2009 Decisions

Opinions of the United

States Court of Appeals

for the Third Circuit

11-2-2009

P P v. W Chester Area Sch

Precedential or Non-Precedential: Precedential

Docket No. 08-2874

Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/thirdcircuit_2009

This decision is brought to you for free and open access by the Opinions of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit at Villanova

University School of Law Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in 2009 Decisions by an authorized administrator of Villanova

University School of Law Digital Repository. For more information, please contact Benjamin.Carlson@law.villanova.edu.

Recommended Citation

"P P v. W Chester Area Sch" (2009). 2009 Decisions. Paper 183.

http://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/thirdcircuit_2009/183
PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

 

Nos. 08-2874 and 08-2940

_____________

P.P., A Minor by and through his Parents, 

Michael P. and Rita P.; 

MICHAEL P.; RITA P., 

Adults Individually and on their own behalf

 Appellants in 08-2874

v.

WEST CHESTER AREA SCHOOL DISTRICT

 Appellant in 08-2940

 

Appeals from the United States District Court

for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania

(D.C. Civil No. 06-cv-04338)

District Judge: Honorable James T. Giles

 

Argued July 14, 2009

Before: RENDELL FUENTES and ROTH, Circuit Judges.

(Filed: November 2, 2009)
2

 

Dennis C. McAndrews, Esq. [ARGUED]

Gabrielle C. Sereni, Esq.

McAndrews Law Offices

30 Cassatt Avenue

Berwyn, PA 19312

 Counsel for Appellants/Cross-Appellees

Jennifer Donaldson, Esq. [ARGUED]

Sweet, Stevens, Katz & Williams

331 East Butler Avenue

P.O. Box 5069

New Britain, PA 18901

 Counsel for Appellee/Cross-Appellant

 

OPINION OF THE COURT

 

RENDELL, Circuit Judge.

The plaintiffs in this special education case, Patrick P., a

minor child, and his parents, Rita and Michael P., appeal the

District Court’s grant of summary judgment to the defendant,

the West Chester Area School District (“District”). The

plaintiffs made claims under the Individuals with Disabilities in

Education Act (“IDEA”), § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of

1973, and 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that the District denied

Patrick a free and appropriate public education (“FAPE”) and
3

violated the IDEA’s child-find obligations. The District Court

granted summary judgment to the District and applied the

IDEA’s two-year statute of limitations, which took effect on

July 1, 2005, to the IDEA claims. It applied Pennsylvania’s

two-year personal injury statute of limitations to the § 504

claims. The District cross-appeals, arguing that the IDEA’s

statute of limitations should apply to the § 504 claims. We will

affirm the District Court’s grant of summary judgment to the

District, but will not reach the IDEA statute of limitations issue.

We disagree with the District Court’s application of

Pennsylvania’s personal injury statute of limitations to the

plaintiffs’ § 504 claims, and hold that the federal IDEA statute

of limitations applies to those claims. 

I. Background

A. The IDEA and the Rehabilitation Act

The IDEA requires that institutions receiving federal

education funding provide a free and appropriate public

education (“FAPE”) to disabled children. 20 U.S.C.

§ 1412(a)(1). A school district provides a FAPE by designing

and implementing an individualized instructional program set

forth in an Individualized Education Plan (“IEP”), which “must

be reasonably calculated to enable the child to receive

meaningful educational benefits in light of the student’s

intellectual potential.” Shore Reg’l High Sch. Bd. of Educ. v.

P.S., 381 F.3d 194, 198 (3d Cir. 2004) (citations and internal

quotation marks omitted). The school district must conduct an

evaluation of the student’s needs, assessing all areas of

suspected disability, before providing special education and
4

related services to the child. 20 U.S.C. § 1414(b). 

The IDEA also requires that a state have a system in

place to identify, locate, and evaluate all children in the state

who have disabilities and need special education and related

services. 20 U.S.C. § 1412(a)(3); 34 C.F.R. § 300.111(a).

Pennsylvania codifies its “child find” duties at 22 Pa. Code. §§

14.121-14.125. 

Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. § 794,

prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability by programs

that receive federal funds. Under § 504, recipients of federal

funds must “provide a free appropriate public education to each

qualified handicapped person who is in the recipient’s

jurisdiction, regardless of the nature or severity of the person’s

handicap.” 34 C.F.R. § 104.33(a). The claims in this case made

under § 504 are parallel to the IDEA claims.

