J.B. v. Oakland Unified Sch. Dist.

• Decision Date: 10 December 2022
• Docket Number: 21-cv-08521-LB
• Parties: J.B., et al., Plaintiffs, v. OAKLAND UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of California

J.B., et al., Plaintiffs,
v.
OAKLAND UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT, et al., Defendants.

No. 21-cv-08521-LB

United States District Court, N.D. California, San Francisco Division

December 10, 2022

ORDER GRANTING MOTION TO DISMISS RE: ECF NO. 20

LAUREL BEELER, United States Magistrate Judge.

INTRODUCTION

In this action, the plaintiff challenges an administrative decision to dismiss the plaintiff's claims under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).^[1] The underlying claim against the district concerns the district's alleged failure to provide a free appropriate public education or FAPE to the plaintiff's son under the IDEA between 2018 and 2021.^[2] An administrative law judge (ALJ) at the California Office of Administrative Hearings (OAH) dismissed the complaint for the failure to prosecute based on the plaintiff's counsel's failure to

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timely upload evidentiary exhibits in advance of a due-process hearing.^[3] The defendants moved to dismiss the case based on the lack of subject-matter jurisdiction and the plaintiff's failure to exhaust administrative remedies or state a claim.^[4]

The court dismisses the plaintiff's complaint. The court has subject-matter jurisdiction because the plaintiff's claims arise under the IDEA, and the complaint follows a final administrative decision. But the plaintiff has not exhausted her administrative remedies under the IDEA. The administrative law judge dismissed the administrative complaint without prejudice and before reaching the merits of the claim or developing a factual record. Thus, the court dismisses the complaint without prejudice.

STATEMENT

The plaintiff brought this action on behalf of herself and her son who is fourteen years old and has learning disabilities, including attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and dyslexia.^[5]He reads at a first-grade level.^[6] In 2013, the plaintiff, who had recently been released from jail and experienced homelessness, enrolled her son at Thousand Oaks Elementary School in the Berkeley Unified School District.^[7]

After an initial IEP in 2013, the plaintiff's son was placed at “Building Blocks, a therapeutic nonpublic Preschool, K-1 program run by Seneca in Oakland.”^[8] Nonetheless, by 2016, the plaintiff's son was still “far below average in core academic skills.”^[9] The plaintiff and the Berkeley Unified School District both filed administrative complaints in 2016 concerning disputes

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over the plaintiff's son's educational needs.^[10] The parties settled these issues in 2016.^[11] The plaintiff alleges that the Berkeley Unified School District generally failed to comply with the settlement agreement and filed a “compliance complaint with the CDE [California Department of Education]” in 2017.^[12] The Department ordered the Berkeley Unified School District to implement several corrective actions, and in 2018, the district placed the plaintiff's son at “Maya Angelou Academy in Oakland, a nonpublic therapeutic elementary school run by Seneca.”^[13]

In 2017 and again in 2019, the Berkeley Unified School District advised the plaintiff that she should enroll her son in the Oakland Unified School District because the plaintiff lived in Oakland and “no longer lived within the boundaries of” the Berkeley Unified School District.^[14] In 2019, the plaintiff filed an administrative complaint to establish whether the Berkeley Unified School District or the Oakland Unified School District was responsible for her son's education.^[15] The Oakland Unified School District filed an administrative complaint on the same issue.^[16] The Oakland Unified School District administrative complaint was dismissed after the district moved to dismiss this complaint.^[17] The plaintiff settled the administrative complaint against the Berkeley Unified School District.^[18]

In 2020, the plaintiff eventually accepted an offer from the Oakland Unified School District to enroll her son in the James Baldwin Academy.^[19] Disputes over her son's education have continued since he enrolled in James Baldwin Academy.^[20]

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The plaintiff filed the administrative complaint that is the subject of this action on December 7, 2021.^[21] The issues in the complaint concerned whether the Oakland Unified School District provided a free appropriate public education or FAPE between 2018 and 2021.^[22] The ALJ dismissed issues related to alleged interference with the attorney-client relationship.^[23] A due-process hearing was set for June 22, 2021 on the remaining issues and was eventually continued to August 3, 2021.^[24] The plaintiff's counsel failed to timely upload evidence in advance of the due-process hearing.^[25] (At the December 8, 2022, hearing, she explained that technical issues made this excusable error.) The ALJ dismissed the administrative complaint for failure to prosecute.^[26]

The plaintiff subsequently filed this action under the IDEA claiming that the ALJ erred by (1) dismissing the case for lack of prosecution and (2) finding that the Oakland Unified School District did not interfere with the student's attorney-client relationship.^[27] The defendants moved to dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction under Rule 12(b)(1) and for the failure to exhaust administrative remedies or state a claim under Rule 12(b)(6).^[28]

All parties consented to magistrate-judge jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 636.^[29] The court held a hearing on October 13, 2022.

