Kaseman v. District of Columbia

• Decision Date: 31 March 2006
• Docket Number: No. 05-7016.,05-7016.
• Citation: 444 F.3d 637
• Parties: Carl KASEMAN, K.K., a minor, by her parents and next friends, et al., Appellees v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, A Municipal Corporation and Clifford B. Janey, in his official capacity, CEO/Superintendent, D.C. Schools, Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

444 F.3d 637

Carl KASEMAN, K.K., a minor, by her parents and next friends, et al., Appellees v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, A Municipal Corporation and Clifford B. Janey, in his official capacity, CEO/Superintendent, D.C. Schools, Appellants.

No. 05-7016.

United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit.

Argued January 6, 2006.

Decided March 31, 2006.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (No. 03cv01858).

William J. Earl, Senior Assistant Attorney General, District of Columbia, argued the cause for appellants. With him on the brief were Robert J. Spagnoletti, Attorney General and Edward E. Schwab, Deputy Attorney General.

Donna L. Wulkan argued the cause and filed the brief for appellees.

Before: HENDERSON, ROGERS and BROWN, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge BROWN.

BROWN, Circuit Judge.

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) provides that a parent who successfully challenges the Act's implementation may be awarded reasonable attorneys' fees. However, the District of Columbia Appropriations Act, 2005, caps the District's payment of IDEA attorneys' fees at $4,000 per "action." This case requires us to determine whether a judicial proceeding to recover attorneys' fees incurred in a prior IDEA administrative proceeding is a separate "action" from the prior proceeding or whether the administrative and judicial proceedings together comprise a single "action." The district court held that the administrative and judicial proceedings qualify as separate "actions." We find this reading of the statutes ultimately unconvincing and therefore reverse.

I

Congress enacted the IDEA in order to "ensure that all children with disabilities" have access to "a free appropriate public education that emphasizes special education and related services designed to meet their unique needs and prepare them for employment and independent living." 20 U.S.C. § 1400(d)(1)(A) (2000), amended by 20 U.S.C. § 1400 (West Supp.2005).¹ State and local educational agencies receiving federal assistance under the IDEA must institute procedural safeguards, id. § 1415(a) (2000), including providing parents of a disabled child "an opportunity to present complaints with respect to any matter relating to the identification, evaluation, or educational placement" of their child, id. § 1415(b)(6). Once parents complain, they are entitled to "an impartial due process hearing" conducted by the agency, id. § 1415(f)(1), and have a right to an attorney during the hearing, id. § 1415(h)(1).

"Any party aggrieved by the findings and decision made" in the hearing can "bring a civil action with respect to the complaint" in either state or federal court seeking "appropriate" relief. Id. § 1415(i)(2)(A)-(B). Under our decision in Moore v. District of Columbia, 907 F.2d 165 (D.C.Cir.1990) (en banc), a party who prevails at the administrative level may also seek one form of judicial relief. Although the text of the IDEA does not explicitly identify such a party as "aggrieved," Moore allows that party to petition a court for recovery of attorneys' fees under the IDEA's fee-shifting provision. Id. at 171. The fee-shifting provision states: "In any action or proceeding brought under this section, the court, in its discretion, may award reasonable attorneys' fees as part of the costs to the parents of a child with a disability who is the prevailing party." 20 U.S.C. § 1415(i)(3)(B) (2000). In an IDEA action involving the D.C. public schools, "an attorney who represents a party in an action or an attorney who defends an action, including an administrative proceeding," may not receive fees "in excess of $4,000 for that action." District of Columbia Appropriations Act, 2005, Pub.L. No. 108-335 § 327, 188 Stat. 1322, 1344 (2004).

II

Appellees, minor children and their parents or guardians, all prevailed in administrative complaints filed against the D.C. Public Schools under the IDEA. Appellees sought to recover attorneys' fees and costs from the District without obtaining a court-ordered fee award. The District made partial payments of some of the claims on Appellees' invoices, but it disputed other claims and refused to make payment on some invoices entirely. On September 5, 2003, Appellees filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, seeking an award of attorneys' fees under § 1415(i)(3)(B). The district court granted summary judgment to Appellees on July 7, 2004, entering an award of $352,714.58 plus interest. Kaseman v. District of Columbia, 329 F.Supp.2d 20, 32 (D.D.C.2004) (Kaseman I). The court also awarded "reasonable attorney's fees and costs incurred in [the] fee litigation," id. at 33, which a later order quantified as $90,926.83, Kaseman v. District of Columbia, No. 03-1858 (D.D.C. Aug. 2, 2004) (unpublished order).