In December of 2004, Congress passed amendments to

the IDEA, which had an effective date of July 1, 2005. The

previous version of the IDEA did not have a statute of

limitations. The amendments, which we will refer to as “IDEA2004,” included an explicit two-year statute of limitations:

A parent or agency shall request an impartial due process

hearing within 2 years of the date the parent or agency

knew or should have known about the alleged action that

forms the basis of the complaint, or, if the State has an

explicit time limitation for requesting such a hearing

under this subchapter, in such time as the State law

allows.
5

20 U.S.C. § 1415(f)(3)(C). Pennsylvania does not have a

separate explicit time limitation for these types of claims. Prior

to IDEA-2004, we had held that there was no federal statute of

limitations for compensatory education claims, in Ridgewood

Board of Education v. N.E., 172 F.3d 238 (3d Cir. 1999). In

Bernardsville Board of Education v. J.H., 42 F.3d 149 (3d Cir.

1994), we held that there was a one- to two-year statute of

limitations for tuition reimbursement claims.

IDEA-2004 includes two exceptions to the statute of

limitations period. The two-year period does not apply when the

parent was prevented from requesting a due process hearing

because of either:

(i) specific misrepresentations by the local educational

agency that it had resolved the problem forming the basis

of the complaint; or

(ii) the local educational agency’s withholding of

information from the parent that was required under this

subchapter to be provided to the parent.

20 U.S.C. § 1415(f)(3)(D). 

B. Facts

The plaintiffs—Rita and Michael P. and their son Patrick,

who was 11 years old at the time the complaint was filed—live

within the boundaries of the District, but Patrick has never

attended public school. During the 2001-2005 school years,

when he was in kindergarten through third grade, Patrick went
6

to a parochial school, St. Maximillian Kolbe (“St. Max”).

During the summer of 2005, and in the 2005-2006 school year,

when he was in fourth grade, he attended the Benchmark School

(“Benchmark”), a private school for children with disabilities.

The District is obligated under the IDEA to identify and

locate children who need special education services. It puts

annual notices in the general circulation newspaper that inform

parents about the availability of evaluations and the procedures

for making an evaluation request, including that requests must

be in writing, that there must be written consent to evaluate, and

that there are timelines for requesting due process. The District

provides the same information on its website and over public

access television, and puts posters and pamphlets with this

information in both District school buildings and in private

schools within the District. Homeowners receive this

information in their property tax bills. The District also trains

principals and staff at private schools about the referral

processes and child find issues. During the time relevant to the

plaintiff’s case, the Pennsylvania Department of Education

found that the District was 100% compliant with its child find

obligations. 

According to the plaintiffs, Rita P. first requested that

Patrick be evaluated for special education services in January of

2003, after he had shown problems with reading in kindergarten.

Based on his kindergarten teacher’s recommendation, Patrick

received Title I reading services from the Chester County

Intermediate Unit during his first grade year, in 2002 and 2003.

Title I is designed to help students reach state academic

achievement levels; private school students are guaranteed these
7

services under 20 U.S.C. § 6301. 

Rita P. claims that in early 2003 she contacted Carol

Gaspar, the St. Max guidance counselor, and Michele McCann,

then the District Supervisor of Special Education, seeking

evaluation for Patrick. The plaintiffs contend that Ms. Gaspar

contacted District Psychologist Virginia Sutton about Patrick,

and personally delivered referral documents to the District in

April of 2003. As noted below, these individuals have denied

that these contacts occurred. Carol Gaspar, the guidance

counselor assigned to St. Max, testified that she had no

recollection of any 2003 letter from the plaintiffs requesting

evaluation, and no copy of the letter. Rita P. could not produce

a copy of the letter, either. Virginia Sutton, the school

psychologist who facilitated non-public school referrals in the

relevant part of the District, had no record of any conversation

with any of the plaintiffs or any documentation regarding

Patrick, despite what the Appeals Panel called her

“extraordinarily thorough and meticulous record-keeping

system.” (App. 665.) As we will discuss further below, we

agree with the Hearing Officer, the Appeals Panel, and the

District Court that the District did not receive notice of Patrick’s

need to be evaluated in early 2003. 

The plaintiffs privately retained a psychologist, Dr. Tracy

Burke, who evaluated Patrick in April of 2003 and found that he

had difficulties with reading, reading comprehension, written

expression, and visual-motor integration. In June of 2003, a

vision evaluator determined that Patrick needed vision therapy.

He received vision therapy and Title I reading services through

his second-grade year.
8

On November 22, 2004, during Patrick’s third-grade

year, the plaintiffs wrote directly to the District requesting an

evaluation of Patrick and informing the District that a private

evaluator, Dr. Lisi Levisohn, was expected to evaluate Patrick’s

eligibility for special education services on December 14, 2004.

Susan Amsterdam, a District psychologist, interpreted the letter

to be a request for eligibility evaluation, and on November 29,

2004, the District sent two forms to the parents: a Release of

Records form and a Parent Input form. The release informed the

plaintiffs that there would be an information-gathering process

before the District issued the Permission to Evaluate form

(“PTE”) and that the District’s receipt of the signed form would

start the clock on the timeline to complete the evaluation. The

plaintiffs filled out and returned the forms to the District,

enclosing a copy of Dr. Burke’s evaluation of Patrick. 

