Source: https://openjurist.org/115/f3d/1273/doe-v-board-of-education-of-oak-park-and-river-forest-high-school-district-c
Timestamp: 2020-01-20 03:44:38
Document Index: 47668450

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1412', '§ 1400', '§ 1412', '§ 1415', '§ 612', '§ 1415', '§ 8921', '§ 794']

115 F3d 1273 Doe v. Board of Education of Oak Park & River Forest High School District C | OpenJurist
115 F. 3d 1273 - Doe v. Board of Education of Oak Park & River Forest High School District C
115 F3d 1273 Doe v. Board of Education of Oak Park & River Forest High School District C
115 F.3d 1273
65 USLW 2813, 118 Ed. Law Rep. 881,
22 A.D.D. 778
John DOE, by and through his parents and next friends and
the class of all others similarly situated, Jane
Doe, next friend and Joe Doe, next
friend, Plaintiffs and
BOARD OF EDUCATION OF OAK PARK & RIVER FOREST HIGH SCHOOL
DISTRICT 200, Nancy Smiley, Donald Offermann, Stephen C.
Bruner, both in their official capacities and as
individuals, et al., Defendants and Counter-Plaintiffs-Appellees.
En Banc June 23, 1997.
Whether a school district has satisfied the requirements of the IDEA is a mixed question of law and fact, which this Court reviews de novo. Board of Education of Murphysboro v. Illinois State Board of Education, 41 F.3d 1162, 1166 (7th Cir.1994). Absent a mistake of law, this Court must review the district court's decision for clear error. See id. at 1166-1167. We review de novo all other issues on which the district court granted summary judgment. See Border v. City of Crystal Lake, 75 F.3d 270, 272 (7th Cir.1996).
The Does first argue that the IDEA required OPRF to offer alternative educational services to John during the time his due process hearing was pending. Their primary argument in this regard is that the Department of Education's Office for Special Education Programs ("OSEP"), the federal government entity which is responsible for administering the IDEA, has interpreted the IDEA to require the continuation of appropriate alternative services for any students with disabilities who are expelled from their regular classroom setting, regardless of the relationship of a student's misbehavior to his or her disability. The Does assert that OSEP's interpretation must be binding here, when the controversy is between a school district and a student on whose behalf the school district accepts federal funds, citing Metropolitan School District of Wayne Township v. Davila, 969 F.2d 485, 493 (7th Cir.1992), certiorari denied, 507 U.S. 949, 113 S.Ct. 1360, 122 L.Ed.2d 740. Moreover, they believe that OSEP's interpretative ruling is persuasive and accordingly entitled to deference, based on the IDEA, its legislative history and judicial precedent, citing Kaelin v. Grubbs, 682 F.2d 595, 600, 602 (6th Cir.1982); S-1 v. Turlington, 635 F.2d 342, 348 (5th Cir.1981), certiorari denied, 454 U.S. 1030, 102 S.Ct. 566, 70 L.Ed.2d 473; Board of Education of the City of Peoria v. Illinois State Board of Education, 531 F.Supp. 148, 151 (N.D.Ill.1982). On behalf of the Department of Education, the United States, as amicus curiae, has filed a brief in this Court in support of this argument for reversal.2
As discussed in more detail in the next section of this opinion, the Supreme Court's decision in Honig v. Doe, 484 U.S. 305, 108 S.Ct. 592, 98 L.Ed.2d 686, is not dispositive on this issue, in that the Court's decision was limited to holding that under the "stay-put" provision of the IDEA students with disabilities may not be expelled unilaterally for misconduct "growing out of their disabilities." Id. at 308, 108 S.Ct. at 596 (emphasis added). In addition, the only other Circuit until recently to rule on this issue held that if a handicapped child's misconduct is properly determined in an MDC not to be a result of his or her handicap, then the child can be expelled and during the expulsion all educational services may cease. Doe v. Maher, 793 F.2d 1470, 1482 (9th Cir.1986), affirmed as modified sub nom., Honig v. Doe, 484 U.S. 305, 108 S.Ct. 592, 98 L.Ed.2d 686. The Ninth Circuit reasoned that:
The Fourth Circuit has recently addressed the exact issue at hand in an en banc decision in Virginia v. Riley, 106 F.3d 559 (4th Cir.1997). In that case, the United States Department of Education had threatened to withhold Virginia's entire IDEA grant for fiscal years 1994 and 1995 unless Virginia changed its policy allowing the state to cease providing free education to disabled students who are expelled for misbehavior unrelated to their disabilities. Virginia argued inter alia that in order to place conditions on a state's receipt of federal funds, Congress must clearly show an unambiguous intent to do so in the terms of the statute, and that the IDEA showed no such intent. The Fourth Circuit, sitting en banc, agreed, finding that the "plain language of the IDEA does not, even implicitly, condition the receipt of IDEA funding on the continued provision of educational services to disabled students who are expelled ... due to serious misconduct wholly unrelated to their disabilities." Id. at 561.
