Doe v. Boston Public Schools

• Decision Date: 20 May 2003
• Docket Number: No. CIV.A. 03-10404-WGY.,CIV.A. 03-10404-WGY.
• Parties: Jane DOE, Plaintiff, v. BOSTON PUBLIC SCHOOLS, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts

264 F.Supp.2d 65

Jane DOE, Plaintiff, v. BOSTON PUBLIC SCHOOLS, Defendant.

No. CIV.A. 03-10404-WGY.

United States District Court, D. Massachusetts.

May 20, 2003.

Richard Ames, S. Stephen Rosenfeld, Rosenfeld & Rafik, P.C., Boston, MA, for Jane Doe (Plaintiff).

Peter M. Kelley, Boston Public Schools, Boston, MA, Alissa Ocasio, Office of the Legal Advisor, Boston, MA, for Boston Public Schools (Defendant).

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

YOUNG, Chief Judge.

The instant motion to dismiss presents a single issue: whether the Supreme Court's decision in Buckhannon Board and Care Home Inc. v. West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources, 532 U.S. 598, 121 S.Ct. 1835, 149 L.Ed.2d 855 (2001), which was decided in the context of claims brought under the Fair Housing Amendments Act, 42 U.S.C. § 3601 et. seq., and the Americans With Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. § 12101 et. seq., also applies to claims brought under the Individuals with Disabilities Act (the "IDEA"), 20 U.S.C. § 1400 et. seq. If Buckhannon does apply to the IDEA, then only IDEA plaintiffs achieving a judicially-sanctioned change are entitled to attorneys' fees.

The First Circuit explicitly left this question open in Maine School Administrative District No. 35 v. Mr. and Mrs. R., noting that the instant appeal did not require its resolution. 321 F.3d 9, 15 n. 4 (1st Cir.2003). The two circuits that have considered the issue—the Second and Third Circuits—have both held that Buckhannon is indeed applicable to IDEA cases. See J.C. v. Reg. Sch. Dist. 10, Bd. of Educ., 278 F.3d 119 (2d Cir.2002); John T.ex rel. Paul T. v. Delaware County Intermediate Unit, 318 F.3d 545 (3rd Cir. 2003). The defendant, Boston Public Schools, urges this Court to follow their reasoning and dismiss the claim of the plaintiff, Jane Doe ("Doe"), for attorneys' fees.

I. INTRODUCTION

A. Facts

The following facts are drawn from Doe's complaint. Doe is an eighteen-yearold woman with a severe psychiatric disability. Compl. ¶¶ 4, 9. From November 27, 2001 to February 19, 2002, Doe was hospitalized in a psychiatric unit at the St. Elizabeth's Medical Center. Id. ¶ 6. On December 11, 2001, Doe's father wrote to the Boston Public Schools, informing them that the Department of Mental Health had evaluated Doe and recommended her placement in a residential program called the Lighthouse Program at the Children's Collaborative ("Lighthouse"). Id, ¶ 7.

Oh January 31, 2002, the Boston Public Schools held a team meeting about Doe's situation. There, they rejected Doe's father's request that Boston Public Schools pay for Doe's placement at the Lighthouse and instead proposed an Individualized Education Plan ("IEP") for Doe at the McKinley Vocational High School, a public high school operated by Boston Public Schools. Id. ¶ 8. On February 7, 2002, Doe, acting through her father, rejected this offer. Id. ¶ 13.

For the next eight months—between February 7, 2002 and October 9, 2002—the dispute continued between Doe and the Boston Public Schools. On February 19, 2002, Doe was discharged from the hospital and sent to the Lighthouse program, which is funded by the Department of Mental Health. Id. ¶ 16. On July 2, 2002, the parties participated in an unsuccessful mediation conducted by the Bureau of Special Education Appeals (the "Bureau"). Id. ¶ 18. On July 22, 2002, Doe filed a formal request for a hearing at the Bureau. Id. ¶ 19. After several postponements and a pre-hearing conference at which the dispute was continued, the hearing ultimately was set for October 9-11, 2002. Id. ¶ 32.

Approximately five minutes before the hearing was scheduled to begin on October 9, the lawyer for the Boston Public Schools informed Doe's counsel that Boston Public Schools had decided to settle the dispute by supporting a private educational day placement for Doe—precisely what Doe had been seeking throughout this process. Id. ¶ 38-41. Doe accepted this offer by signing the new IEP document containing this offer in front of the Hearing Officer. Id. ¶ 42. Doe subsequently filed a motion for the Hearing Officer to read the new IEP into the record; the Hearing Officer declined, noting that "the general [Bureau] practice has been for the Hearing Officer to decline to endorse or otherwise affirm parties' private settlement agreements by reading them into the record." Id. ¶ 45 and Ex. A (Bureau Ruling) at 10.