On December 17, 2004, the District sent copies of the

releases to the guidance counselor at St. Max and to Dr.

Levisohn. In mid- to late January of 2005, the District

assembled a Child Study Team to determine whether to issue a

PTE. The PTE was issued on February 2, 2005, 72 calendar

days after the date of the plaintiff’s November 22, 2004, letter.

Dr. Amsterdam, the District psychologist, suggested to

the plaintiffs that they not sign the initial PTE, since it would

have to be amended once Dr. Levison’s private evaluation of

Patrick was complete. She assured the plaintiffs that it would

not take long to send out a new form. They did not sign the

initial PTE. Dr. Levisohn sent Dr. Amsterdam a list of the

evaluation measures she had used, and noted that her report was

not yet finished. Dr. Amsterdam decided not to issue a new PTE
9

until the District had Dr. Levisohn’s complete report, which it

received on April 5, 2005. Dr. Levisohn found that Patrick

qualified for special education services because he was both

Learning Disabled and Mentally Gifted. On April 7, 2005, the

District sent a revised PTE, which the parents signed and mailed

back on April 11, 2005, 64 days after the first form was mailed.

The form instructed the plaintiffs that the District had 60 school

days to complete its evaluation of Patrick. The District began

testing Patrick in early June of 2005.

Before the District began testing Patrick, on the advice of

Dr. Levisohn, the plaintiffs visited the Benchmark School. They

liked the school, and applied for the 2005-2006 school year.

The early admissions process required the plaintiffs to declare

Patrick’s candidacy for the fall term by April 21, 2005, and in

the spring of 2005, the plaintiffs asked teachers at St. Max to

complete questionnaires required by Benchmark and went to a

family interview. In late May or early June of 2005, Benchmark

accepted Patrick for both the 2005 summer program and for the

2005-2006 school year. In early June, the plaintiffs sent a

tuition deposit to Benchmark. They financed the Benchmark

tuition through AMS, a program that fronts the entire year’s

tuition to a private school and requires that parents repay the

bank on a monthly basis, with limited opportunity for parents to

opt out of full payment if their child does not attend the private

school. 

In July of 2005, the District completed testing Patrick and

produced a preliminary Evaluation Report (“ER”), which it sent

to the family. On August 19, 2005, the plaintiffs wrote to

dispute the draft ER, because it did not identify a specific
The Hearing Officer found that Patrick had performed 1

at the “average” level during the math portion of his evaluation

by Dr. Levisohn, despite becoming dizzy and not being familiar

with some of the types of problems. He was not doing poorly in

math at St. Max. Neither the District nor Dr. Levisohn

performed social or emotional assessments because his parents

reported that Patrick was happy, social, and responsible, and Dr.

Levisohn found him to be pleasant, joyful, and engaging. His

teachers described him as positive and motivated. See App.

646-47.

10

learning disability in Math Computation and did not include

assessments of Patrick’s social and emotional function. The 1

plaintiffs also informed the District that Patrick would enroll at

Benchmark for the 2005-2006 school year, and that they had “no

alternative” because the District’s IEP would not be offered

until after the beginning of the school year. (App. 545.)

The District finalized the report and sent it to the family

on September 1, 2005, before the beginning of the school year.

The report incorporated many of Dr. Levisohn’s findings, and

identified a specific learning disability in Written Expression

and Reading. Although Dr. Levisohn had not recommended

occupational therapy, the District’s report included such a

recommendation. 

The school year began on September 6, 2005. Patrick

attended Benchmark. On September 8 or 9, 2005, the plaintiffs

received an invitation from the District to participate in an IEP

meeting. On September 13, 2005, the Individualized Education
11

Program team met to develop an IEP. At that meeting, Rita P.

signed the revised September 1, 2005, ER. The IEP the District

developed provided for occupational therapy and small group

direct instruction for Language Arts, Math, and Gifted Needs.

It also addressed Patrick’s spelling and keyboard skills and

noted that he qualified for enrollment in the gifted program.

The IEP included a long list of annual goals for Patrick and

specific instructions on how his progress was to be measured, in

addition to specially designed instruction and program

modifications. The plaintiffs did not approve the IEP.

C. The Administrative Process and the District

Court’s Decision

The plaintiffs filed a due process complaint on October

5, 2005, alleging claims under the IDEA, § 504 of the

Rehabilitation Act, and the Pennsylvania School Code. They

sought compensatory education for the alleged child find

violations during the 2002-2003 and 2004-2005 school years

and for an alleged denial of a FAPE, payment for an

Independent Educational Evaluation (“IEE”) for the due process

hearing, reimbursement for the two previous IEEs,

reimbursement for vision therapy in 2003 and 2004, and tuition

reimbursement for Patrick’s time at Benchmark in the summer

of 2005 and the 2005-2006 school year.