On August 17, 2004, Appellees moved for the District to be held in contempt of the July 7 order. The District argued that it was in "substantial compliance" with the order, having paid $214,907.66, and that its ability to pay the entire award was limited by the congressionally-imposed fee cap of $4,000 per attorney per action. At a hearing on October 22, 2004, the District agreed to pay an additional $29,934.82, which Appellees claimed was still due even under the fee cap. However, the District maintained that the fee cap prevented it from paying the $90,926.83 award of fees incurred during the district court litigation. On January 6, 2005, the district court ruled in favor of Appellees, finding the litigation regarding fees was a separate "action" from the underlying administrative proceeding and therefore subject to a separate fee cap. Kaseman v. District of Columbia, 355 F.Supp.2d 205, 210-11 (D.D.C.2005) (Kaseman II). Citing Calloway v. District of Columbia, 216 F.3d 1, 9 (D.C.Cir.2000), the district court felt bound by a "very strong presumption" that appropriations acts do not amend substantive law, and that the separate-actions approach was "most likely to enable plaintiffs to enforce their rights under IDEA." Kaseman II, 355 F.Supp.2d at 210. The court found its approach was consistent with this Circuit's "treatment of fees-on-fees actions as generally being distinct from the underlying claims and as being separately compensable." Id. (citing Turner v. D.C. Bd. of Elections & Ethics, 354 F.3d 890, 898-99 (D.C.Cir.2004)).

III

The single issue presented on appeal is whether IDEA administrative proceedings and subsequent litigation regarding attorneys' fees are part of the same "action," as used in the appropriations act, or whether such litigation constitutes a new "action." Our review of this question of statutory interpretation is de novo. See Calloway, 216 F.3d at 5.

As an initial matter, we reject the reasoning used by the district court. While there is a presumption that appropriations acts do not modify substantive law, id. at 9, our reasoning in Calloway renders inapposite the district court's invocation of that presumption. In Calloway, we held that the fee cap should not be construed to alter courts' ability under the IDEA to award fees to prevailing parties, but merely to constrain the District's ability to pay those fees. Id. at 12. Hence, regardless of whether the term "action" in the appropriations act contemplates a separate application of the fee cap to fees-on-fees litigation, only the District's obligation to disburse appropriated funds will be affected by the fee cap. Because of our holding in Calloway, the courts' ability to award fees to litigants under the IDEA is not at issue here.

The district court's reliance on Turner is also misplaced. The issue in Turner was whether an award of attorneys' fees in a civil rights case could be apportioned between multiple defendants — the District and the United States. 354 F.3d at 895. We held that "when there are fractionable parts of a lawsuit not fairly attributable to other parties," the normal rule of joint and several liability for recoverable attorneys' fees does not apply; instead, "liability for attorney's fees and expenses may be apportioned exclusively to the party who caused the plaintiff to incur those costs." Id. at 898-99. In Turner, we applied joint and several liability to the attorneys' fees for the underlying claims but found the fees-on-fees claim to be fractionable. Id. at 899. While such an approach presupposes that a fees-on-fees claim is analytically distinct from an initial claim for attorneys' fees, it sheds no light on whether both types of claims are part of the same "action," as the term is used in the appropriations act.

Congress amended the predecessor of the IDEA in 1986 to permit courts to award attorneys' fees in IDEA actions. See Handicapped Children's Protection Act of 1986, Pub.L. 99-372, 100 Stat. 796. Since that time, the IDEA's provisions have consistently been construed to authorize two types of "actions" for attorneys' fees: 1) requests for fees in suits brought to challenge adverse administrative determinations under § 1415(i)(2), i.e., suits by persons aggrieved by the results of their administrative hearings, and 2) claims for fees brought by parents who have prevailed at the administrative level. See Moore, 907 F.2d at 171; see also King ex rel. King v. Floyd County Bd. of Educ., 228 F.3d 622, 625 (6th Cir.2000). Parties who prevail at the administrative level can also recover fees-on-fees, as our general rule is that the court may award additional fees for "time reasonably devoted to obtaining attorney's fees." Envtl. Def. Fund v. EPA, 672 F.2d 42, 62 (D.C.Cir.1982).

We have no cause to question the reasoning of Moore and Environmental Defense Fund, but the "semantic strain" between direct and implied causes of action, Brown v. Griggsville Cmty. Unit Sch. Dist. No. 4, 12 F.3d 681, 683 (7th Cir.1993), creates just enough uncertainty that the scope of the fee cap is not self-evident. Whether fees-on-fees...