DL v. Dist. of Columbia, Civil Case No. 05-1437 (RCL)

• Citation: 187 F.Supp.3d 1
• Decision Date: 18 May 2016
• Docket Number: Civil Case No. 05-1437 (RCL)
• Parties: DL, et al., Plaintiffs, v. District of Columbia, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Columbia

187 F.Supp.3d 1

DL, et al., Plaintiffs,

v.District of Columbia, et al., Defendants.

Civil Case No. 05-1437 (RCL)

United States District Court, District of Columbia.

Signed May 18, 2016

Bruce J. Terris, Todd A. Gluckman, Terris, Pravlik & Millian, LLP, Cyrus Mehri, Mehri & Skalet, PLLC, Jane M. Liu, Drinker Biddle & Reath, LLP, Jeffrey S. Gutman, George Washington University

Law School, Margaret A. Kohn, Law Office of Margaret Kohn, Washington, DC, for Plaintiffs.

HW, Washington, DC, pro se.

Timothy Lantry, Washington, DC, pro se.

Arlette Mankemi, Washington, DC, pro se.

Kerianne Piester, Washington, DC, pro se.

TL, Washington, DC, pro se.

Ronald Wisor, Washington, DC, pro se.

XY, Washington, DC, pro se.

Bryan Young, Washington, DC, pro se.

Tammika Young, Washington, DC, pro se.

Chad Wayne Copeland, Daniel Albert Rezneck, Matthew Robert Blecher, Robert C. Utiger, Samuel C. Kaplan, Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia, Washington, DC, for Defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

The Honorable Royce C. Lamberth, United States District Court Judge

Currently before the Court is defendants' motion [510] to dismiss as moot plaintiffs' Rehabilitation Act claims for the period before March 22, 2010. On June 10, 2015, the Court granted summary judgment for defendants with respect to plaintiffs' Rehabilitation Act claims for the period after March 22, 2010, finding that even if the District were in violation of the Individual with Disabilities Education Act, the city's actions during this time did not "rise to the level of bad faith or misjudgment." Mem. Op. 42, ECF No. 444. After this ruling, all that remained for trial under the Rehabilitation Act were plaintiffs' claims for the period prior to March 22, 2010.

The defendants now argue that these pre-2010 claims are moot because in light of the defendants' favorable ruling for March 22, 2010 to the present, it is "impossible for the court to grant any effectual relief whatever to [the] prevailing party." Defs.' Mot. to Dismiss the "Second Claim" of the Second Am. Compl. 1, ECF No. 510 (citing City of Erie v. Pap's A.M. , 529 U.S. 277, 287, 120 S.Ct. 1382, 146 L.Ed.2d 265 (2000) ). The Court will now reject this argument, finding that the "voluntary cessation" exception to the mootness doctrine applies in this case. Upon consideration of the motion, plaintiffs' opposition, defendants' reply, and the entire record herein, the Court will DENY defendants' motion to dismiss as moot what remains of plaintiffs' Rehabilitation Act claims.

I. BACKGROUND

At the heart of this case is the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act ("IDEA") and section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. Plaintiffs are residents of the District of Columbia and former preschool-age children with various disabilities who allege that the District failed to provide them a "free and appropriate public education" ("FAPE") as is required by law. The IDEA requires, among other things, that states accepting certain federal government funds must provide disabled children with a FAPE. 20 U.S.C. § 1412(a)(1) ; see also Mark H. v. Lemahieu , 513 F.3d 922, 925 (9th Cir.2008) (describing how the IDEA and the Rehabilitation Act's implementing regulations each require states to provide a FAPE to all disabled children). Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, on the other hand, is not limited solely to educational settings. It provides, more broadly, that "no otherwise qualified individual with a disability in the United States ... shall, solely by reason of her or his disability, be excluded from the participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance." 29 U.S.C. § 794(a) ; see also Mem. Op. 3, ECF No. 55. Indeed, in order to prevail on a section 504 claim, "plaintiffs must show that ‘something more than a mere failure to provide the ‘free and appropriate education’ required by the [IDEA]' has occurred." Mem. Op. 3–4, ECF No. 55 (quoting Walker v. District of Columbia , 157 F.Supp.2d 11, 35 (D.D.C.2011) ). As this Court has previously ruled, section 504 requires that plaintiffs show that defendants engaged in either "bad faith or gross misjudgment." Id. at 4 (citing Walker , 157 F.Supp.2d at 38 ).

The procedural history of this matter is lengthy and presented in detail in the Court's Memorandum Opinion dated June 10, 2015. See Mem. Op. 3–8, ECF No. 444. The Court need not rehash it here, but for the purposes of the present motion, it is important to highlight two features of the record. First, after conducting a trial in 2011, the Court found that the District of Columbia had violated both the IDEA and the Rehabilitation Act and issued an array of remedies. Id. at 5–6. Among them was a declaratory judgment stating:

Defendants violated Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act for the period January 1, 2008 to April 6, 2011 (the first day of trial) because, in violating the IDEA, defendants failed to exercise professional judgment in such a way as not to depart grossly from accepted standards among educational professionals and thus demonstrated bad faith or gross misjudgment.

