Stanek v. St. Charles Cmty. Unit Sch. Dist.

• Decision Date: 09 April 2015
• Docket Number: No. 14–3012.,14–3012.
• Citation: 783 F.3d 634
• Parties: Matthew STANEK, et al., Plaintiffs–Appellants, v. ST. CHARLES COMMUNITY UNIT SCHOOL DISTRICT # 303, et al., Defendants–Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

783 F.3d 634

Matthew STANEK, et al., Plaintiffs–Appellants

v.ST. CHARLES COMMUNITY UNIT SCHOOL DISTRICT # 303, et al., Defendants–Appellees.

No. 14–3012.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Submitted Feb. 23, 2015.

Decided April 9, 2015.

Matthew Stanek, St. Charles, IL, for Plaintiffs–Appellants.

Bogdan Stanek, St. Charles, IL, pro se.

Sandra Stanek, St. Charles, IL, pro se.

Michelle A. Todd, Attorney, Hodges, Loizzi, Eisenhammer, Rodick & Kohn, Peoria, IL, for Defendants–Appellees.

Before WOOD, Chief Judge, and ROVNER and SYKES, Circuit Judges.

Opinion

WOOD, Chief Judge.

Matthew Stanek, now 20 years old, is autistic. While he was a high school student in the St. Charles Community Unit School District # 303 (“the District”), he received special-education services. Although he is now in college, he and his parents, Bogdan and Sandra Stanek, still have some accounts to settle with the District. Invoking their rights under the federal Constitution and several laws, they have sued both the District and various administrators and teachers for failing to provide necessary educational services to Matthew before his graduation. The district court dismissed the action against Bogdan and Sandra on the theory that they lack standing to sue. Although Matthew did have standing, the court dismissed his case for failure to sue an appropriate party. We conclude that some of these rulings do not withstand scrutiny. We therefore vacate the dismissal in part and remand for further proceedings.

I

Our recitation of the facts relies upon the Staneks' complaint, accepting as true their factual allegations and drawing all reasonable inferences in their favor. See Virnich v. Vorwald, 664 F.3d 206, 212 (7th Cir.2011). Matthew was an A and B honors student through his sophomore year in the District. He achieved this performance with the help of the accommodations specified in his Individualized Education Program (“IEP”), which provided for a variety of services to address his social and communicative deficits. For example, it allowed him extra time to complete tests and homework and required teachers to provide him with study guides. But when Matthew entered his junior year of high school, several of his teachers stopped giving him study guides or extra time. They justified this action with the argument that it was wrong to provide study guides in advanced classes and that the extra time hurt rather than helped Matthew. At the same time, the teachers pressured him to drop his advanced-placement and honors courses, asserting that these classes would be too difficult.

Without the measures specified in the IEP, Matthew started receiving failing grades in the AP and honors classes, but he refused to drop them. Concerned, Bogdan and Sandra scheduled a meeting at the school to discuss the situation. That only made matters worse: some of Matthew's teachers began neglecting to record good grades he had earned and recording grades lower than those he actually had earned. These teachers also refused to give Matthew credit for completed work and ignored his questions about his assignments. Matthew became distressed and anxious, and he began to suffer headaches and nausea and to miss school. His parents were forced to hire a tutor to compensate for the periods when he was out of school or too distraught to learn. School administrators also began ignoring Bogdan and Sandra's requests for Matthew's educational records and refused to meet with them.

Six months into his junior year, Matthew came due for a mandatory special-education reevaluation. By law the District was required to obtain Bogdan and Sandra's consent to proceed with the reevaluation. See 34 C.F.R. § 300.300(c). But by then they did not trust his teachers, and so they refused to consent. Unable to hold the reevaluation meeting, the school administrators filed an administrative complaint to overrule the need for parental consent. See id. § 300.507(a). The three Staneks responded with a cross-complaint alleging that the District and several teachers and administrators had denied educational services to Matthew and had discriminated and retaliated against him and his parents. Mediation proved fruitless, and eventually the hearing officer dismissed the Staneks' complaint for failure to comply with prehearing requirements. By then Matthew was 19 years old and in college. As we understand matters, however, he still would have been able to take advantage of some services from the District despite that fact, and he was financially injured because the District's actions had forced his parents to hire the tutor.

