King v. Floyd County Bd. of Edu., s. 98-5867

• Citation: 228 F.3d 622
• Decision Date: 29 April 1999
• Docket Number: Nos. 98-5867,98-5961,s. 98-5867
• Parties: (6th Cir. 2000) Belinda King, by her next friend Scarlet King; Ronnie Joe Sword, by his next friend Barbara Sword; Clayton Hall, by his next friend Darlene Mitchell, Plaintiffs-Appellees/Cross-Appellants, v. Floyd County Board of Education, Defendant-Appellant/Cross-Appellee. Argued:
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (6th Circuit)

Page 622

228 F.3d 622 (6th Cir. 2000)

Belinda King, by her next friend Scarlet King; Ronnie Joe Sword, by his next friend Barbara Sword; Clayton Hall, by his next friend Darlene Mitchell, Plaintiffs-Appellees/Cross-Appellants, v. Floyd County Board of Education, Defendant-Appellant/Cross-Appellee.

Nos. 98-5867, 98-5961

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

Argued: April 29, 1999

Decided and Filed: October 2, 2000

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky at Pikeville. Nos. 97-00431; 97-00432; 97-00433--Joseph M. Hood, District Judge.

Jeffrey John Kuebler, RAMBICURE, MILLER & KUEBLER, Lexington, Kentucky, for Appellees.

Robert L. Chenoweth, John C. Fogle, III, CHENOWETH LAW OFFICE, Frankfort, Kentucky, for Appellant.

Before: ENGEL, NELSON, and NORRIS, Circuit Judges.

NELSON, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which NORRIS, J., joined. ENGEL, J. (pp. 627-31), delivered a separate dissenting opinion.

OPINION

DAVID A. NELSON, Circuit Judge.

The question presented in this case - an action brought under the statute now known as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), 20 U.S.C. §§ 1400 et seq. - is what limitations period applies to the filing of suits for attorney fees incurred in administrative proceedings where the substantive issues were resolved in favor of the claimants. The Act itself contains no statute of limitations for such situations, and there is a circuit split as to the approach that should be followed in filling the gap.

Characterizing fee cases as ancillary to the dispute that was resolved administratively, the Seventh Circuit borrows the state law limitations period for judicial review of administrative agency decisions. See Powers v. Indiana Department of Education, Division of Special Education, 61 F.3d 552 (7th Cir. 1995) (applying the 30-day limitations period prescribed by Indiana law for seeking judicial review of administrative decisions in special education matters); Reed v. Mokena School District No. 159, Will County, Illinois, 41 F.3d 1153 (7th Cir. 1994) (applying the 120-day limitations period prescribed by Illinois law for suits seeking review of actions by school authorities).

The Eleventh Circuit has rejected the Seventh Circuit approach on the ground that IDEA creates an independent attorney fee claim cognizable only in the courts. See Zipperer v. School Board of Seminole County, Florida, 111 F.3d 847 (11th Cir. 1997) (borrowing the four-year Florida statute of limitations applicable to claims based on a statutory liability). In the case at bar the district court, finding Zipperer persuasive, declined to use a 30-day limitations period prescribed by Kentucky law for appeals of administrative orders and instead applied the state's five-year statute of limitations for actions "upon a liability created by statute, when no other time is fixed by the statute creating the liability." See King v. Floyd County Board of Education, 5 F.Supp.2d 504, 506 (E.D. Ky. 1998).

Upon de novo review, we conclude that the district court erred. We agree with the Seventh Circuit that the attorney fee case is ancillary to the administrative proceeding, and we shall reverse the judgment entered by the district court.

I

The plaintiffs, three special education students in the school system of Floyd County, Kentucky, challenged the Floyd County Board of Education under the IDEA when the board unilaterally changed their school placement for the year1996-97. The placement change was made without the prior notice and consultation with the students' "Admissions and Release Committee" required by the IDEA.

Following administrative due process hearings in which the plaintiffs were represented by counsel, a hearing officer found that the IDEA had been violated in all three cases. The Board of Education appealed to the Exceptional Children Appeals Board, Kentucky's highest administrative review level for IDEA disputes. By orders dated January 17, 1997, the Appeals Board ruled against the Board of Education and in favor of the students. The Board of Education did not seek judicial review.

On November 4, 1997, more than nine months later, the plaintiffs filed separate suits against the Board of Education in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky, seeking attorney fees pursuant to 20 U.S.C. § 1415(e)(4)(B). This provision - now codified at 20 U.S.C. § 1415(i)(3)(B) - permits the discretionary award of reasonable attorney fees "to the parents of a child with a disability who is the prevailing party."¹ The district court consolidated the three actions pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 42(a).

