Frazier v. Fairhaven School Committee

• Decision Date: 05 November 2001
• Docket Number: No. 01-1130,01-1130
• Citation: 276 F.3d 52
• Parties: (1st Cir. 2002) KATE FRAZIER ET AL., Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. FAIRHAVEN SCHOOL COMMITTEE ET AL., Defendants, Appellees. Heard
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

Page 52

276 F.3d 52 (1st Cir. 2002)

KATE FRAZIER ET AL., Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. FAIRHAVEN SCHOOL COMMITTEE ET AL., Defendants, Appellees.

No. 01-1130

United States Court of Appeals For the First Circuit

Heard Nov. 5, 2001

Decided January 9, 2002

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS. Hon. Reginald C. Lindsay, U.S. District Judge

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Michael W. Turner for appellants.

Gerald Fabiano, with whom Pierce, Davis & Perritano, LLP was on brief, for appellees.

Before Selya, Circuit Judge, Coffin, Senior Circuit Judge, and Lipez, Circuit Judge.

SELYA, Circuit Judge.

This appeal requires us to decide three issues of first impression in this circuit. Answering a question that has divided our sister circuits, we hold that a plaintiff who alleges that local educational officials have flouted her right to a free and appropriate public education may not bring suit for money damages under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 without first exhausting the administrative process established by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). We next conclude that same-sex discrimination is actionable under Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972 (although, due to shortcomings in the amended complaint, the district court's dismissal of that claim nonetheless must stand). Finally, we hold that the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) does not confer a private right of action upon either an aggrieved student or her parents. The upshot is that we affirm the district court's dismissal of the plaintiffs' amended complaint.

I. BACKGROUND

We approach this appeal mindful that we must accept as true all well-pleaded factual averments contained in the operative pleading (the plaintiffs' amended complaint) and indulge all reasonable inferences in favor of the pleading parties. See Aulson v. Blanchard, 83 F.3d 1, 3 (1st Cir. 1996); see also Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6).

We start by identifying the principal players. The plaintiffs in this case are Kate Frazier (a young woman alleged to suffer from learning disabilities) and her parents, Bradford and Judith Frazier. Their suit, commenced on January 15, 1999, grows out of Kate's matriculation at, and her troubled five-year odyssey through, high school in a bucolic southeastern Massachusetts community (the town of Fairhaven). The defendants are the Fairhaven School Committee, the superintendent of schools, the principal of Fairhaven High School, and two mid-level school administrators (a guidance counselor and a discipline matron).

The lower court has written a thoughtful, closely reasoned opinion in which it has catalogued the plaintiffs' allegations in considerable detail. See Frazier v. Fairhaven Sch. Comm., 122 F. Supp. 2d 104, 106-08 (D. Mass. 2000). It would be pleonastic to repeat that recital here. Thus, we proceed directly to the issues that confront us, referring those who hunger for factual context to the district court's account.

Insofar as is pertinent here, the amended complaint asserts three claims arising under federal law: (1) a claim that the defendants frustrated Kate's right to a free and appropriate public education and, therefore, are liable for money damages under 42 U.S.C. § 1983; (2) a claim that the high school's discipline matron sexually harassed Kate during school hours and, therefore, that the defendants are liable for money damages under Title IX; and (3) a claim that the defendants infringed Kate's right to privacy anent her school records and, therefore, that they are liable for money damages under FERPA. After some preliminary skirmishing (not material here), the defendants moved to dismiss the amended complaint on the ground that it failed to state claims upon which relief could be granted. Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6). The district court dismissed the federal claims with prejudice. Frazier, 122 F. Supp. 2d at 111-14. At the same time, the court declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the plaintiffs' state-law claims and dismissed those claims without prejudice. Id. at 114. This timely appeal ensued. In it, the plaintiffs challenge the lower court's disposition of the three federal claims,¹ but do not contest the dismissal of their state-law claims.

II. THE IDEA-BASED SECTION 1983 CLAIM

The statutory engine that drives the plaintiffs' principal claim is 42 U.S.C. § 1983. This statute provides in pertinent part that "[e]very person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage . . . , subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States . . . to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured." Properly construed, section 1983 "supplies a private right of action against a person who, under color of state law, deprives another of rights secured by the Constitution or by federal law." Evans v. Avery, 100 F.3d 1033, 1036 (1st Cir. 1996).