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STANDARDS

1. Subject Matter Jurisdiction - Rule 12(b)(1)

A complaint must contain a short and plain statement of the grounds for the court's jurisdiction. Fed.R.Civ.P. 8(a)(1). The plaintiff has the burden of establishing jurisdiction. Kokkonen v. Guardian Life Ins. Co. of Am., 511 U.S. 375, 377 (1994); Farmers Ins. Exch. v. Portage La Prairie Mut. Ins. Co., 907 F.2d 911, 912 (9th Cir. 1990).

A defendant's Rule 12(b)(1) jurisdictional attack can be facial or factual. White v. Lee, 227 F.3d 1214, 1242 (9th Cir. 2000). “A ‘facial' attack asserts that a complaint's allegations are themselves insufficient to invoke jurisdiction, while a ‘factual' attack asserts that the complaint's allegations, though adequate on their face to invoke jurisdiction, are untrue.” Courthouse News Serv. v. Planet, 750 F.3d 776, 780, n.3 (9th Cir. 2014). The court thus “accept[s] all allegations of fact in the complaint as true and construe[s] them in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs.” Warren v. Fox Fam. Worldwide, Inc., 328 F.3d 1136, 1139 (9th Cir. 2003).

2. Failure to State a Claim - Rule 12(b)(6)

A complaint must contain a “short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief” to give the defendant “fair notice” of (1) what the claims are and (2) the grounds upon which they rest. Fed.R.Civ.P. 8(a)(2); Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007). Thus, “[a] complaint may fail to show a right to relief either by lacking a cognizable legal theory or by lacking sufficient facts alleged under a cognizable legal theory.” Woods v. U.S. Bank N.A., 831 F.3d 1159, 1162 (9th Cir. 2016).

A complaint does not need detailed factual allegations, but “a plaintiff's obligation to provide the ‘grounds' of his ‘entitlement to relief' requires more than labels and conclusions, and a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do. Factual allegations must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level.” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555 (cleaned up). A complaint must contain sufficient factual allegations, which when accepted as true, “state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009); NorthBay Healthcare Grp., Inc. v. Kaiser Found. Health Plan, Inc., 838 Fed.Appx. 231, 234 (9th Cir. 2020). “[O]nly the claim needs to

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be plausible, and not the facts themselves ....” NorthBay, 838 Fed.Appx. at 234 (citing Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 696); see Interpipe Contracting, Inc. v. Becerra, 898 F.3d 879, 886-87 (9th Cir. 2018) (the court must accept the factual allegations in the complaint “as true and construe them in the light most favorable to the plaintiff”) (cleaned up).

“A claim has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678. “The plausibility standard is not akin to a ‘probability requirement,' but it asks for more than a sheer possibility that a defendant has acted unlawfully.” Id. “Where a complaint pleads facts that are merely consistent with a defendant's liability, it stops short of the line between possibility and plausibility of ‘entitlement to relief.'” Id. (cleaned up).

If a court dismisses a complaint because of insufficient factual allegations, it should give leave to amend unless “the pleading could not possibly be cured by the allegation of other facts.” Cook, Perkiss & Liehe, Inc. v. N. Cal. Collection Serv. Inc., 911 F.2d 242, 247 (9th Cir. 1990).

Aside from the requirement to plead facts establishing a plausible claim, the plaintiff must also allege a “cognizable legal theory” to survive a motion to dismiss. Woods, 831 F.3d at 1162.

If a court dismisses a complaint because its legal theory is not cognizable, the court should give leave to amend if the plaintiff could “articulate a cognizable legal theory if given the opportunity.” Steele-Klein v. Int'l Bhd. of Teamsters, Loc. 117, 696 Fed.Appx. 200, 202 (9th. Cir. 2017).

ANALYSIS

“The IDEA offers federal funds to States in exchange for a commitment: to furnish a ‘free appropriate public education' - more concisely known as a FAPE - to all children with certain physical or intellectual disabilities.” Fry v. Napoleon Cmty. Sch., 580 U.S. 154, 158 (2017) (cleaned up). “The centerpiece of the IDEA's education delivery system is an individualized education program (IEP).” D. D. by & through Ingram v. Los Angeles...