United States v. Georgia
| Decision Date | 13 May 2020 |
| Docket Number | 1:16-CV-03088-ELR |
| Citation | 461 F.Supp.3d 1315 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. State of GEORGIA, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Georgia |
Aileen Bell Hughes, Office of the United States Attorney, Atlanta, GA, Andrea E. Hamilton, Renee M. Wohlenhaus, Victoria M. Lill, U.S. Department of Justice, Bonnie Ileen Robin-Vergeer, Office of the United States Attorney-Civil, Frances Susan Cohen, Laura Cassidy Tayloe, Michelle Tucker, U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, Washington, DC, for Plaintiff.
Alexa Roberta Ross, Joseph Harris Saul, Joshua Barrett Belinfante, Kimberly K. Anderson, Melanie Leigh Johnson, Robbins Ross Alloy Belinfante Littlefield, LLC, Atlanta, GA, for Defendant.
Presently before the Court is Defendant's Motion to Dismiss, or in the Alternative, Motion to Stay Proceedings. [Doc. 47]. The Court's rulings and conclusions are set forth below.
Plaintiff the United States brings this civil rights suit against Defendant State of Georgia ("State") for claims arising from an alleged violation of Title II of the American with Disabilities Act ("ADA" or "Title II"). Compl. [Doc. 1]. Specifically, Plaintiff brings this case against Defendant alleging that the State of Georgia discriminates against thousands of public school students with behavior-related disabilities "by unnecessarily segregating them, or by placing them at serious risk of such segregation, in a separate and unequal educational program known as the Georgia Network for Educational and Therapeutic Support Program (the "GNETS Program" or "GNETS")." Id. ¶ 1. Plaintiff alleges further that such isolation and segregation of these students violates the ADA's mandate that public entities "administer services, programs, and activities in the most integrated setting appropriate to the needs of qualified individuals with disabilities." Id. As a result of these allegations, Plaintiff claims Defendant has violated, and continues to violate, Title II of the ADA.
GNETS is divided into 24 regional programs serving all of the State's public school districts. Id. ¶ 31. The Program currently serves all of the State's 181 school districts, with some regional programs individually serving over a dozen school districts. Id. More than two-thirds of all students in the GNETS Program attend school in regional GNETS Centers, which are generally located in self-contained buildings that serve only students with disabilities from multiple school districts. Id. ¶ 34. Other students in the GNETS Program attend school in regional GNETS Classrooms, which serve only students with disabilities and, although the Classrooms are located within general education school buildings, they are often not within the students' zoned general education schools. Id. ¶ 35. The GNETS Classrooms may also be located at schools that serve different grade configurations than the grades in which the students in GNETS are enrolled (e.g., a 4th grade student in GNETS may be in a GNETS Classroom in a general education high school). Id. GNETS Classrooms are often located in separate wings or isolated parts of school buildings, some of which are locked and/or fenced off from spaces used for general education programs. Id. ¶ 36.
On November 1, 2016, Defendant State of Georgia filed its first Motion to Dismiss, or in the Alternative, to Stay Proceedings. [Doc. 9]. In its motion, Defendant asserted, in part, that the Department of Justice ("DOJ") lacked standing to sue raising Title II claims. [Id. ] In a case raising this identical issue in the Southern District of Florida, Judge William J. Zloch found that the DOJ lacked standing to sue raising Title II claims. C.V. v. Dudek, 209 F.Supp. 3d 1279, 1295 (S.D. Fla. Sept. 20, 2016). This decision was appealed to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Accordingly, on August 11, 2017, the Court granted Defendant's alternative request to stay this case pending ruling by the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals on the threshold issue of whether or not the United States has standing to bring a claim for an alleged violation of Title II of the ADA. [Doc. 40]. The Eleventh Circuit resolved this issue, ruling that the United States does have the requisite standing. See United States v. Florida, 938 F. 3d 1221 (11th Cir. 2019). Accordingly, the Court lifted the previously imposed stay and directed the Defendant to re-file its motion to dismiss on any remaining grounds if it intended to do so. [Doc. 45]. On November 6, 2019, Defendant renewed its motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, and again requested the Court to stay the case as alternative relief. [Doc. 47].3 Having been fully briefed, Defendant's motion is now ripe for the Court's review.
The Court first sets out the applicable legal standards before turning to the merits of Defendant's motions.
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) requires dismissal when a complaint fails to "state a claim upon which relief can be granted." FED. R. CIV. P. 12(b)(6). "To survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’ " Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955 ). The Supreme Court has further explained this standard as follows:
A claim has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged. The plausibility standard is not akin to a "probability requirement," but it asks for more than a sheer possibility that a defendant has acted unlawfully.
Id. Further, when considering a 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss, the Court must accept as true the allegations set forth in the complaint, drawing all reasonable inferences in the light most favorable to the plaintiff. Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555-567, 127 S.Ct. 1955 ; U.S. v. Stricker, 524 F. App'x 500, 505 (11th Cir. 2013) (per curiam).
Defendant moves the Court to dismiss the sole count alleged in the Complaint—Violation of Title II of the ADA—for several reasons: (1) The Complaint fails to allege actionable discrimination pursuant to the ADA because Defendant does not administer GNETS and Plaintiff fails to allege discriminatory practices; (2) The relief Plaintiff seeks would violate the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act ("IDEA"); (3) "Obey-the-law injunctions are prohibited in the Eleventh Circuit; and (4) The Eleventh Circuit has not fully resolved the issue of whether the DOJ lacks standing to raise claims that arise from Title II of the ADA. [Doc. 47-1]. For ease of organization, the Court addresses each claim separately.
Defendant first contends that Plaintiff fails to allege actionable discrimination pursuant to the ADA. [Id. ] Title II of the ADA and § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act prohibit discrimination on the basis of disability in the provision of public services. 42 U.S.C. § 12132. Indeed, Congress' intent in enacting the ADA is expressed as follows: "[H]istorically, society has tended to isolate and segregate individuals with disabilities, and, despite some improvements, such forms of discrimination against individuals with disabilities continue to be a serious and pervasive social problem." 42 U.S.C. § 12101(a)(2). Congress further found that discrimination against individuals with disabilities persisted in education and access to public services, and that such individuals faced various forms of discrimination, including "segregation, and relegation to lesser services, programs, activities, benefits, jobs, or other opportunities." 42 U.S.C. §§ 12101(a)(3), (a)(5).
Title II states that "no qualified individual with a disability shall, by reason of such disability, be excluded from participation in or be denied the benefits of the services, programs, or activities of a public entity, or be subjected to discrimination by any such entity." 42 U.S.C. § 12132. Accordingly, to allege a case against the State under Title II of the ADA, Plaintiff must plausibly plead that GNETS students were either excluded from participation in or denied the benefits of a program or activity offered by the State, or (2) subjected to discrimination by the State. See id. Further, Plaintiff must prove that the State is the acting "public entity" that administers GNETS. Id. The Court first addresses the latter.
According to Defendant, Plaintiff fails to plead a prima facie case for Title II discrimination because it is the local school districts, not the State, that manages and implements the GNETS program. [Doc. 47-1 at 11]. The federal regulation that governs and provides implementation criteria for ...
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