Thomas v. Staats

Citation633 F. Supp. 797
Decision Date19 December 1985
Docket NumberCiv. A. No. 83-A094.
PartiesSarah THOMAS and Janet Thomas Meek, Plaintiffs, v. William D. STAATS, Superintendent of Schools, Board of Education of the County of Wood; Board of Education of the County of Wood; Roy Truby, State Superintendent of Schools; and West Virginia Board of Education, Defendants.
CourtUnited States District Courts. 4th Circuit. Southern District of West Virginia

William F. Byrne, Morgantown, W.Va., for plaintiffs.

Fred L. Davis, Jr., Howard E. Seufer, Jr., Davis, Bailey, Pfalzgraf & Hall, Parkersburg, W.Va., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

HADEN, Chief Judge.

This is an action under the Education for All Handicapped Children's Act of 1975 (EAHCA). Pending before the Court is the Defendants' motion for summary judgment. As ground for their motion, the Defendants claim that the Plaintiffs' action was untimely brought, i.e., that it falls outside the period of limitations applicable to this type of action.

I. Background

Janet Thomas Meek instituted this action on behalf of her daughter, Sarah Thomas. Sarah, who was twenty years of age at the time suit was filed, is mentally retarded, speech impaired and emotionally disturbed. She also suffers from petit mal seizures. In 1969 Sarah was enrolled in a private school, the Institute of Logopedics, in Wichita, Kansas. For several years her parents bore the cost of her education. After the effective date of the EAHCA, however, the Board of Education of Wood County, West Virginia, (the Board) assumed responsibility for the bulk of her educational and residential expenses. This arrangement was under a finding that such a placement constituted the appropriate public education for Sarah. Providing a "free appropriate public education" is the preeminent purpose of the EAHCA. 20 U.S.C. § 1412(1); Hendrick Hudson District Board of Education v. Rowley, 458 U.S. 176, 180-81, 102 S.Ct. 3034, 3037-38, 73 L.Ed.2d 690 (1982).

Sarah continues to reside at the Kansas school. In 1980, however, the Board determined that Sarah, then eighteen years of age, could be appropriately educated in the public schools of Wood County and should no longer be educated at the private school in Kansas. Sarah's mother, Mrs. Meek, objected to this change of placement and on June 11, 1981, requested, as was her right under the EAHCA, an administrative due process hearing.

A hearing was held on February 19, 1982, and on April 8, 1982, the hearing examiner issued a decision affirming the Board's decision to change Sarah's placement from Kansas to West Virginia. On May 4, 1982, Mrs. Meek filed a notice of administrative appeal with the West Virginia Board of Education (State Board). The State Board's July 9, 1982, decision affirmed the local Board's decision to change Sarah's placement. Mrs. Meek then filed the instant civil action on July 7, 1983.

II. Discussion

The Defendants contend that the Plaintiff's action is barred by the applicable limitations period. Naturally, the Plaintiffs disagree. Consequently, the parties have advanced competing time periods. They are able to do so because, unlike other causes of action, the period of limitations for bringing suit under the EAHCA is not precisely defined. In fact, the EAHCA is silent on the matter. Ascertaining the proper period requires interpolation of state and federal law.

A. The Act

Seeing a need for greater efforts to be made in educating handicapped children, Congress in 1975 enacted the Education for All Handicapped Children's Act of 1975. The EAHCA is similar to many federal programs. Instead of relying on federal institutions and federal employees to carry out its purposes, the EAHCA sets standards and guidelines for state and local agencies to follow. If the state and local agencies — school boards for the most part — agree to adhere to the federal standards, they receive the necessary funding from the federal government to provide educational services to handicapped children. The responsibility for actually educating the children, therefore, falls upon the state educational apparatus already in place. Compliance is assured by the provisions allowing for withholding of federal funds when the requirements of the EACHA are not satisfied by the participating state or local agency.