II

The Staneks turned to state court, where they sought review of the hearing officer's decision as well as relief against the District and several administrators and teachers in their individual and official capacities under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, invoking the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (“IDEA”), 20 U.S.C. §§ 1400 to 1418, the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. §§ 701 to 796l, the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 12201 to 12213 (“ADA”), and the Fourteenth Amendment. They contended that the defendants had denied Matthew a “free appropriate public education,” discriminated against him based on his disabilities, retaliated against him based on his parents' advocacy, denied the parents their right to participate in Matthew's special-education process, and retaliated against the parents for asserting that right.

The defendants removed the suit to federal court and promptly filed a motion to dismiss. They argued that the Staneks have sued the wrong parties, that the parents are trying to litigate claims belonging to Matthew, and that the parents fail to state any claim of their own. They did not contend, however, that Matthew fails to state a claim for relief, assuming that the complaint names proper defendants. And although the individual defendants asserted qualified immunity as a defense to the plaintiffs' individual-capacity theories under § 1983, none of the defendants raised lack of exhaustion as an affirmative defense.

The district court for the most part was persuaded by the defendants' arguments. Characterizing the lawsuit as one brought by the parents “only on behalf of Matthew,” the court first concluded that Bogdan and Sandra lacked standing to sue. It reasoned that their only possible claim arose under IDEA, but their right to press that claim had reverted to Matthew when he turned 18 years old. It dismissed each of the individual defendants in their individual capacities. With respect to the statutory claims, the court held that the plaintiffs had no right of action against individual persons; with respect to the constitutional claim, the court held that the defendants were entitled to qualified immunity. Turning to the official-capacity claims, the court found that the inclusion of the individual defendants was “redundant and unnecessary” since their employer, the District, is a named defendant “who has had an opportunity to respond to the suit.” Nevertheless, the court did not permit the suit against the District to go forward, because it thought that the school board, not the District, was the “proper party to be sued.” It gave Matthew, though not his parents, leave to file an amended complaint against the board within 30 days. When Matthew chose not to do so, the court closed the case.

III

All three Staneks have appealed. The defendants assert that the principal issue on appeal is whether the district court abused its discretion in terminating the lawsuit after Matthew ignored the court's deadline for filing an amended complaint. They analogize the court's order to a dismissal for failure to prosecute under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(b). That is both incorrect and, in this case, a self-defeating strategy. If we thought that the district court had imposed such a drastic sanction without an explicit warning, we would probably conclude that the court abused its discretion. See Sroga v. Huberman, 722 F.3d 980, 982–83 (7th Cir.2013) ; Gabriel v. Hamlin, 514 F.3d 734, 737 (7th Cir.2008). But the district court in fact simply followed decisions from this court encouraging district judges to allow time to file potentially curative amendments before closing a good lawsuit with a defective complaint. See Williams v. Wahner, 731 F.3d 731, 734 (7th Cir.2013). In this instance, the court had dismissed a good portion of the Staneks' complaint with prejudice, plainly foreclosing the possibility of a successful amendment to that part of the case. And only Matthew, not his parents, was invited to amend. He was under no obligation to do so, however. Like any plaintiff, he was entitled to accept the dismissal as one with prejudice and take an appeal in which he could test the legal sufficiency of his complaint. Cf. Anderson v. Catholic Bishop of Chi., 759 F.3d 645, 649 (7th Cir.2014) ; Furnace v. Bd. of Trs. of S. Ill. Univ., 218 F.3d 666, 669–70 (7th Cir.2000). Matthew's choice not to file an amended complaint is irrelevant to this appeal, and so we move on to the Staneks' arguments.

A

The Staneks first contend that the district court improperly dismissed the District in the belief that a school district is not itself amenable to suit and can be sued only through its board. We agree with the Staneks here. IDEA designates the “local educational agency” as the proper defendant. 20 U.S.C. § 1413. Illinois, in turn, defines the “local educational agency” for purposes of IDEA to include a school board or school district. 20 U.S.C. § 7801(26) ; 105 ILCS 105/3(d) ; see also 20 U.S.C. § 1401(19)(A). We have not faced the question whether an Illinois school district may be sued in its own name, but see 105 ILCS 5/10–2 (providing that the “directors of each district” may sue and be sued), though we have adjudicated many special-education suits brought by and against school districts in Illinois, see, e.g., M.B. v. Hamilton Se. Schs., 668 F.3d 851 (7th Cir.2011) ; McCormick v....