The Hearing Officer limited the IDEA and § 504 claims

to those arising after October 5, 2003, applying the IDEA2004’s two-year statute of limitations. She concluded that the

District fulfilled its child find obligations and that the District’s

ER and IEP were appropriate, and that the parents were not
12

entitled to compensatory education between October 2003 and

May 3, 2005, reimbursement for vision therapy, or tuition

reimbursement. The Hearing Officer awarded 102 hours of

compensatory education for the period from May 4, 2005 to

June 21, 2005, on the theory that if the District had been more

prompt about its evaluation and IEP, a FAPE should have been

available to Patrick on May 4, 2005, and his parents could have

transferred him to a public school in the District for the last six

weeks of the school year. 

Both the plaintiffs and the District filed exceptions before

the Appeal Panel. The panel held that the Hearing Officer had

erred in awarding compensatory education because it is not an

available remedy for private school students who are placed

there unilaterally by their parents. See 34 C.F.R. §§ 300.137,

300.138. The panel wrote that 

[t]he record in its entirety compels a conclusion contrary

to the decision of the Hearing Officer. The Hearing

Officer based her decision as to compensatory education

on facts not in evidence (i.e., that the student could have

been enrolled in the public school during that period)

and, contrary to evidence presented and testimony given.

The letter to the District in November as well as the

Parent’s testimony clearly demonstrates the Parents were

not planning to move the Student to the District until at

least the 2005-2006 year. . . . Therefore, because the

Student was enrolled in a private school, and not in the

District, and because the clear testimony indicates that

even if the District had completed the evaluation in a

timely manner, the Student would have remained in the
13

private school leads this panel to the conclusion that

compensatory education is not available.

(App. 683.) The panel affirmed the rest of the Hearing Officer’s

decision.

The plaintiffs then filed this federal case seeking reversal

of the two prior decisions and adding a § 1983 claim. On May

30, 2008, the District Court granted the District’s Motion for

Disposition on the Administrative Record and for Summary

Judgment. The court granted summary judgment for the District

on the plaintiffs’ § 1983 claims, citing our decision in A.W. v.

Jersey City Public Schools, 486 F.3d 791, 803, 805-06 (3d Cir.

2007), in which we held that § 1983 is not an available remedy

for violations of the IDEA and the Rehabilitation Act, because

both statutes have sufficiently comprehensive remedial schemes.

Like the Hearing Officer and the Appeal Panel, the District

Court applied the IDEA-2004 two-year statute of limitations to

the plaintiffs’ claims, barring any claims arising before October

5, 2003, two years before the plaintiffs requested a due process

hearing. It concluded that the District did not violate its child

find obligations, and that the plaintiffs were not entitled to

compensatory education or tuition reimbursement. The District

Court denied the District’s request to apply IDEA-2004’s statute

of limitations to the § 504 claims, instead applying

Pennsylvania’s two-year personal injury statute of limitations.
14

II. Discussion

A. Jurisdiction and Standard of Review

The plaintiffs made claims under the IDEA, § 504 of the

Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and § 1983. The district court had

jurisdiction under 20 U.S.C. § 1415(i)(2)(A) and 28 U.S.C. §

1331. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. 

As discussed above, this case came to the District Court

after the parents filed a due process complaint before a Hearing

Officer; both parties filed exceptions to the officer’s decision

and the case went to a Special Education Appeals Panel. The

parents then filed a federal complaint. In reviewing a dispute

brought under the IDEA’s administrative process, a district court

gives “due weight” and deference to the findings in the

administrative proceedings. Bd. of Educ. v. Rowley, 458 U.S.

176, 206 (1982). We have described this “due weight” standard

as “modified de novo” review. S.H. v. State-Operated Sch. Dist.

of the City of Newark, 336 F.3d 260, 269-70 (3d Cir. 2003).

“Factual findings from the administrative proceedings are to be

considered prima facie correct,” and if the reviewing court does

not adhere to those findings, it is “‘obliged to explain why.’” Id.

at 270 (citation omitted). Under the two-tier special education

system in place at the time this case was going through the

administrative process, district courts owe more deference to the

findings of the Appeals Panel than to those of the Hearing
 Pennsylvania has now transitioned to a single-tier 2

administrative process; hearing officers provide all state-level

review.

15

Officer. Carlisle Area Sch. v. Scott P., 62 F.3d 520, 529-30 (3d 2

Cir. 1995). 

The statute of limitations claims and the plaintiffs’ claims

for compensatory education and tuition reimbursement are

subject to plenary review as conclusions of law. The other

issues—whether the family proved an exception to the IDEA2004 statute of limitations, and whether the District fulfilled its

FAPE obligations—are subject to clear error review as questions

of fact. See S.H., 336 F.3d at 271. The plaintiffs cite Wexler v.

