Hunt v. St. Peter School
Decision Date | 16 April 1997 |
Docket Number | No. 96-4322-CV-C-5.,96-4322-CV-C-5. |
Citation | 963 F.Supp. 843 |
Parties | Jeanne R. HUNT, et al., Plaintiffs, v. ST. PETER SCHOOL, et al., Defendants. |
Court | U.S. District Court — Western District of Missouri |
Michael H. Finkelstein, Missouri Protection & Advocacy Services, Jefferson City, MO, for Jeanne R. Hunt, Stephanie N. Miller.
Thomas J. Downey, Jefferson City, MO, Rebecca L. McGinnis, Lathrop & Gage, Kansas City, MO, for St. Peter School.
Thomas J. Downey, Jefferson City, MO, Louis C. DeFeo, Jr., Jefferson City, MO, Rebecca L. McGinnis, Lathrop & Gage, Kansas City, MO, for Bishop Michael McAuliffe, Father Don Lammers, Sister Ann Marie Bonvie, Mary E. Budnik.
Plaintiff, Stephanie Miller ("Stephanie"), is an eleven-year-old girl attending the sixth grade at a Jefferson City public school. Her mother, Jeanne Hunt ("Mrs. Hunt"), is also a Plaintiff and is before the Court as her daughter's next friend. This suit was filed after Stephanie was informed that the St. Peter School in Jefferson City ("St. Peter") would no longer be able to provide her with educational services because of her life-threatening asthma which is aggravated by her allergy to scents. Stephanie had attended St. Peter from kindergarten through the fifth grade, except for the three months during her third grade year when she attended the Jefferson City public schools.
St. Peter receives federal funds through Title I and the National School Lunch Program, 42 U.S.C.A. §§ 1751, et seq., and School Breakfast Program, 42 U.S.C.A. § 1771, et seq. Because St. Peter receives federal funding, it is subject to Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 which prohibits discrimination because of a disability. Plaintiffs claim that St. Peter violated that Act by failing to provide Stephanie with a scent-free environment to accommodate her disability, asthma, and by excluding her from school because of her disability. Plaintiffs filed a Motion for a Temporary Restraining Order, which I denied. Plaintiffs also moved for a Preliminary and Permanent Injunction. Upon the parties' agreement to consolidate the Motion for Preliminary Injunction and the Trial on the Merits, I held a bench trial on January 28 and 29, 1997, in Jefferson City, Missouri. I now find that Defendants did not violate Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Plaintiffs are not entitled to the relief which they have requested.
St. Peter is a private, Catholic school serving students from kindergarten to the eighth grade. It has approximately 500 students, 38 staff members and 52 classrooms. Sixth grade students attend class in four different classrooms each day and attend class or mass in at least six additional rooms each week. Classrooms are not always comprised of the same group of students. St. Peter's administration consists of one principal who is assisted by a part-time secretary. There is no school nurse, but a public health nurse visits the school once a week. St. Peter receives federal funds each year through Title I and the National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs.
St. Peter has a written dress code. Students who violate the code are subject to various consequences chosen by the principal on a case-by-case basis, St. Peter also has a written policy requiring all visitors to check in at the school office. Not all visitors comply, and the policy is difficult to enforce because of the small administrative staff.
Stephanie suffers from severe reactive airwaves disease, also known as asthma. Her first hospitalization for the disease occurred on August 10, 1989, She was also hospitalized on September 13, 1990, December 2, 1990, March 20, 1991, and April 8, 1996. Most of the hospitalizations lasted for three to four days and were precipitated by Stephanie's extreme difficulty with breathing. Since her first hospitalization in 1989, Stephanie has been consistently treated for asthma. She takes numerous asthma medications and must constantly monitor her breathing to detect the onset of an asthma attack. Her doctor stated that her asthma is persistent, pervasive, and could be life-threatening. He also stated that its duration is uncertain but could be indefinite, although some people grow out of their allergy and asthma problems. Because of the severity of her asthma, she was evaluated at the National Jewish Hospital in Denver, Colorado, in December 1994, and was tested for allergies which might affect her asthma. According to her primary care physician, exposure to some scents and to some animals triggers Stephanie's asthma.