To maintain such a cause of action, a plaintiff first must allege official conduct, that is, the occurrence of some act or omission undertaken under color of state law. Roche v. John Hancock Mut. Life Ins. Co., 81 F.3d 249, 253 (1st Cir. 1996). Here, the plaintiffs easily satisfy this requirement: the defendants are officials or employees of a public school system, and all of them admittedly were acting under color of Massachusetts law. The plaintiffs also must allege that the defendants' acts or omissions deprived them of a federally-secured right. Baker v. McCollan, 443 U.S. 137, 142 (1979); Nieves v. McSweeney, 241 F.3d 46, 53 (1st Cir. 2001). To meet this requirement, the plaintiffs posit that federal law guaranteed Kate a free and appropriate public education and that the defendants' actions deprived her of that entitlement.²

The plaintiffs' premise is sound: the IDEA guarantees a free and appropriate public education to all children with disabilities. 20 U.S.C. § 1400(d)(1)(A). To realize that promise, the IDEA imposes a set of procedural safeguards upon state and local educational agencies that receive federal grants earmarked for special education and related services. See id. §§ 1411, 1415. As a recipient of such federal funds, Fairhaven High School was bound by the statutory conditions that Congress attached to the grants. Since the IDEA violations alleged by the plaintiffs all transpired while Kate Frazier was a student attending Fairhaven High School, the plaintiffs have brought themselves within the IDEA's reach.

The plaintiffs' conclusion -- that an IDEA violation can ground a section 1983 claim even without exhaustion of administrative remedies -- is considerably more problematic. To address this aspect of the case, we must explore the anatomy of the IDEA. We then consider the necessity for exhaustion.

A. The Statutory Scheme.

The IDEA is a comprehensive statutory scheme enacted by Congress "to ensure that all children with disabilities have available to them a free appropriate public education that emphasizes special education and related services . . . ; [and] that the rights of children with disabilities and parents of such children are protected." Id. § 1400(d)(1)(A)-(B). To that end, the IDEA provides that public school systems "shall establish and maintain procedures . . . to ensure that children with disabilities and their parents are guaranteed procedural safeguards with respect to the provision of free appropriate public education by such agencies." Id. § 1415(a). The IDEA contains a panoply of procedural safeguards designed to assure that parents will have meaningful input into decisions that affect the education of children with special needs. These include the right of parents to examine all records related to their child, to participate in meetings regarding the identification, evaluation, and educational placement of their child, to obtain an independent educational evaluation of their child, and to receive prior written notice whenever an educational agency proposes (or refuses) to change their child's placement or program. Id. § 1415(b).

The IDEA also provides parents with an opportunity to lodge formal complaints "with respect to any matter relating to the identification, evaluation, or educational placement of the child, or the provision of a free appropriate public education to such child." Id. § 1415(b)(6). A complaining parent has recourse to an impartial due process hearing conducted by either the local or state educational agency (and if the hearing is conducted at the local level, the parent may then appeal to the state agency). Id. § 1415(f)-(g). In Massachusetts the Department of Education has created the Bureau of Special Education Appeals (BSEA) and empowered it to handle such appeals through mediations and hearings. See Mass. Regs. Code tit. 603, § 28.08.

The IDEA permits any party who is dissatisfied with the outcome of the due process hearing to bring suit in state or federal court. 20 U.S.C. § 1415(i)(2). But that right of action is carefully circumscribed. As a condition precedent to its exercise, an aggrieved party must satisfy the IDEA's exhaustion provision. This provision states that:

Nothing in [the IDEA] shall be construed to restrict or limit the rights, procedures, and remedies available under the Constitution, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, Title V of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, or other Federal laws protecting the rights of children with disabilities, except that before the filing of a civil action under such laws seeking relief that is also available under [subchapter II of the IDEA], the procedures under subsections (f) and (g) of this section shall be exhausted to the same extent as would be required had the action been brought under this subchapter.

Id. § 1415(l). This requirement is not limited to claims based directly upon violations of the IDEA. The...