Westfield Board of Education, 784 F.2d 176, 181 (3d Cir. 1986),

for the proposition that the application of the IDEA’s

requirements to a student’s medical and educational needs is a

mixed question of law and fact, but our later precedent makes it

clear that “[t]he issue of whether an IEP is appropriate is a

question of fact.” Carlisle, 62 F.3d at 526.

B. Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act Statute of

Limitations

This case poses an issue of first impression: whether

IDEA-2004’s two-year statute of limitations should apply to

parallel claims under § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. Section

504 does not have its own statute of limitations. 

The District Court applied Pennsylvania’s two-year
16

personal injury statute of limitations to the plaintiffs’ § 504

claims, citing the strong preference for importing an analogous

state statute of limitations when federal statutes do not include

an express statute of limitations. DelCostello v. Int’l Bhd. of

Teamsters, 462 U.S. 151, 158 (1983); Haggerty v. USAir, Inc.,

952 F.2d 781, 783 (3d Cir. 1992). The District argues that the

District Court erred when it applied the personal injury statute

of limitations to those claims; it says that the court should have

imported the two-year statute of limitations from IDEA-2004.

The District acknowledges that prior to the passage of the IDEA

amendments in 2004 the use of the personal injury limitations

period was appropriate, but argues that the IDEA is so

analogous to § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act that the IDEA’s

limitations period should apply. A court may borrow a

limitations period from an analogous federal law where that law

“clearly provides a closer analogy than the available state

statutes, and when the federal policies at stake and the

practicalities of litigation make that rule a significantly more

appropriate vehicle for interstitial lawmaking.” DelCostello,

462 U.S. at 172; see also United Steel Workers of Am. v. Crown

Cork & Seal Co., 32 F.3d 53, 56-57 (3d Cir. 1994), aff’d sub

nom. N. Star Steel Co. v. Thomas, 515 U.S. 29 (1995). 

The IDEA and § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act do similar

statutory work. The IDEA protects the rights of disabled

children by mandating that public educational institutions

identify and effectively educate those children, or pay for their

education elsewhere if they require specialized services that the

public institution cannot provide. Section 504 of the

Rehabilitation Act is parallel to the IDEA in its protection of

disabled students: it protects the rights of disabled children by
17

prohibiting discrimination against students on the basis of

disability, and it has child find, evaluation, and FAPE

requirements, like the IDEA. The Rehabilitation Act is

certainly closer in subject matter and goals to the IDEA than to

the Pennsylvania personal injury statute, which deals with torts

against person and property. 

While we have held that similarity between federal

statutes is not enough to justify applying the statute of

limitations from one statute to claims made under the other, see

Kingvision Pay-Per-View, Corp. v. 898 Belmont, Inc., 366 F.3d

217, 222 (3d Cir. 2004) (“[T]he desire to unify the limitations

periods of federal laws with similar purposes is not a sufficient

reason to adopt federal limitations periods.”), the “existence and

availability of a more sharply focused federal analogue” is an

important consideration. Rossiter v. Potter, 357 F.3d 26, 33 (1st

Cir. 2004). Here, we consider whether to apply a general state

personal injury limitations period to claims made under a federal

statute with very specific goals, when Congress has recently

acted to include a statute of limitations in a federal statute with

very similar goals. See Norman J. Singer, Statutes and Statutory

Construction 702 (2003 rev. ed.) (“When two or more statutes

of limitations deal with the same subject matter, the statute

which is more recent and specific will prevail over the older and

more general one.”). We also note that there are few federal

statutes as closely related, and under which such similar claims

may be brought, as the IDEA and § 504 of the Rehabilitation

Act.

As the District Court pointed out, we “take seriously the

Supreme Court’s admonition that analogous state statutes of
18

limitations are to be used unless they frustrate or significantly

interfere with federal polices.” Crown Cork, 32 F.3d at 57.

Here, we fear that applying the state statute of limitations could

frustrate federal policy in certain situations. The IDEA has two

specific exceptions to the statute of limitations: the limitations

period does not apply if a parent was prevented from requesting

a due process hearing because of either (1) specific

misrepresentations by the school that it had resolved the

problem, or (2) the school’s withholding of statutorily required

information from the parent. 20 U.S.C. § 1415(f)(3)(D). There

are no such exceptions to the Pennsylvania statute of limitations

period for personal injury claims. In addition, tolling principles

that affect the application of state statutes of limitations would

presumably not affect the IDEA statute of limitations, with its

express exceptions to the limitations period. 

