Doe v. Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools

• Decision Date: 13 February 1998
• Docket Number: No. 96-6103,96-6103
• Citation: 133 F.3d 384
• Parties: 123 Ed. Law Rep. 37 Michael DOE, by and through his parents and next friends, Mr. and Mrs. Bill DOE, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. METROPOLITAN NASHVILLE PUBLIC SCHOOLS; Dr. Richard Benjamin, in his official capacity, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

Page 384

133 F.3d 384

123 Ed. Law Rep. 37

Michael DOE, by and through his parents and next friends Mr. and Mrs. Bill DOE, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. METROPOLITAN NASHVILLE PUBLIC SCHOOLS; Dr. Richard Benjamin, in his official capacity, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 96-6103.

United States Court of Appeals Sixth Circuit.

Argued Oct. 23, 1997.

Decided Jan. 5, 1998.

Rehearing and Suggestion for Rehearing En Banc Denied Feb. 13, 1998.

Jack W. Derryberry, Jr. (argued and briefed), Ward, Derryberry & Thompson, Nashville, TN, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Rachel D. Allen (argued), Metropolitan Department of Law, Nashville, TN, John D. Kitch (briefed), Kitch & Garman, Nashville, TN, Judith Jo Shell (briefed), Metropolitan Department of Law, Nashville, TN, for Defendants-Appellees.

Before: KEITH, BOGGS, and NORRIS, Circuit Judges.

OPINION

BOGGS, Circuit Judge.

Michael Doe, through his parents, sued the Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools (Metro) under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), seeking review of an adverse decision by a Tennessee Administrative Law Judge. The ALJ had denied Doe (or, more precisely, his parents) reimbursement for expenses associated with his special education at a private school.

The district court granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment, holding that Doe's parents had decided unilaterally to place him at the private school. The district court determined that, because Metro had not been given the opportunity to evaluate Doe and construct an individualized educational plan, it was not obligated to reimburse the Does. The district court awarded summary judgment despite the existence of several disputed issues of material fact. We reverse the district court and remand this case for further proceedings.

I

Michael Doe, a resident of Nashville, is learning disabled and has been diagnosed as emotionally disturbed. In 1992, when he was 12 years old, Michael was dismissed from Benton Hall, a private, special-education school in Nashville, for "assaultive" and "aggressive" behavior. At that point, Michael had only attended private schools, all in the Nashville area. After his dismissal from Benton Hall, however, his parents decided to place him in the Grove School, a private school in Connecticut. They made this decision without Metro's knowledge or input.

In October 1993, after Michael had been at Grove for a year, his parents requested a multi-disciplinary team (M-Team) meeting with Metro, ¹ in order to consider Michael's educational needs. They also sought reimbursement for the expenses associated with sending Michael to Grove. After the third M-Team meeting, in April 1994, Metro certified Michael's eligibility for its special-education services and placed him in a local school. Metro refused, however, to reimburse the Does for Michael's education at Grove, since the decision to place him there had been made without their knowledge or input. After the six-month pendency of the M-Team review, during which Michael continued to attend Grove, the Does' expenses totalled $87,155.

Michael's parents requested a due-process hearing before a Tennessee state administrative law judge. They once again sought reimbursement for the cost of sending Michael to Grove, and they argued that Metro had failed to live up to the "child-find" requirements of IDEA, under which school districts must locate and evaluate disabled children within their jurisdictions.

The ALJ found that the school's child-find efforts were inadequate. Nonetheless, she determined that Metro's failure was outweighed in Michael's case by the Does' actual knowledge of available services. The ALJ concluded that Doe's placement at Grove was unilateral, that the unilateral character of the decision was a result of the Does' knowing failure to act rather than of Metro's laxity, and that reimbursement was thus inappropriate.

Pursuant to 20 U.S.C. § 1415(e), the Does brought a civil action to challenge the ALJ's decision, in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee. Metro moved for summary judgment. In response, Doe argued that summary judgment was inappropriate because the ALJ's findings were not undisputed, and because both parties intended to move for additional development of the record if the court denied summary judgment. The district court granted the motion, simply affirming the ALJ's findings, without specifically holding that there were no disputed issues of material facts. Doe then filed this timely appeal.

