Case ID: f-appx_633/html/0014-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Anna FRANK, as next friend pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 17(c) for infant-plaintiff MF, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. SACHEM SCHOOL DISTRICT, Defendant-Appellee, New York State Department of Education and Suffolk County, Defendants.
    
    Nos. 15-712(L), 15-724(Con).
    United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.
    Feb. 3, 2016.
    William M. Brooks, Mental Disability-Law Clinic, Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center, Touro College, Central Islip, NY, for Plaintiff-Appellant.
    David F. Kwee, Ingerman Smith, L.L.P., Hauppauge, NY, for Defendant-Appellee.
    Present: ROBERT A. KATZMANN, Chief Judge, AMALYA L. KEARSE, Circuit Judge, and LORNA G. SCHOFIELD, District Judge.
    
    
      
       The Clerk of the Court is directed to amend the caption to conform to the above.
    
    
      
       15-712 (L) was disposed by an order filed on June 25, 2015.
    
    
      
       The Honorable Loma G. Schofield, of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, sitting by designation.
    
   SUMMARY ORDER

Anna Frank, as next friend pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 17(c) for infant-plaintiff MF, appeals the judgment of the District Court for the Eastern District of New York (Spatt, J.) dismissing her claim for damages under the Americans with Disabilities Act principally for failure to state a claim. On appeal, Frank argues that defendant Sachem School District (“Sachem”) violated MF’s rights under the ADA’s “integration mandate”— which is designed to ensure that disabled individuals are provided public services in the “most integrated setting appropriate to the [individual’s] needs,” 28 C.F.R. § 35.130(d) — when it allegedly unnecessarily removed MF from public school and placed him in the Little Flower Residential Treatment Center, a center for emotionally disturbed children. Cf. Olmstead v. L.C. ex rel. Zimring, 527 U.S. 581, 597, 119 S.Ct. 2176, 144 L.Ed.2d 540 (1999) (“Unjustified isolation ... is properly regarded as discrimination based on disability.”) (emphasis added). We assume the parties’ familiarity with the relevant facts and the procedural history of the case.

“A district court’s dismissal of a complaint under Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6) is reviewed de novo, accepting all factual allegations as true and drawing all reasonable inferences in favor of the plaintiff” Orlander v. Staples, Inc., 802 F.3d 289, 294 n. 4 (2d Cir.2015) (citation omitted). To establish a violation of the integration mandate, a plaintiff must prove that “[1] the State’s treatment professionals have determined that community placement is appropriate, [2] the transfer from institutional care to a less restrictive setting is not opposed by the affected individual, and [3] the placement can be reasonably accommodated, taking into account the resources available to the State and the needs of others with mental disabilities.” Olmstead, 527 U.S. at 587, 119 S.Ct. 2176. Further, as a general matter, to recover damages on a claim brought under the ADA, a plaintiff must show that the violation claimed was either intentional or the product of deliberate indifference to the plaintiff’s rights. See Garcia v. S.U.N.Y. Health Scis. Ctr. of Brooklyn, 280 F.3d 98, 115 (2d Cir.2001).

The district court held that damages are not available for violations of the integration mandate, but even assuming, ar-guendo, that a plaintiff may seek such damages, we agree with the district court’s alternative holding that Frank’s complaint nonetheless does not state a valid claim for relief because it fails to allege deliberate indifference. Athough Frank asserts that Little Flower was an unnecessarily restrictive setting, she also affirmatively alleges that MF’s father possessed custody of MF during all relevant periods and that he consented to Sachem’s placement of MF in Little Flower. Given that Frank does not dispute that MF’s father, by virtue of the custody order, had authority to act on MF’s behalf and that a claim under the integration mandate requires proof that the affected individual opposed placement in the restrictive setting, MF’s father’s consent precludes Frank from establishing that Sachem acted with deliberate indifference to MF’s rights.

We have considered all of Frank’s remaining arguments and find them to provide no basis for reversals. Accordingly, for the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.