In this case, the plaintiffs make child find and FAPE

claims under both the IDEA and the Rehabilitation Act. All of

the plaintiffs’ § 504 claims are premised on their IDEA

claims—they make no separate claim of disability

discrimination under § 504. It does not make sense that the

virtually identical claims made under these two statutes would

be treated differently from a statute-of-limitations perspective:

Congress has expressed an interest in promptly resolving

disputes under the IDEA, as evidenced by its passage of the

statute-of-limitations amendment. If a plaintiff was barred from

asserting an IDEA claim because the statute of limitations had

run and neither of the exceptions applied, why should the

identical claim, made under the Rehabilitation Act, be subject to

different tolling principles?
19

We are convinced that the IDEA’s limitations period is

a better fit for education claims made under the Rehabilitation

Act than the personal injury statute of limitations. Although it

appears that none of our sister circuits have faced this issue,

district courts confronting the issue have concluded that claims

for education under the Rehabilitation Act should be governed

by the IDEA’s statute of limitations. See, e.g., Bell v. Bd. of

Educ of Albuquerque Pub Sch., No. 06-1137, 2008 WL

4104070, at *24 (D.N.M. Mar. 26, 2008) (holding that the

IDEA’s limitations period applies to Rehabilitation Act claims

where all claims are for education and there are no pure

discrimination claims made under the Rehabilitation Act). 

The statute of limitations from the IDEA provides a

“closer analogy” to the Rehabilitation Act than Pennsylvania’s

personal injury statute of limitations. Under DelCostello, “the

federal policies at stake and the practicalities of litigation make

that rule a significantly more appropriate vehicle for interstitial

lawmaking.” 462 U.S. at 172. Therefore, we hold that the

IDEA’s two-year statute of limitations applies to claims made

for education under § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act.

C. The District’s Obligations under the IDEA and the

Rehabilitation Act

Next, we address whether the District Court was correct

that the District satisfied the requirements of the IDEA and the

Rehabilitation Act in its identification and evaluation of Patrick

for special education services. 
 At oral argument, the plaintiffs argued that the Chester 3

County Intermediate Unit, which provided Patrick with Title I

services at St. Max, should be considered an agent of the

District and its knowledge of Patrick’s need for Title I services

should be imputed to the District and considered notice of a

need for evaluation under the IDEA. The plaintiffs did not raise

this issue before the District Court; although their briefs on

appeal mention that Patrick got Title I services from the CCIU,

20

 1. The Plaintiffs’ Claims Before November 22, 2004

The plaintiffs claim that they initially sought services for

Patrick in early 2003. As we discussed above, there is no

evidence in the record, apart from the testimony of Rita P., to

support this assertion. The Hearing Officer found that Rita P.’s

claim that she had initiated the evaluation process in January of

2003 was not credible: she could not provide a copy of the letter

she claims she wrote, and numerous District and school

employees with whom she claimed to speak have no records of

their conversations. The Hearing Officer found that Dr.

Virginia Sutton, the school psychologist who worked with all

non-public school referrals in the District, had no record of any

conversation with either parent or documentation referring to

Patrick, despite maintaining an “extraordinarily thorough and

meticulous record-keeping system.” (App. 642.) The Appeals

Panel and the District Court accepted this finding, and we will

not disturb the findings of the Hearing Officer that the District

did not have notice of Patrick’s need to be evaluated until it

received Rita P.’s November 22, 2004, letter. We will consider

only those claims arising after that date.3
oral argument was the first time they argued that the CCIU was

an agent of the District. As this argument was not properly

raised, we will not consider it. 

21

 2. Timeliness of Evaluation

The plaintiffs allege that there was an unlawful delay

between the parents’ request for an evaluation of Patrick and the

completion of the process. The Hearing Officer ordered 102

hours of compensatory education as an equitable remedy for the

time the family had to wait for the District’s evaluation process

to be completed. The Hearing Officer called the District’s

delay “egregious” and said that the District denied Patrick the

possibility of receiving a FAPE for May and June 2005. 

The District acknowledges the delay but argues that it

was due to the parents’ seeking a private IEE. Further, the

District contends, the delay was harmless, because it made no

difference in the parents’ decision to keep Patrick in private

school—Rita P. testified that the plaintiffs did not intend to

move Patrick from St. Max during the 2004-2005 school year.

The Appeals Panel agreed with the District and reversed

the Hearing Officer’s award of compensatory education, finding

that the “record read in its entirety compels a conclusion

contrary to the decision of the Hearing Officer” because the

record showed that there was no way Patrick would have gone

to public school until the 2005-2006 school year, and

compensatory education should only have been awarded if the

record showed that, if the evaluation had been timely, the
22

parents would have transferred him to the District. (App. 683.)

The District Court found that the District took an “unduly

long time to complete its evaluation,” but that the evaluation

was substantively appropriate and that a procedural violation

alone cannot support a compensatory education award. See 20

U.S.C. § 1415(f)(3)(E)(ii); Me. Sch. Admin. Dist. No. 35 v. Mr.

R., 321 F.3d 9, 19 (1st Cir. 2003) (“We recognize that

compensatory education is not an appropriate remedy for a

purely procedural violation of the IDEA”); Erickson v.