There is no need to reiterate the entirety of the Fourth Circuit's reasoning on this matter, but a few points bear repeating: First, the court emphasized that § 1412(1) only required the State to provide "all" handicapped children with the "right" (i.e., access) to a free appropriate public education, "[a]nd, as with any other right, that right of access to educational services may be forfeited by criminal or other conduct antithetical to the right itself." Id. at 563. The court found that nothing in the purpose of the IDEA required a contrary holding, noting the codified purpose of the IDEA, which is "to have available to [disabled students] ... a free appropriate public education which emphasizes special education and related services designed to meet their unique needs...." 20 U.S.C. § 1400(c) (emphasis added). Moreover, the court--relying on South Dakota v. Dole, 483 U.S. 203, 107 S.Ct. 2793, 97 L.Ed.2d 171, and Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman, 451 U.S. 1, 101 S.Ct. 1531, 67 L.Ed.2d 694--found that, even if another interpretation of § 1412(1) were possible:
The Does also argue that OPRF's refusal to stay John's special education placement during the pendency of his due process hearings violated the "stay-put" provision of the IDEA, 20 U.S.C. § 1415(e)(3)(A), which provides:
The Does maintain that this issue is controlled by the Supreme Court's decision in Honig v. Doe, 484 U.S. 305, 108 S.Ct. 592, 98 L.Ed.2d 686, discussed briefly above, a case that also involved the expulsion of special education students. But we disagree. In that case, a California school district, like OPRF, contended that it could expel a special education student for violent and disruptive conduct without retaining the child's placement in the public schools during the pendency of the due process hearing. While the Supreme Court stated that they would not read a "dangerousness" exception into the "stay-put" provision because the Court was "not at liberty to engraft onto the statute an exception Congress chose not to create," id. at 325, 108 S.Ct. at 605, there is one critical distinction between Honig and the case at hand: In Honig, the dispute grew "out of the efforts of certain officials of the [school district] to expel two emotionally disturbed children from school indefinitely for violent and disruptive conduct related to their disabilities." Id. at 312, 108 S.Ct. at 598 (emphasis added). Indeed, the Supreme Court stated the issue as "whether ... state or local school authorities may nevertheless unilaterally exclude disabled children from the classroom for dangerous or disruptive conduct growing out of their disabilities." Id. at 308, 108 S.Ct. at 596 (emphasis added). And in fact that very same distinction was recognized by the Ninth Circuit in the Honig case, when it specifically held that a disabled student could be expelled for misbehavior unrelated to his or her handicap. Doe v. Maher, 793 F.2d at 1482. The Supreme Court did not disturb that part of the Ninth Circuit's opinion in its opinion. The Supreme Court simply has not spoken directly on the issue at hand, viz., whether OPRF was required to stay John's placement in its high school when his infraction was found not to be a result of his learning disability.
OPRF argues that rather than apply the rigid approach of an automatic stay in a case like this, which would give a special education student with even a slight learning disability an avenue to delay expulsion indefinitely, decisions about whether students should be kept in school in this situation should be made on a case-by-case basis under the model suggested in Rodiriecus L. v. Waukegan School District No. 60, 90 F.3d 249 (7th Cir.1996). In Rodiriecus, the plaintiffs argued that the school district was prohibited from expelling Rodiriecus under the "stay-put" provision of the IDEA because he was in the process of being evaluated for special education purposes at the time of his expulsion. In response, this Court stated:
OPRF would have this Court find the reasoning in Rodiriecus equally applicable to this case, arguing that if we adopt the Does' position, then any student with a disability who was threatened with expulsion could avoid that expulsion for a lengthy period by filing a due process request under the IDEA, even if the misbehavior forming the basis of the expulsion was clearly unrelated to the student's disability. In a related argument, OPRF argues that this case falls within the confines of Rodiriecus because the Does are asserting that John's misbehavior related to an undiagnosed disability--ADHD. This argument has some appeal, but it is unnecessary to address it directly because the district court was correct that the "stay-put" provision of the IDEA is not implicated in a case like this, where the school district has made a reasoned determination following the procedures of the IDEA that a student's misbehavior is unrelated to his disability. Cf. Board of Education of Community High School District No. 218 v. Illinois State Board of Education, 103 F.3d 545, 548 (7th Cir.1996) (Discussing "stay-put" provision and stating that if "the behavior that triggered the expulsion could have been caused by the child's disability, [then] the procedural protections of the IDEA, rather than the disciplinary measures of the school, were warranted," suggesting that converse is true as well); Doe v. Maher, 793 F.2d at 1482. As discussed above, we conclude that the IDEA does not express an intent, either expressly or impliedly, to shield special education students from the normal consequences of their misconduct if that misconduct has nothing to do with their disabilities. "The [IDEA] was not designed to act as a shield to protect a disruptive child from routine and appropriate school discipline." Rodiriecus, 90 F.3d at 255.5
Both parties to this action appear to agree that OPRF was required to provide some due process to the Does before expelling John, meaning due process that is more than a rubber stamp or sham. See Cleveland Board of Education v. Loudermill, 470 U.S. 532, 545-546, 105 S.Ct. 1487, 1495, 84 L.Ed.2d 494. We conclude, after independently reviewing the record, that OPRF acted properly.
