Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-almd-1_13-cv-00582/USCOURTS-almd-1_13-cv-00582-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 20:1400 Civil Rights of Handicapped Child

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE MIDDLE DISTRICT OF ALABAMA

SOUTHERN DIVISION

J.S.R., a minor, by his Mother, )

Susan Tarter Childs, as his Next )

Friend, and SUSAN TARTER )

CHILDS, )

 )

Plaintiffs, )

 )

v. ) CASE NO. 1:13-CV-582-WKW

 )

DALE COUNTY BOARD )

OF EDUCATION, )

 )

Defendant. )

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

This memorandum opinion and order is entered contemporaneously with the 

court’s memorandum opinion on the parties’ cross-motions for summary judgment.

Before the court is Defendant Dale County Board of Education’s Motion to 

Strike Plaintiffs’ Exhibits 30, 31, 38, and 39, and the new claims raised in

Plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment pertaining to the same exhibits. (Doc. 

# 36.) Plaintiffs J.S.R. and Susan Tarter Childs claim to have responded to the 

motion to strike, (Doc. # 43), but the response does not confront directly any issue

raised in Defendant’s motion. Plaintiffs’ summary judgment reply brief (Doc. 

# 44, at 6) is responsive to Defendants’ positions. Upon consideration of the 

parties’ arguments and relevant law, the court finds that the motion to strike is due 

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to be denied. However, the court concludes that the objections raised in the motion 

to strike are due to be overruled in part and sustained in part.

I. STANDARD OF REVIEW

Defendant’s motion to strike does not identify any rule authorizing the relief 

Defendant seeks. The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure allow for motions to strike 

pleadings, see Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(f), but not evidentiary submissions. See Smith v. 

Se. Stages, Inc., 479 F. Supp. 593, 594 (N.D. Ga. 1977). The court therefore treats

the motion to strike as an objection to Plaintiffs’ exhibits and claims as set out in 

Defendant’s motion. See id.; Norman v. S. Guar. Ins. Co., 191 F. Supp. 2d 1321, 

1328 (M.D. Ala. 2002) (taking the same approach). The court will consider the 

merits of Defendant’s objections to Plaintiffs’ evidence.

II. DISCUSSION

This action follows a state administrative due process hearing conducted 

pursuant to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (“IDEA”). Defendant 

protests that Plaintiffs’ Exhibits 30, 31, 38, and 391 were not presented in the state 

administrative due process hearing, and that the exhibits pertain to events or 

circumstances arising since that hearing. Defendant cites the law pertaining to

civil actions in federal court for judicial review of a state administrative due 

process hearing under the IDEA. See, e.g., 20 U.S.C. § 1415(i)(2)(C)(ii) (“In any 

 

1

Plaintiffs’ Exhibits 30, 31, 38, and 39 are included within Document Nos. 33, 34 and 

35.

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action brought under this paragraph, the court . . . shall hear additional evidence at 

the request of a party.” (emphasis added)); W. Platte R-II Sch. Dist. v. Wilson, 439 

F.3d 782, 785 (8th Cir. 2006) (“The IDEA permits a reviewing court to admit 

additional evidence to supplement the record if a party has a solid justification for 

doing so.”). The Eleventh Circuit has noted that the IDEA “contemplates that the 

source of the evidence generally will be the administrative hearing record, with 

some supplementation at trial.” Walker Cnty. Sch. Dist. v. Bennett ex rel. Bennett, 

203 F.3d 1293, 1298 (11th Cir. 2000). District courts have been cautioned “not to 

allow such [supplemental] evidence to change the character of the hearing from 

one of review to a trial de novo.” Id. 

Relying on these authorities, Defendant objects that neither party filed a 

motion to admit additional evidence beyond the administrative record. (Doc. # 36, 

at 3.) Neither party, however, challenges the outcome of the administrative 

hearing. Rather, Count I of the Amended Complaint pertains to Plaintiffs’ suit for 

attorneys’ fees as the prevailing party at the administrative hearing, and Counts II, 

III, and IV are claims over which the state’s impartial hearing officer declined to 

exercise jurisdiction.

2

 Because the court is presented with claims raised but not 

decided during the administrative proceedings, there appears to be no reason to

 

2

The impartial hearing officer determined that he lacked jurisdiction to entertain 

Plaintiffs’ ADA, § 504, and federal constitutional claims under § 1983. (Administrative 

Decision, at 9–10.)

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confine the evidence to the administrative record, and Plaintiffs need not request 

permission to supplement the record with evidence obtained after the conclusion of 

the administrative hearing. Defendant’s first objection is due to be overruled.

3

Defendant next argues that Plaintiffs failed to exhaust their administrative 

remedies with respect to the evidence presented in Plaintiffs’ Exhibits 30, 31, 38, 

and 39. Defendant argues that, “[r]egardless of the manner in which Plaintiffs 

characterize their allegations” – i.e., as claims under federal statutes other than the 

IDEA – “[Plaintiffs] are still required to exhaust their administrative remedies 

pursuant to IDEA.” (Doc. # 36, at 5.) This is true. “[W]hether claims asserting 

the rights of disabled children are brought pursuant to the IDEA, the ADA, Section 

504, or the Constitution, they must first be exhausted in state administrative 

proceedings.” M.T.V. v. DeKalb Cnty. Sch. Dist., 446 F.3d 1153, 1158 (11th Cir. 