Albuquerque Pub. Schs., 119 F.3d 1116, 1122-23 (10th Cir.

1999) (“The district court properly found that compensatory

education is not an appropriate remedy for a procedural

violation of the IDEA.”). We agree with the District Court.

While the delay in evaluating Patrick was unfortunate, the

record does not show that the delay had any impact in the

plaintiffs’ decision to keep Patrick at St. Max for the 2004-2005

school year. 

 3. Child Find Obligations

School districts have a continuing obligation under the

IDEA and § 504 to identify and evaluate all students who are

reasonably suspected of having a disability under the statutes.

Ridgewood, 172 F.3d at 253. The Hearing Officer, the Appeals

Panel, and the District Court all concluded that the District did

not violate its child find obligations. The plaintiffs’ argument

rests primarily on their unproven allegation that they first

provided notice to the District in January of 2003. As we said

above, we will not disturb the findings of the Hearing Officer,

Appeals Panel, and District Court that the District did not have
23

notice of Patrick’s need to be evaluated until the parents’ letter

of November 22, 2004.

The District also points out that its child find efforts, in

this case and in other cases, are comprehensive: it routinely

posts child find notices in the local paper, makes the information

available on its website, and sends residents the information in

their tax bills. Targeted posters and pamphlets are placed in

private schools. The Pennsylvania Department of Education

was satisfied that the District was 100% compliant with its child

find obligations during the relevant time. The District Court

was convinced that the District’s child find activities were

appropriate; we are as well.

 4. Free and Appropriate Public Education

Every disabled student is entitled to an FAPE under the

IDEA. 20 U.S.C. § 1412. It must be specially designed to meet

the unique needs of that child, be provided under public

supervision and direction. and be provided at no cost to the

parents. The Hearing Officer, the Appeals Panel, and the

District Court all agreed that the IEP and the ER were

appropriate and met IDEA requirements. The plaintiffs argue

that the District denied Patrick a FAPE because the ER did not

identify him as having a learning disability in math computation

and did not assess his social and emotional functioning. As the

Appeals Panel found, those areas were not identified as

suspected disabilities and so were properly excluded from the

ER. Based on the record, the District’s evaluation of Patrick

and the IEP it offered him were substantively appropriate and

reasonably calculated to provide a meaningful educational
The Supreme Court’s decision in Forest Grove School 4

District v. T.A., 129 S. Ct. 2484 (2009), addressed the issue of

whether plaintiffs may be reimbursed for private special

education services when the student is unilaterally placed in a

private institution. The Court held that, under the IDEA, such

services merited reimbursement if the public institution did not

provide a FAPE, even if the student had never received special

education services at the public institution. Forest Grove is not

relevant to the situation here, where the District did not deny the

24

benefit. We agree with the District Court that the District met

the FAPE requirements of the IDEA.

 5. Tuition Reimbursement and Compensatory

Education

The plaintiffs seek tuition reimbursement for Patrick’s

placement at Benchmark during the summer of 2005 and the

2005-2006 school year, based on their allegations that the

District’s ER and IEP were inappropriate. 

The IDEA requires the state to reimburse parents for

private school tuition in some situations where the school “had

not made a free appropriate education available to the child in

a timely manner prior to that enrollment.” 20 U.S.C. §

1412(a)(10)(C)(ii); see also Winkelman ex rel. Winkelman v.

Parma City Sch. Dist., 550 U.S. 516, 532 (2007); Florence

County Sch. Dist. v. Carter, 510 U.S. 7, 13 (1993). No

reimbursement is required if the school offered a FAPE and the

parents placed the child in a private school anyway. The 4
student a FAPE and where the student not only never received

special education services from the District, but was never

enrolled in the District in the first place. 

25

Hearing Officer, the Appeal Panel, and the District Court all

found that the District offered a FAPE. We agree.

In the alternative, the plaintiffs seek compensatory

education based on events from the 2002-2003 school year

through the 2004-2005 school year. “‘A disabled student’s right

to compensatory education accrues when the school knows or

should know that the student is receiving an inappropriate

education.’” Lauren W. v. Deflaminis, 480 F.3d 259, 272 (3d

Cir. 2007) (quoting Ridgewood, 172 F.3d at 250)). The right to

compensatory education arises not from the denial of an

appropriate IEP, but from the denial of appropriate education.

Ridgewood, 172 F.3d at 250. 

As we have stated above, the District did not receive

notice that Patrick needed evaluation for special education

services until November of 2004, so the plaintiffs’ claims for

compensatory education before that point must fail. Moreover,

as we have discussed above, a procedural violation cannot

support a compensatory education claim, so the fact that there

was a delay in providing the evaluation and IEP to the plaintiffs

cannot sustain their compensatory education claim, because

Patrick’s substantive rights were not affected. See, e.g., Me.