H.R. § 612(a)(1)(emphasis added). There is no retroactivity clause in this legislation, and application of the amendment would have a truly retroactive effect--it would increase a party's liability for past conduct. Under these circumstances, and although this amendment in the future will undoubtedly lead to a result different from the one reached in the first section of Part II of this Opinion, we will not apply this amendment retroactively to our decision in this case. See Landgraf v. UST Film Products, 511 U.S. 244.
The plaintiffs have also filed a Motion to Vacate Decision for Want of Jurisdiction, basing that motion on the fact that the full administrative record was not filed with the district court. They argue that such filing was required by 105 Ill. Comp. Stat. 5/14-8.02(k) (West 1997) and § 1415(e)(2) of the IDEA. As a result, the Does argue that the district court should have dismissed OPRF's counterclaim because the defendant failed to serve the Illinois State Board of Education ("ISBE") within one year of filing its counterclaim. They contend that, because ISBE is the official custodian of the administrative record in this case, service upon it was necessary, but it was not made a party within the 120 days required under F.R.C.P. 4(m)
Moreover, the absence of ISBE in this action mandates dismissal only if ISBE is an indispensable party, which it is not. See F.R.C.P. 19(b). Indispensability is an equitable, not a jurisdictional, doctrine. See Landau & Cleary, Ltd. v. Hribar Trucking, Inc., 867 F.2d 996, 997 n. 1 (7th Cir.1989); Graf v. Elgin, Joliet and Eastern Railway Co., 697 F.2d 771, 775 (7th Cir.1983). For all these reasons, this Court will not vacate the decision.
Kaelin v. Grubbs, 682 F.2d at 600, 602 and Board of Education of the City of Peoria v. Illinois State Board of Education, 531 F.Supp. at 151, supra merely cite and repeat Turlington's conclusory dicta. We find none of these opinions persuasive, because they contain no thoughtful discussion regarding the relationship of the expelled student's misbehavior to his or her disability in connection with the conclusion that educational services must be maintained. In addition, the opinions contain no discussion regarding whether cessation of special education services may be proper under some circumstances.
We are not persuaded by the Does' argument that the Improving America's Schools Act of 1994, Pub.L. 103-382, 108 Stat. 3518 (enacted October 20, 1994), which inter alia amended the IDEA's "stay-put" provision, has any bearing on the issue at hand. Section 314 of that Act amends the "stay-put" provision to provide that a student with a disability who brings a weapon to school, and thus who is subject to the one-year automatic suspension requirement of the Gun-Free Schools Act of 1994, 20 U.S.C. § 8921, may be placed in an interim alternative educational setting for up to 45 days, at school district expense. The Does appear to argue that if Congress chose not to provide for automatic termination of services even when a weapon is involved, then they could not have meant that services can be terminated by a school district when the misbehavior is less serious
The same reasoning disposes of another of the Does' arguments: that the Level II hearing officer appropriately found that OPRF violated the law when it refused to re-evaluate John prior to his expulsion. In that regard, they direct our attention to 34 C.F.R. 104.35, which was enacted pursuant to Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 29 U.S.C. § 794 (the "Rehabilitation Act"). That regulation requires a school to conduct a pre-placement evaluation whenever there is any "subsequent significant change in placement" for a special education student. 34 C.F.R. 104.35(a). The Does argue that because the Supreme Court held in Honig v. Doe, 484 U.S. 305, 108 S.Ct. 592, 98 L.Ed.2d 686, that expulsion constitutes a significant change in placement, John's proposed expulsion should have triggered an evaluation pursuant to both Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and the IDEA. They claim that OPRF's September 19, 1994 MDC placement decision violated these requirements because "OPRF failed to provide current evaluative data, failed to evaluate for ADHD despite its own psychologist's suggestion and parents' request and failed to include on the MDC team any persons knowledgeable about John Doe." (Appellants' Brief p. 43) (emphasis in original). The Does also claim that the IDEA required OPRF to consider the educational impact of each placement decision, in this case the expulsion, and the MDC team failed to do so