2006); see also Babicz v. Sch. Bd. of Broward Cnty., 135 F.3d 1420, 1422 (11th 

Cir. 1998). Plaintiffs have exhausted their administrative remedies with respect to 

their ADA, § 504, and § 1983 claims arising during or prior to the 2012–13 

academic school year because Plaintiffs raised those claims during the course of

their due process hearing. However, Plaintiffs have not exhausted their 

 

3 Additionally, Defendant did not request leave to submit the Affidavit of Beverly 

Lampkin or Ms. Childs’s deposition, taken on August 11, 2014. Neither piece of evidence is 

included in the state administrative record because each piece of evidence became available well 

after the completion of the administrative due process hearing. Defendant’s argument, which is

inapposite, is further weakened by Defendant’s inconsistent application of the principle that the

evidentiary record must be restricted to the administrative record.

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administrative remedies with respect to more recent claims. Plaintiffs, therefore,

are constrained by the law of the Eleventh Circuit from raising any new ADA, 

§ 504, or § 1983 claims related to J.S.R.’s education since the conclusion of the 

due process proceedings in June 2013 because there has been no additional due 

process complaint filed with the State Department of Education. “[C]laims 

asserted under Section 504 and/or the ADA are subject to [20 U.S.C. §] 1415(f)’s 

requirement that litigants exhaust the IDEA’s administrative procedures to obtain 

relief that is available under the IDEA before bringing suit under Section 504 

and/or the ADA.” Babicz, 135 F.3d at 1422. Defendant’s objection to Plaintiffs’ 

summary judgment submissions and arguments is due to be sustained to the extent 

that Plaintiffs have not exhausted their administrative remedies with respect to 

issues arising since the completion of the 2012–13 academic school year.

Lastly, Defendant contends that “Plaintiffs’ new Section 504 claims” 

concerning circumstances arising during J.S.R.’s ninth- and tenth-grade school 

years “were not identified in Plaintiffs’ Complaint or First Amended Complaint.” 

(Doc. # 36, at 6.) Defendant does not cite any law in direct support of that 

objection, but it is well established that a court should refuse to consider claims not 

pleaded in the operative pleading because a plaintiff may not amend the complaint 

through summary judgment briefing. See Gilmour v. Gates, McDonald & Co., 382 

F.3d 1312, 1315 (11th Cir. 2004). Defendants are entitled to pleaded notice of a 

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plaintiff’s claims, and defendants are not required to “infer all possible claims that 

could arise out of facts set forth in the complaint.” Id. Furthermore, “th[is] court 

is barred from amending” a plaintiff’s complaint for him because “the court may 

create the impression that it has become [his] advocate – or his worst enemy –

depending on what the court does with the claim after amending it.” Miccosukee 

Tribe of Indians of Fla. v. United States, 716 F.3d 535, 559 (11th Cir. 2013).

Plaintiffs’ Amended Complaint was filed October 30, 2013, toward the 

beginning of J.S.R.’s ninth-grade year, the 2013–14 academic school year. The 

Amended Complaint discusses facts that preceded the 2013–14 academic school 

year. Plaintiffs’ summary judgment submissions, however, address issues arising 

subsequent to the filing of the Amended Complaint, including J.S.R.’s exclusion 

from the varsity baseball team during his tenth-grade year, Defendant’s failure to 

provide unspecified “counseling” to J.S.R., Defendant’s prosecution of J.S.R. in 

Dale County Juvenile Court for habitual truancy, and the failure of J.S.R.’s IEP 

team to address his needs in light of his absences for what Plaintiff says should 

have been excused medical reasons. (Doc. # 26, at 26). Additionally, Plaintiffs

complain in their brief that Defendant “continue[s] to ignore [J.S.R.’s] social, 

emotional, and academic needs” since the completion of the administrative due 

process hearing. (Doc. # 26, at 11 (citing Plaintiffs’ Exhibit 31, which appears to 

be J.S.R.’s IEP for the 2014–15 school year).) Plaintiffs maintain that these facts 

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support their claims for unlawful discrimination and retaliation under the ADA and 

§ 504. (Doc. # 26, at 26.) 

Plaintiffs’ Amended Complaint does allege, in conclusory fashion, that 

J.S.R. has suffered unlawful discrimination and retaliation. (See Am. Compl. 

at Counts II & III.) However, Plaintiffs never amended their pleading to give 

Defendant notice that their claims encompassed any of the additional facts arising 

during the 2013–14 and 2014–15 academic school years. For that reason, 

Defendant’s objection is due to be sustained, and the claims to be considered at 

summary judgment are limited to what was pleaded in the Amended Complaint.

III. CONCLUSION

In accordance with the foregoing analysis, it is ORDERED that Defendant’s 

motion to strike (Doc. # 36) is DENIED. The objections to Plaintiffs’ Summary 

Judgment Brief and Evidentiary Submissions are OVERRULED IN PART and 

SUSTAINED IN PART, as set out herein.

DONE this 28th day of September, 2015.

 /s/ W. Keith Watkins

 CHIEF UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

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