Sellers v. School Bd. of the City of Manassas, Virginia

• Citation: 960 F.Supp. 1006
• Decision Date: 30 April 1997
• Docket Number: C.A.No. 96-1630-A.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Virginia
• Parties: Kristopher SELLERS, by his parents Alan Sellers and Sherri Sellers and Sherri Sellers, Plaintiffs, v. SCHOOL BOARD OF THE CITY OF MANASSAS, VIRGINIA, et al., Defendants.

960 F.Supp. 1006

Kristopher SELLERS, by his parents Alan Sellers and Sherri Sellers and Sherri Sellers, Plaintiffs, v. SCHOOL BOARD OF THE CITY OF MANASSAS, VIRGINIA, et al., Defendants.

C.A.No. 96-1630-A.

United States District Court, E.D. Virginia.

April 30, 1997.

Paul S. Dalton, Dalton & Dalton, P.C., Annandale, for Plaintiffs.

Kathleen S. Mehfoud, Hazel & Thomas, P.C., Richmond, for Defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

ELLIS, District Judge.

This is essentially an action for educational malpractice.

An 18-year-old plaintiff whose learning disabilities (LD) were only recently discovered, claims that defendants reasonably should have identified his condition in the fourth grade, not high school. As a result, plaintiff claims that for years defendants have denied him equal access to a "free appropriate public education" in violation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (the "IDEA"), § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 ("§ 504"), 42 U.S.C. § 1983 ("§ 1983"), 42 U.S.C. § 1985 ("§ 1985"), and the Fourteenth Amendment. For this, plaintiff claims that he is due compensatory and punitive damages.

For the reasons that follow, this claim is meritless and plaintiff's complaint must be dismissed as failing to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.

I¹

Plaintiff, Kristopher Sellers, is an 18-year-old high school student enrolled in the Manassas City Public Schools, since at least the fourth grade. Recently, school officials discovered that he is LD and has a emotional disorder.² Following this discovery, Kristopher's parents initiated a so-called "due process" proceeding under the IDEA to contest the school district's management of Kristopher's education.³ As a result of this proceeding, Kristopher and his parents resolved with school officials all educational issues pertaining to Kristopher's disabilities.⁴

Yet, this did not end the matter; Kristopher and his parents sought more. In particular, they requested that the due process hearing officer award them compensatory and punitive damages for the denial of special education and related services since the fourth grade, owing to defendants' negligent failure to detect Kristopher's LD. The hearing officer considered and rejected this request, concluding that he had no statutory authority to award compensatory or punitive damages in the circumstances. The parents promptly appealed this ruling to the state educational agency. On October 10, 1996, the state agency affirmed the adverse decision.

Thereafter, Kristopher filed this four count complaint, seeking compensatory and punitive damages on multiple theories,⁵ against the School Board of the City of Manassas, School Superintendent James Upperman, and the Manassas City Public Schools for failing to identify his disabilities since at least the fourth grade. Specifically, Count I alleges that defendants' failure to provide Kristopher with a "free appropriate public education" violates the IDEA, § 504, and Virginia law. Count II claims that defendants' failure to test Kristopher for LD and to place him in special education violates the IDEA, § 504, and Virginia law. Count III asserts that the hearing officers erred in determining that they had no statutory authority to award compensatory and punitive damages. And Count IV alleges that defendants' failure to provide a free appropriate public education constituted a governmental "custom or usage" with the force of law.

On December 10, 1996, defendants filed the instant motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6), Fed. R.Civ.P. Thereafter, on February 3, 1997, the Court heard oral argument, took defendants' motion under advisement, and ordered the parties to submit supplemental briefs. The parties have done so, and hence the matter is now ripe for disposition.

II

Plaintiff cites the U.S. Constitution, four federal statutes, and state common law in support of his compensatory and punitive damages claim. Each of these legal grounds is separately addressed.

A

The centerpiece of special education law is the IDEA, on which plaintiff understandably places chief reliance. Thus, analysis properly focuses first on this statute.

