 46a-131(a)(1)-(3) (2004).
On February 3, 2004, OPA and OCA sent Superintendent Henry a letter informing him that they had received complaints about the treatment of students at the Academy and would be investigating the alleged "programmatic deficiencies and violations of student rights" pursuant to their authority under federal and state law. The letter further informed Superintendent Henry that OPA and OCA intended to make an initial visit to the Academy at nine o'clock on the morning of February 10, 2004, and that the investigation would include "policy review, record review, interviews and direct observation of practices."
On February 10, 2004, representatives from OPA and OCA visited the Academy as promised. The Academy refused them access to the facility, the students, and the documents they had requested. Representatives from OPA, OCA, and defendants, including Superintendent Henry, met to discuss the matter on April 7, 2004. At the meeting, defendants agreed to, and later did, provide certain documents to OPA and OCA. These documents, however, did not contain any personal information regarding Academy students. Specifically, defendants did not provide the directory information — a list of students and contact information for their parents or guardians — that OPA sought. Defendants also refused to allow OPA and OCA access to the Academy during school hours to observe or interview students. They claimed that access to students and the disclosure of directory information was not authorized by the P & A Acts and was prohibited by FERPA and the IDEA.
On August 11, 2004, OPA filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut (Janet C. Hall, J.) seeking (1) a declaration that it was entitled to observe and interview students at the Academy during school hours and to obtain a list of the names and contact information for all the students and their parents and (2) a corresponding injunction. Because the parties stipulated to the relevant facts, the district court consolidated the hearings on the preliminary and permanent injunctions. See Conn. Office of Prot. & Advocacy for Persons with Disabilities v. Hartford Bd. of Educ., 355 F.Supp.2d 649, 652 (D.Conn.2005) ("OPA").
In a thorough and thoughtful opinion, the district court granted the relief OPA sought. Courts have concluded that a P & A system's inability to meet its federal statutory mandate to protect and advocate for the rights of individuals with disabilities is an irreparable harm for purposes of injunctive relief. Id. at 653. With respect to the merits, the district court first concluded that the Academy students fall within the protections of the P & A Acts on the basis of defendants' concession that most students would be classified as individuals with mental illness within the definition of PAIMI, and OPA's reasonable belief that some, if not most, of the students had developmental or other disabilities given that all the students are diagnosed as "substantially emotionally impaired" and in need of special education and related services. Id. at 665-66. The court next held that the Academy was a "facility" under PAIMI that OPA is authorized to access. Id. at 657-60. In doing so, the court rejected defendants' assertion that PAIMI does not apply to non-residential facilities or to individuals with disabilities who live at home. Id. at 658-59.
The court further held that, under the P & A Acts, OPA is entitled to a list of students and the contact information for their parents or guardians. Id. at 661-64. The court concluded that a minor student's parents can be considered his or her "legal guardian[s]" for purposes of the P & A Acts so that OPA can contact them in order to secure consent to view that student's records. Id. at 661-62. Finally, the district court held that neither FERPA nor the IDEA bars OPA from obtaining the names and contact information of students and their parents or guardians. Id. at 662-63.
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