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LUNA PEREZ v. STURGIS PUBLIC SCHOOLS 

Opinion of the Court 

Rule Civ. Proc. 8(a)(3) (emphasis added); see also Fed. Rule 
Civ. Proc. 54(c) (similar).  Many of our opinions as well sim-
ilarly speak of the “relief” a plaintiff “seeks” as the remedies
he  requests.  See,  e.g.,  South  Carolina  v.  North  Carolina, 
558 U. S. 256, 260 (2010) (describing the “relief” South Car-
olina “seeks” as the remedies demanded in its “Prayer for
Relief”); New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc. v. City of 
New York, 590 U. S. ___, ___ (2020) (per curiam) (slip op.,
at  1)  (describing  “the  precise  relief  that  petitioners  re-
quested in the prayer” as two remedies, a declaration and 
an injunction); Bowen v. Massachusetts, 487 U. S. 879, 893 
(1988) (discussing 5 U. S. C. §702’s reference to an “action 
. . . seeking relief other than money damages”).

Faced  with  all  this,  Sturgis  replies  that,  whatever  the
merits of our interpretation, precedent forecloses it.  Brief 
for Respondents 19–20, 26–27.  Specifically, the school dis-
trict  points  to  Fry  v.  Napoleon  Community  Schools,  580 
U. S. 154 (2017).  But the Court in Fry went out of its way
to reserve rather than decide the question we now face.  See 
id., at 165, n. 4; id., at 168, n. 8.  And what the Court did 
say  in  Fry  about  the  question  presented  there  hardly  ad-
vances  the  school  district’s  cause  here.  In Fry,  the  Court 
held that §1415(l)’s exhaustion requirement does not apply
unless the plaintiff “seeks relief for the denial of” a free and 
appropriate public education “because that is the only ‘re-
lief’ ”  IDEA’s  administrative  processes  can  supply.    Id.,  at 
165,  168.  This  case  presents  an  analogous  but  different 
question—whether a suit admittedly premised on the past 
denial of a free and appropriate education may nonetheless
proceed  without  exhausting  IDEA’s  administrative  pro-
cesses if the remedy a plaintiff seeks is not one IDEA pro-
vides.  In  both  cases,  the  question  is  whether  a  plaintiff 
must  exhaust  administrative  processes  under  IDEA  that
cannot supply what he seeks.  And here, as in Fry, we an-
swer in the negative.