In 1975, Congress enacted the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, Pub.L. No. 94-142, 89 Stat, 773 (1975), now known as the IDEA.⁶ The Act's purpose is "to assur[e] that all [] children (with disabilities) have available to them ... a free appropriate public education which emphasizes special education and related services designed to meet their unique needs."⁷ "To accomplish this ambitious objective, the [IDEA] provides federal money to state and local educational agencies that undertake to implement the substantive and procedural requirements of the Act."⁸ Among the IDEA's numerous requirements that a state must satisfy in order to receive federal funding are that it identify students with disabilities⁹ and that it develop an individualized education program ("IEP") for each identified student.¹⁰ The IDEA also imposes extensive procedural requirements that guarantee parents access to the pertinent records of their children,¹¹ written notice of proposed changes to the IEP,¹² and the right to contest decisions at an impartial due process hearing.¹³

Section 615(e) (2), 20 U.S.C. § 1415(e)(2), authorizes parents "aggrieved by the findings and decision" of a state administrative proceeding to bring a civil action in state or federal court and confers upon the courts reviewing those complaints the authority to "grant such relief as the court determines is appropriate."¹⁴ This is the specific IDEA provision on which plaintiff relies in support of his compensatory and punitive damages claim. Yet, this reliance is misplaced, for it is well-settled that such damages are not available under § 615(e)(2), which "permits a reimbursement remedy, but ... does not create a private cause of action for damages for educational malpractice." Hall v. Vance County Bd. of Educ., 774 F.2d 629, 633 n. 3 (4th Cir.1985).¹⁵ Thus, the only "appropriate" type of monetary relief available under the IDEA is restitution or reimbursement.¹⁶ In other words, courts have uniformly limited "appropriate" relief under the IDEA to "repayment" as opposed to "general" damages.

Accordingly, as a matter of law, the IDEA affords no basis for plaintiff's claim for compensatory and punitive damages. It follows, of course, that due process hearing officers have no statutory authority under the IDEA to award such relief.

B

Plaintiff's reliance on § 514 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 fares no better.

Unlike the IDEA, § 504 focuses not on creating rights and entitlements but on proscribing certain discriminatory acts.¹⁷ As the Third Circuit put it, "[w]hile the IDEA is phrased in terms of a state's affirmative duty to provide a free appropriate public education, § 504 is worded as a negative prohibition against disability discrimination in federally funded programs."¹⁸ To establish a violation of § 504 in this context, a plaintiff must demonstrate that: (1) he is a person with a disability as defined by the Act; (2) he is "otherwise qualified" to participate in school activities; (3) defendants receive federal financial assistance; and (4) he was subject to discrimination solely on the basis of his disability.¹⁹ In sharp contrast to the IDEA, it is well-established that monetary damages are an available remedy under § 504.²⁰ Nevertheless, to recover such damages, a plaintiff must show intentional discrimination or bad faith in the denial of special education.²¹

Here, Kristopher alleges no facts that might support an inference that defendants acted in bad faith or with an intent to deprive him special education services. Instead, the gravamen of plaintiff's allegations is that defendants' negligent failure to identify his LD in a timely manner deprived him special education services, thereby discriminating against him on the basis of disability. These allegations, however, cannot support a § 504 claim for damages; more than mere negligence must be alleged to rise to the level of a § 504 violation. To hold otherwise would distort and subvert the plain and intended meaning of "discrimination," ignore settled precedent, and invite a flood of unwarranted litigation in the special education context. The fact is, as the Eighth Circuit has noted, that the evaluation of LD is at best an inexact science on which few experts agree.²² Were the § 504 standard expanded to include mere negligence, many LD cases would be converted to § 504 discrimination claims for damages based on contentions that the LD should reasonably have been identified and accommodated semesters or years earlier. This is a result Congress, in enacting § 504, neither intended nor allowed.

In sum, Kristopher has alleged no facts that would support a claim of bad faith or gross misjudgment on the part of defendants in failing to identify and provide for his LD sooner. Consequently, Kristopher's claim for compensatory and punitive damages under § 504 fails.

C

Plaintiff's § 1983 claim also fails to state a claim.

Section 1983 provides a civil remedy for acts taken under color of law that deprive "any citizen of the United States or person within the jurisdiction thereof" of "rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws."²³ In other words, "[s]ection 1983 does not confer substantive rights, but merely redresses the deprivation of those rights elsewhere secured."²⁴ When the secured right at issue is based on a statute, the statute itself must not foreclose § 1983 enforcement. The IDEA does not restrict such actions because it contains a nonexclusive remedy provision, § 1415(f).²⁵

Although violations of the IDEA and § 504 are independently enforceable under § 1983,²⁶ "that section is a derivative cause of action, creating a private right of action only for deprivation of federal rights enunciated elsewhere."²⁷ In other words, to state a claim for...