Another measure contained in the EAHCA to encourage compliance is the provision for judicial review. On this subject, the EAHCA sets forth a series of procedural safeguards. 20 U.S.C. § 1415. Parents of handicapped children are given access to the education records of their children. They are to receive notice of any action planned to be taken by the agency. They are entitled to notice of their rights under Section 1415. Parents are allowed to present complaints concerning the children's education. Most importantly, upon the complaint of a parent, a due process hearing is to be held by the agency before an impartial party. At the hearing, the parents or other party have the right to counsel, the right to be accompanied by persons with special knowledge of education for handicapped children, the right to present evidence and cross-examine witnesses, the right to a written record and the right to written findings of fact and decisions. The parent or other party aggrieved by the result of the due process hearing may appeal to the state educational agency which will conduct an impartial review of such hearing. If a party is still unsatisfied with the result after the state review, Subsection (e)(2) of Section 1415 gives parents the right to bring a civil action in either state or federal court to challenge the state administrative ruling. The Court has the authority to hear additional evidence as well as to review the administrative records. Basing its decision on a preponderance of the evidence, the Court is to grant such relief as it deems appropriate.

Absent from Section 1415's detailed procedural safeguards is a limitations period for bringing the civil action given as a matter of right in Section 1415(e)(2). The absence of a limitation period in a federal statutory scheme is not uncommon.1 The federal courts are in consensus that such an omission requires the federal court to borrow a period from state law which governs an analogous cause of action.2

B. Borrowing From State Law

1. Possible State Law Periods. The applicable limitations period, assert the Defendants, is four months.3 They derived this period from a limitations period applied to West Virginia's peculiar writ of certiorari. The Plaintiffs, on the other hand, contend that the more correct period is one year. The Plaintiffs would have the Court adopt this period under the authority of W.Va.Code, § 55-2-12 (1966). That statute, in part, supplies a one year limitations period for personal actions "for which no limitation is otherwise prescribed."4 The parties are in agreement that another possible period, the thirty-day period provided under the West Virginia Administrative Procedures Act,5 is inapplicable by its terms to the state Board of Education. Therefore, the choice before the Court would appear to be between the 120-day and one-year periods. The consequences flowing from a decision are obvious.

2. The Methodology of Other Courts. In reviewing the actions of courts from other circuits, the Court does not seek a consensus on the appropriate limitations period. Because the courts rest in different states, the length of the periods selected will naturally be different.6 Rather, the Court examines the analysis by which these courts borrow from the state law.

Finding the appropriate state limitations period was a problem faced by the Court in Monahan v. State of Nebraska, 491 F.Supp. 1074 (D.Neb.1980), affirmed in part, vacated in part on other grounds, 645 F.2d 592 (8th Cir.1981). The Defendants in Monahan proposed to the court a thirty-day period borrowed from Nebraska's administrative procedures law. This period was proposed because it governed suits filed to review orders of the Commissioner of Education following a due process hearing. In passing on the appropriateness of the thirty-day limitations period, the Court first noted that the federal courts had "not developed a uniform analytical approach for determining the most analogous state statute of limitations." Id. at 1083. Nevertheless, from its review of the case law, the court was able to fashion a two-factor approach in selecting an appropriate state limitations period. First, according to the Court, "a determination is made as to whether the allegations constituting the plaintiff's federal claim state a cause of action under state law." Id. at 1084. Second, if a state cause of action is stated, the "issue is whether the state judicial proceedings available to a plaintiff asserting the state cause of action are equivalent to the federal judicial proceedings available to a plaintiff asserting the federal claim." Id.

Applying the above framework, the Monahan court assumed that the plaintiffs before it could also state a claim under Nebraska law; however, it did not find the proceedings governed by the thirty-day limitations period to be equivalent to those guaranteed under Section 1415 of the EAHCA. Principally, the Nebraska procedure, argued to be analogous to the federal procedure, did not give the reviewing court the authority to make an independent factual determination based on the administrative record; a court was limited to determining whether the agency decision was based on substantial evidence or was arbitrary and capricious. Id. at 1084. The court properly noted that a Section 1415(e) court is empowered to hear evidence not found in the administrative record. The court deemed the Section 1415(e) proceeding to be in the nature of a trial de novo, whereas the state proceeding was one of limited review. Accordingly, the court rejected the thirty-day period. Unlike the instant case, the parties had not suggested an alternative period. The court, however, took notice...

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  • Spiegler v. District of Columbia
    • United States
    • U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit
    • January 27, 1989
    ...prepare for trial during the 30 days allowed, they must only decide whether to continue their litigation efforts. See Thomas v. Staats, 633 F.Supp. 797, 806 (S.D.W.Va.1985) (applying 120-day limitations period instead of one The relatively short limitations period is also tempered by the Ac......
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    • U.S. District Court — Southern District of West Virginia
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