B. Procedural Posture

Doe subsequently filed the instant complaint in this Court, seeking attorneys' fees. Doe argues that the IDEA provides for attorneys' fees for prevailing parties and that she—by reason of the settlement providing her with her requested placement in a private therapeutic school—is a prevailing party. Boston Public Schools has moved to dismiss on grounds that the Supreme Court's Buckhannon limitation regarding who qualifies as a prevailing party should be applied to IDEA cases and that, under this definition, Doe is not a prevailing party and thus not entitled to attorneys' fees.

II. DISCUSSION

A. The Supreme Court's Buckhannon

Decision

Numerous civil rights statutes—including the IDEA—provide that a "prevailing party" is entitled to an award of attorneys' fees. Prior to the Supreme Court's Buckhannon decision in 2001, "prevailing parties" included parties who secured a judgment on the merits, parties who obtained a court-ordered settlement decree, and—in most circuits, including the First Circuit¹ —parties who "achieve[d] the desired result because the lawsuit brought about a voluntary change in the defendant's conduct," pursuant to the so-called "catalyst theory." Buckhannon, 532 U.S. at 601-02, 121 S.Ct. 1835.

In Buckhannon, a case that arose under the fee-shifting provisions of the Fair Housing Amendments Act (the "FHAA") and the Americans with Disabilities Act (the "ADA"), both of which include language awarding attorneys' fees to "prevailing parties," the Supreme Court rejected the catalyst theory. The Court explained:

A defendant's voluntary change in conduct, although perhaps accomplishing what the plaintiff sought to achieve by the lawsuit, lacks the necessary judicial imprimatur on the change. Our precedents thus counsel against holding that the term "prevailing party" authorizes an award of attorney's fees without a corresponding alteration in the legal relationship of the parties.

Id. at 605, 121 S.Ct. 1835. By contrast, the Court explained that a judgment on the merits or a court-ordered consent decree does "create the `material alteration of the legal relationship of the parties' necessary to permit an award of attorney's fees." Id. at 604,121 S.Ct. 1835.

The Court based its rejection of the catalyst theory on several factors. It noted the baseline American rule that each party should pay its own fees and the "general practice of not awarding fees to a prevailing party absent explicit statutory authority." Id. at 602, 121 S.Ct. 1835 (internal citations and quotation marks omitted). The Court then stated that the legislative history was ambiguous as to whether Congress intended fee awards pursuant to the "catalyst theory." Id. at 607-08, 121 S.Ct. 1835. The Court also noted that in using the term "prevailing party," Congress had employed a "legal term of art" that was defined, in Black's Law Dictionary, as a "party in whose favor a judgment is rendered." Id. at 603, 121 S.Ct. 1835. Finally, the Court stated that "a request for attorney's fees should not result in a second major litigation," which would often result from the catalyst theory, given that "a `catalyst theory' hearing would require analysis of the defendant's subjective motivations in changing its conduct ...." Id. at 609, 121 S.Ct. 1835 (internal citations and quotation marks omitted).

Buckhannon was, as noted above, decided in the context of the FHAA and the ADA, and questions have arisen as to its reach. Buckhannon itself used broad language indicating wide applicability. For example, in framing the issue addressed by its opinion, the Court did not single out the ADA and the FHAA but instead stated broadly:

Numerous federal statutes allow courts to award attorney's fees and costs to the "prevailing party." The question presented here is whether this term includes a party that has failed to secure a judgment on the merits or a court-ordered consent decree, but has nonetheless achieved the desired result because the lawsuit brought about a voluntary change in the defendant's conduct. We hold that it does not.

Id. at 600,121 S.Ct. 1835.

The Court also noted that Congress "has authorized the award of attorney's fees to the `prevailing party' in numerous statutes in addition to those at issue, such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 78 Stat. 259, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(k), the Voting Rights Act Amendments of 1975, 89 Stat. 402, 42 U.S.C. § 19731(e), and the Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Awards Act of 1976, 90 Stat. 2641, 42 U.S.C § 1988," and stated that "we have interpreted these fee-shifting provisions consistently ...." Id. at 602-603, n. 4, 121 S.Ct. 1835. This statement echoed the Court's previous statement in a case arising under Section 1988 that the standards it set forth for interpreting the term "prevailing party" would be "generally applicable in all cases in which Congress has authorized an award of fees to a `prevailing party.'" Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 433 n. 7, 103 S.Ct. 1933, 76 L.Ed.2d 40 (1983). Indeed, in Buckhannon itself, the Court—in assessing whether the legislative history supported the catalyst theory—examined not the legislative history of the Fair Housing Amendments Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act, but rather the legislative history of Section 1988. Buckhannon, 532 U.S. at 607-08,121 S.Ct. 1835.

Accordingly, in a recent First Circuit case involving attorneys' fees under Section 1988, New England Regional Council of Carpenters v. Kinton, 284 F.3d 9 (1st Cir.2002), the court did not even consider the possibility that Buckhannon might be limited solely to the...