On numerous occasions, Mrs. Hunt demanded that Stephanie be provided a mandatory scent-free environment while she attended St. Peter. Mrs. Hunt also demanded that a written contingency plan be developed to address what would happen to Stephanie if her scent-free environment was breached by an interloper. At the time Stephanie requested an accommodation from St. Peter, Mrs. Hunt told the school that Stephanie's asthma was triggered by scents, but she did not provide a physician's report to support this conclusion. Mrs. Hunt initially prevented the school from talking to Stephanie's physician concerning her daughter's medical condition and her special needs. On July 29, 1994, the school received a letter from Mrs. Hunt with an attached letter from Dr. Stricker dated February 10, 1994, addressed "To Whom it May Concern." It said Stephanie "should avoid all reasonable contact with respiratory inhalants such as perfume, strong odors, scents and diesel fumes." Mrs. Hunt wrote to the school officials, in a letter of October 20, 1994: Mrs. Hunt continued to prevent the school from contacting the doctor to discuss Stephanie's medical condition even though she and Stephanie's doctor continued to send letters to the school. Dr. Schafermeyer wrote a letter dated July 12, 1994, which read, Dr. Schafermeyer and Jeanne Hunt sent a letter dated April 15, 1996, which read: It was not until August 1996 that school officials had a face-to-face meeting with Stephanie's doctor.
After Mrs. Hunt's request for accommodation, St. Peter implemented a voluntary scent-free classroom for Stephanie. School officials permitted Mrs. Hunt to speak with Stephanie's teachers, classmates and their parents to educate them about Stephanie's condition and to request that they refrain from wearing scents in the classroom. Stephanie's teachers and classmates voluntarily refrained from wearing scents. The parties were only able to identify three times when Stephanie was exposed to people wearing scents in her classroom. On one occasion, a school administrator who was wearing a fragrance left the classroom because of Stephanie's sensitivity to fragrances. On two other occasions, Stephanie was removed from the classroom and was sent to the library: once, because a substitute computer teacher arrived wearing a fragrance and, once, because a boy in Stephanie's class wore cologne. Stephanie remained in the library for one class period until the substitute computer teacher left her classroom. She remained in the library a full day when her male classmate wore cologne. When Stephanie was sent to the library, the librarian was supposed to give Stephanie help. The librarian, however, was never told what to do with Stephanie. There was another fifth grade classroom where Stephanie could be sent, but Principal Budnik felt this would make a spectacle of Stephanie.
St. Peter's voluntary scent-free policy worked well. Mrs. Hunt never had to pick Stephanie up from St. Peter for an asthma attack during her kindergarten through fifth grade years. Nonetheless, on four different office visits from January 13, 1995, to January 12, 1996, Mrs. Hunt told Dr. Schafermeyer that she had picked Stephanie up from school because Stephanie was suffering from an asthma attack caused by exposures to perfume worn by the children at St. Peter. Those dates were January 13, 1995, October 3, 1995, December 11, 1995, and January 12, 1996. Stephanie, however, was not at school on three of the four days and on the remaining day she did not have to leave school at any time. While enrolled at St. Peter, Stephanie was not precluded from participating in any school events and even participated in the school's volleyball and basketball programs. The parties identified only one incident when another parent complained about the policy. That parent complained because she was not told about Stephanie's problem until the morning of a field trip. Because that parent was wearing a fragrance, she voluntarily agreed not to ride in the bus with her child in order to protect Stephanie, but she complained about the late notice. The parent had taken the day off work especially to be with her daughter and was disappointed that she was not able to accompany her daughter on the bus.
Mrs. Hunt persistently requested a mandatory scent-free environment and a written contingency plan in the event interlopers breached the voluntary scent-free environment. St. Peter, however, refused to provide a mandatory scent-free environment. School officials believed it was not possible to enforce a mandatory scent-free...
To continue reading
Request your trial