Conceding that each plaintiff was a "prevailing party," the Board of Education moved for summary judgment on statute of limitations grounds. The board urged adoption of the 30-day statute of limitations prescribed under Ky. Rev. Stat. 13B.140(1) for an appeal from an administrative order.² The district court denied the board's motion, holding that the appropriate limitations period was the five years prescribed by Ky. Rev. Stat. 413.120(2).³

After reducing the amount of the plaintiffs' request as excessive, the district court granted attorney fees and costs in the amount of $37,602.09. The Board of Education has appealed, and the plaintiffs have cross-appealed from the district court's decision to award less than the total amount claimed.

II

"Because the [IDEA] contains no specific statute of limitations, the most appropriate [state] statute of limitations must be determined by the Court." Janzen v. Knox County Bd. of Educ., 790 F.2d 484, 486 (6th Cir. 1986), citing Wilson v. Garcia, 471 U.S. 261 (1985). "Generally, courts determine which state cause of action is most analogous to the federal cause of action. The state limitations period for that cause of action can be adopted if it is consistent with the policy of the federal cause of action." Id. (citations omitted). With respect to the IDEA, the selection of an appropriate state statute of limitations is done on a case-by-case basis "considering the posture of the case and the legal theories presented." Id. at 487.

The federal cause of action for which a limitations period must be fashioned in the case now before us is created by statutory language that on its face might not seem applicable to the present facts at all. The reason this is so tells us something about the nature of the cause of action that has, in fact, been created.

A bit of background first. Under the IDEA, state and local education agencies that receive federal assistance are required to establish procedures under which administrative complaints may be filed with respect to, among other things, the educational placement of children with disabilities. See 20 U.S.C. §1415(a)(6). Opportunities for impartial due process hearings and administrative appeals are to be provided, see § 1415(f) and (g), and in 20 U.S.C. § 1415(i)(2) - formerly § 1415(e)(2) - the Act provides that a party aggrieved by the findings and decision made under the prescribed administrative procedures "shall have the right to bring a [state or federal] civil action with respect to the [administrative] complaint. . . ." Standing alone, this provision would not seem to confer a right to sue on the students or their parents here, because they were the prevailing parties in the administrative proceedings - they were not, in the normal sense of the words of the statute, "aggrieved by the findings and decision. . . ."

But in 1986, in the wake of a Supreme Court decision (Smith v. Robinson, 468 U.S. 992 (1984)) which held that the right to sue did not include a right to recover attorney fees, Congress enacted the Handicapped Children's Protection Act, P.L. 99-372, which amended the IDEA by adding a provision codified at 20 U.S.C. § 1415(e)(4)(B). As now recodified in § 1415(i)(3)(B), this provision reads, in its entirety, as follows:

"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."

The only part of § 1415 that authorizes the bringing of an "action" is § 1415(i)(2)(A), which, as we have seen, does not appear to authorize the bringing of an action by the side that prevailed in the administrative proceeding. The 1986 statute also used the words "or proceeding," however, and the Supreme Court has held that similar language in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 authorizes fee awards for legal work done for the prevailing side in state administrative proceedings. See New York Gaslight Club, Inc. v. Carey, 447 U.S. 54 (1980). The legislative history of the fee award amendment to the IDEA makes express reference to Gaslight, see, e.g., H.R. Rep. No. 99-296, 99th Cong., 1st Sess. 5 (1985), and in light of this legislative history we have held that the amended version of the IDEA is broad enough to authorize court suits for the recovery of legal fees incurred by parents who prevailed at the administrative level. See Eggers v. Bullitt County School District, 854 F.2d 892 (6th Cir. 1988). A number of other circuits have reached the same conclusion. See, e.g., Moore v. District of Columbia, 907 F.2d 165 (D.C. Cir. 1990), and the cases cited therein at 166.

Administrative agencies do not typically have authority to award attorney fees, and Kentucky's administrative arrangements, as the parties in the case at bar agree, do not provide for fee awards. In this situation, we take it, the logic of Eggers is that the 1986 fee award amendment to the IDEA had the effect of making a parent who prevailed in the administrative proceedings with the assistance of counsel an "aggrieved" party, for purposes of 20 U.S.C. § 1415(i)(2), insofar as there was no award of attorney fees. As an aggrieved party, the parent is authorized to go to court to seek reasonable attorney fees. And because the...