Mem. Op. & Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law ¶ 137, ECF No. 294.

This ruling further extended the Court's August 10, 2010 summary judgment ruling, which found the defendants had violated the Rehabilitation Act "at least through and including the year 2007." Mem. Op. 23, ECF No. 198. Ultimately, the opinions and orders that ruled the defendants had violated the Rehabilitation Act were vacated by the D.C. Circuit on class certification grounds. See DL v. District of Columbia , 713 F.3d 120 (D.C.Cir.2013).

Later, after the D.C. Circuit vacated the Court's orders and remanded the case, the plaintiffs submitted a second amended complaint, proposing to separate the plaintiff class into four subclasses and reasserting their claims under the IDEA and the Rehabilitation Act. See Second Am. Compl. ¶¶ 79, 110–114, 115–119. The Court certified the four subclasses on November 8, 2013, see Order, ECF No. 388, and on June 10, 2015, the Court issued a summary judgment order ruling for the defendants on the plaintiffs' Rehabilitation Act claims for the period after May 22, 2010. See Order 2, ECF No. 445. Essentially, on March 22, 2010, the District issued comprehensive policies to comply with its Child Find and FAPE obligations. Mem. Op. 33, ECF No. 444. In doing so, the Court found that the District was "no longer responding to its failures with indifference and inaction," and therefore ruled for the defendants on summary judgment for the period after March 22, 2010. Id. at 39. With respect to the Rehabilitation Act, plaintiffs' claims for the period prior to March 22, 2010 were all that remained for trial. Id. at 40.

In its current motion, the District argues that the plaintiffs' Rehabilitation Act claims for the period preceding March 22, 2010 are moot because a "declaratory judgment based on the earlier period would have no operative effect on the parties' rights and relations." Defs.' Mot. 1, ECF No. 510. In response, plaintiffs argue that the voluntary cessation exception to the mootness doctrine applies and that a declaratory judgment for that time period would otherwise provide the plaintiffs with effective relief. See generally Pls.' Opp'n to Defs.' Mot. to Dismiss, ECF No. 516.

II. LEGAL STANDARD

A motion to dismiss for mootness is properly brought under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1). See Young v. D.C. Hous. Auth. , 31 F.Supp.3d 90, 94 (D.D.C.2014) (citing Flores v. District of Columbia , 437 F.Supp.2d 22, 25 n. 4 (D.D.C.2006) ). The rule imposes on the Court "an affirmative obligation to ensure that it is acting within the scope of its jurisdictional authority." Id. at 94–95 (citing Jones v. Ashcroft , 321 F.Supp.2d 1, 5 (D.D.C.2004) ). Indeed, mootness carries jurisdictional significance, as the "case or controversy" requirement of Article III permits courts to adjudicate only "actual, ongoing controversies." Honig v. Doe , 484 U.S. 305, 317, 108 S.Ct. 592, 98 L.Ed.2d 686 (1988). To elaborate, a case becomes moot when "when the issues presented are no longer ‘live’ or the parties lack a legally cognizable interest in the outcome," Cnty. of L.A. v. Davis , 440 U.S. 625, 631, 99 S.Ct. 1379, 59 L.Ed.2d 642 (1979) (citation omitted); see also Pharmachemie B.V. v. Barr Labs., Inc. , 276 F.3d 627, 631 (D.C.Cir.2002) ("[A case is moot when] events have so transpired that the decision will neither presently affect the parties' rights nor have a more than speculative chance of affecting them in the future." (citation omitted)), or when "intervening events makes it impossible to grant the prevailing party effective relief." Lemon v. Geren , 514 F.3d 1312, 1315 (D.C.Cir.2008) ; see also Spencer v. Kemna , 523 U.S. 1, 18, 118 S.Ct. 978, 140 L.Ed.2d 43 (1998) (stating that mootness deprives the Court of jurisdiction because "there is nothing for [the court] to remedy, even if [it] were disposed to do so").

Although the mootness doctrine generally requires a case to present an "actual, ongoing controvers[y]," Honig v. Doe , 484 U.S. 305, 317, 108 S.Ct. 592, 98 L.Ed.2d 686 (1988), an exception exists where a party has extinguished the controversy by voluntarily changing its allegedly unlawful conduct after the commencement of a lawsuit. See Cnty. of L.A. v. Davis , 440 U.S. 625, 631, 99 S.Ct. 1379 ("[V]oluntary cessation of allegedly illegal conduct does not deprive the tribunal of power to hear and determine the case, i.e., does not make the case moot."). Known as the "voluntary cessation exception," this rule responds to the imperative that "federal courts [ ] not leave a wily defendant ‘free to return to his old ways' " after a lawsuit is terminated. Sharp v. Rosa Mexicano, D.C. , 496 F.Supp.2d 93, 98–99 (D.D.C.2007) (quoting Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Envtl. Servs., Inc. , 528 U.S. 167, 189, 120 S.Ct. 693, 145 L.Ed.2d 610 (2000) ). That said, a Court may...