Sch. Admin. Dist., 321 F.3d at 19 (holding that “compensatory

education is not an appropriate remedy for a purely procedural

violation of the IDEA”). 
26

Further, compensatory education is not an available

remedy when a student has been unilaterally enrolled in private

school. See 20 U.S.C. § 1412(a)(10); 34 C.F.R. §§ 300.137,

300.138, 300.148(c); In re The Educational Assignment of J.D.,

Spec. Educ. No. 1120, at 14 (Pa. Spec. Educ. Appeals Panel

2001), available at http://odr.pattan.net/ODRapps/App1120.pdf

(“[T]uition reimbursement and compensatory education are two

distinct remedies. They are not interchangeable. Tuition

reimbursement is a remedy to parents who have unilaterally

placed their child in a private school when a district offers their

child an inappropriate educational placement and the proposed

IEP was inappropriate under the IDEA thereby failing to give

the child FAPE. In contrast, compensatory education is a

retrospective and in kind remedy for failure to provide an

appropriate education for a period of time.” (citations omitted)).

As the Appeals Panel noted, the record shows that Patrick

has never been enrolled in public school. Therefore,

compensatory education is not an available remedy. 

 6. Reimbursement for IEEs and Vision Therapy

A parent has the right to an IEE at public expense if the

parent disagrees with the evaluation obtained by the school. 34

C.F.R. § 300.502(b)(1); Schaffer v. Weast, 546 U.S. 49, 60

(2005). The plaintiffs seek reimbursement for the 2003 and

2005 IEEs that they obtained privately, and for vision therapy

they obtained privately from July 2003 through March 2004. 

The plaintiffs may not receive reimbursement for the

2003 IEE and the 2003-2004 vision therapy because Patrick
 Compare Tereance D. v. Sch. Dist. of Phila, 570 F. 5

Supp. 2d 739 (E.D. Pa. 2008) (holding that the application of

27

received those services before the District knew or should have

known that Patrick needed evaluation for special education

services. The 2005 IEE is not eligible for reimbursement

because the parents had already made an appointment for the

IEE when they requested District evaluation. The Hearing

Officer, Appeals Panel, and District Court all held that because

the parents were not challenging the District’s evaluation, the

District was not responsible for reimbursement. We agree.

D. IDEA Statute of Limitations

The District Court applied the two-year statute of

limitations from IDEA-2004 to the plaintiffs’ claims, barring

claims arising before October 5, 2003. The plaintiffs claim that

this is an unlawful retroactive application of the limitations

period, citing Landgraf v. USI Film Prods., 511 U.S. 244, 265

(1994). The District argues that the District Court properly

barred the pre-October 5, 2003, IDEA claims because the

amendments were in effect on October 5, 2005, when the

parents initiated their due process request. 

The issue of whether IDEA-2004’s two-year statute of

limitations applies to cases where the underlying events took

place before IDEA-2004’s effective date is an important one,

and one that our court has not yet addressed. A number of our

district courts have dealt with the issue, and reached different

results. However, we will not reach that issue today, because 5
IDEA-2004’s two-year statute of limitations to the plaintiffs’

compensatory education claims arising before the statute’s

enactment was impermissibly retroactive under Landgraf), J.L.

v. Ambridge Area Sch. Dist., No. 06-1652, 2009 WL 1119608

(W.D. Pa. Apr. 27, 2009) (same), and Steven I. v. Cent. Bucks

Sch. Dist., No. 08-571, 2009 WL 415767 (E.D. Pa. Feb. 18,

2009) (same), with Evan H. v. Unionville-Chadds Ford Sch.

Dist., No. 07-4990, 2008 WL 4791634 (E.D. Pa. Nov. 4, 2008)

(holding that the statute of limitations bars claims that arose

prior to its enactment), and Sch. Dist. of Phila v. Deborah A.,

No. 08-2924, 2009 WL 778321 (E.D. Pa. Mar. 24, 2009)

(same).

 Because we decline to rule on the IDEA statute of 6

limitations issue, we will not address whether either of the two

exceptions to the statute of limitations—specific

misrepresentations or withholding of information by the

District—apply. 20 U.S.C. § 1415(f)(3)(D).

28

whether or not we apply the two-year statute of limitations, all

of the plaintiffs’ claims that are supported by the record were

timely filed. There are no claims that pre-date the notice given

in November 2004, and the plaintiffs filed their due process

request in October of 2005, so there is no real issue of the statute

of limitations or its retroactivity here. Any ruling on the statute

of limitations would be purely advisory. Notwithstanding the

parties’ desire for us to do so, we decline to opine on this issue

when it is not implicated in the case before us.6

Accordingly, we will REVERSE the District Court’s
29

ruling with respect to the applicability of the Pennsylvania

personal injury statute of limitations to the plaintiffs’ claims

under § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, but will AFFIRM its

order granting summary judgment to the District.