II

A

Under IDEA, the district court uses a "modified de novo" standard for reviewing state administrative determinations. Doe v. Board of Educ., 9 F.3d 455, 458 (6th Cir.1993) (applying Board of Educ. v. Rowley, 458 U.S. 176, 206, 102 S.Ct. 3034, 3050-51, 73 L.Ed.2d 690 (1982)), cert. denied, 511 U.S. 1108, 114 S.Ct. 2104, 128 L.Ed.2d 665 (1994). This means that the district court should perform a de novo review, but it "should give due weight to the state administrative proceedings in reaching its decision." Doe, 9 F.3d at 458 (quoting Roncker ex rel. Roncker v. Walter, 700 F.2d 1058, 1062 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 864, 104 S.Ct. 196, 78 L.Ed.2d 171 (1983)). The Supreme Court warned courts against substituting "their own notions of sound educational policy for those of the school authorities which they review," and derived the due weight requirement from "[t]he fact that § 1415(e) requires that the reviewing court 'receive the records of the [state] administrative proceedings....' " Rowley, 458 U.S. at 206, 102 S.Ct. at 3051 (quoting 20 U.S.C. § 1415(e)).

Unfortunately, neither Rowley nor any of our cases interpreting it tells us explicitly what weight is "due." Cf. Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471, 481, 92 S.Ct. 2593, 2600, 33 L.Ed.2d 484 (1972) ("Once it is determined that due process applies, the question remains what process is due."). Other circuits have interpreted the standard in various ways. See, e.g., Fort Zumwalt Sch. Dist. v. Clynes, 119 F.3d 607, 610 (8th Cir.1997) (weight due is less than that under the "substantial evidence" test, but court should consider the state hearing panel's expertise and opportunity to observe demeanor evidence); Hartmann v. Loudoun County Bd. of Educ., 118 F.3d 996, 1000-01 (4th Cir.1997) ("Administrative findings in an IDEA case 'are entitled to be considered prima facie correct,' and 'the district court, if it is not going to follow them, is required to explain why it does not.' "); Roland M. v. Concord Sch. Comm., 910 F.2d 983, 989-90 (1st Cir.1990) ("Hence, the court must render ... a 'bounded, independent decision[ ]--bounded by the administrative record and additional evidence, and independent by virtue of being based on a preponderance of the evidence before the court.' "), cert. denied, 499 U.S. 912, 111 S.Ct. 1122, 113 L.Ed.2d 230 (1991).

Each of these interpretations of the due weight standard is sensible, and they are not mutually exclusive. For present purposes, though, we need not resolve the meaning of "due weight" definitively. We hold only that "due weight" does not mean that the district court can simply adopt the state administrative findings without an independent re-examination of the evidence. Unless the re-examination revealed that no material facts were in dispute, the district court would then have to weigh the evidence, which is never appropriate at the summary judgment stage. See Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, 477 U.S. 242, 249, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 2510-11, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986).

Although the ALJ had reached her own conclusions, the parties wanted to exercise their right in district court to re-contest the facts and to present additional evidence. See 20 U.S.C. § 1415(e)(2). As such, if genuine issues of material fact remained, summary judgment was inappropriate. ² See Anderson, 477 U.S. at 247-48, 106 S.Ct. at 2509-10 (1986); Tennessee Dep't of Mental Health v. Paul B., 88 F.3d 1466, 1472 (6th Cir.1996) (using the traditional summary-judgment standard in an IDEA context). The district court failed to apply the proper summary judgment standard, and even if it had done so, it would have been required to reject summary judgment.

B

Metro argues that even if the district court had used the proper standard, it was still entitled to summary judgment because of the Does' admitted knowledge of the general availability of services. The decisive facts, Metro asserts, are that the Does knew they could obtain services from Metro; that they chose not to; that their placement of Michael at Grove was thus unilateral; and that reimbursement is therefore inappropriate per se.

It is well settled that parents whose children are already in the public system (that is, they have been evaluated by local officials and are receiving a publicly-funded education, whether in a public or private school) act at their own risk when they unilaterally move a child to a different school. Only where the court later determines that the original placement was improper under IDEA can the parents be reimbursed for the...