Source: http://nj.findacase.com/research/wfrmDocViewer.aspx/xq/fac.20020807_0000050.DNJ.htm/qx
Timestamp: 2017-04-23 12:08:17
Document Index: 740313385

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1401', '§ 1401', '§ 1415', '§\n6', '§ 11', '§ 1', '§ 1415', '§ 1415']

| S.C. EX REL. C.C. v. DEPTFORD TP. BD. OF EDUC.
S.C. EX REL. C.C. v. DEPTFORD TP. BD. OF EDUC.
The Individuals with Disabilities Act, 20 U.S.C. § 1401-1487
(2000) ("IDEA"), is not a well-drafted law. Its goal of
providing a free and meaningful education to every disabled
child in America is undoubtedly a noble one. By all accounts it
has done much to achieve that goal. Yet, as this case
illustrates, after thirty years and much congressional
tinkering, the text of the IDEA still leaves courts at a loss to
answer many basic questions about how it is to be enforced, such
as who may sue whom, for what, and in what court.
As a result, the merits of this case are obscured by a thicket
of procedural questions. The thorniest of these is whether or
not the IDEA provides a private right of action for the
Defendant and Third-Party Plaintiff, a local school district in
New Jersey, to sue two New Jersey state agencies for the costs
the local school board incurred in providing a free and
appropriate public education to the Plaintiff, a disabled child.
Relatedly, I also must determine whether or not the local school
district has standing to sue.
Only after clearing away that underbrush can I reach the
significant question raised by the Third-Party Complaint,
namely, whether or not New Jersey's system for funding special
education for children with serious disabilities violates
federal law. New Jersey, according to the Third-Party
Defendants, imposes the full costs of educating a disabled child
on the local school district where that child resides. The clear
text of the IDEA, however, requires the States to ensure that
state agencies who already provide certain special services
necessary to a child's education, such as residential
psychiatric care, will provide those services to needy disabled
children at no cost to the children's parents or the local
I conclude, therefore, that the IDEA requires one of the
Third-Party Defendant agencies, the Division of Developmental
Disabilities, to reimburse the Third-Party Plaintiff school
district for some of the expenses it incurred providing an
education to the Plaintiff disabled child, assuming that the
Third-Party Plaintiff can establish that the Plaintiff was
entitled to DDD's services. In the event that DDD cannot or will
not pay, I also determine that the other Third-Party Defendant,
the New Jersey Department of Education, must pay instead.
However, because the Third-Party Plaintiff school board lacks
standing to raise one small part of its claims, I will grant the
Third-Party Defendant's pending Motion to Dismiss in part, but
deny the remainder.
The Plaintiff, S.C., is an autistic child. According to the
Complaint filed by S.C.'s parents, C.C. and K.C. ("the
parents"), S.C.'s condition poses severe barriers to his ability
to learn in an ordinary educational environment. See Compl. at
¶ 1. S.C. resides in Deptford Township, a New Jersey
municipality. Because New Jersey has accepted funds from the
federal government under IDEA, Deptford's Board of Education
("Deptford" or "the Board") is a "local educational agency" as
defined in that Act. See 20 U.S.C. § 1401(15). That is, the
Board is primarily responsible for assuring that S.C. will
receive a free appropriate public education, or "FAPE." Id. §
In the period immediately preceding the dispute that produced
this litigation, S.C. was attending a day program at the
Bancroft School, a facility designed to educate students with
special needs. Because S.C.'s maladaptive behaviors were
increasing and he was regressing academically, S.C.'s parents
requested that Deptford place S.C. in a residential program to
teach S.C. to control his maladaptive behavior, to reverse
S.C.'s academic regression, and to receive an appropriate
education. Compl. at ¶¶ 7-9. Deptford denied this request. Id.
at ¶ 10. In response, S.C. and his parents filed a petition for
a due process hearing with the New Jersey Department of
Education, pursuant to 20 U.S.C. § 1415(i) and N.J. Admin. C. §
6A:14-2.7. Id. at ¶ 11.
A due process hearing was held in April and May of 2001 before
the New Jersey Office of Administrative Law. Id. at §§ 11-12.
On August 21, 2001, ALJ Joseph Fidler issued his final decision,
in which he found that: (1) the school district had not met its
burden of showing, by a preponderance of the credible evidence,
that it had offered an appropriate Individual Education Plan
("IEP") to S.C.; (2) S.C. was not receiving a meaningful
educational benefit at Bancroft as a day student; and (3) the
credible evidence demonstrated that S.C. required a residential
placement of the sort provided by the Lindens program at the
Bancroft School. The ALJ ordered Deptford to prepare an
appropriate IEP for S.C. in accordance with his findings. See
C.C. AND K.C. ON BEHALF OF S.C. v. DEPTFORD TOWNSHIP BD. OF
EDUC., OAL Dkt. No. Eds. 2069-01, 2001 WL 1023461, slip op. at
16 (Aug. 21, 2001). No party to the due process hearing
questioned whether any state entity other than Deptford would
pay for S.C.'s residential placement, and the ALJ did not
After Deptford failed, in the parents' view, to implement the
ALJ's Order, S.C. and his parents filed this Complaint on
October 25, 2001, asking this Court to: (1) declare that
Deptford's actions have denied and continue to deny S.C. a free
appropriate public education; (2) order Deptford to implement
Judge Fidler's decision; and (3) order Deptford to reimburse
S.C. and his parents for attorney's fees and costs. Deptford
filed a cross-motion for a stay of the ALJ's decision on
November 28, 2001. On December 3, 2001, Deptford answered S.C.'s
and filed a counterclaim challenging the ALJ's findings.
Along with its Answer, Deptford also filed a Third-Party
Complaint against the New Jersey Department of Education ("DOE")
and the New Jersey Department of Human Services, Division of
Developmental Disabilities ("DDD"). According to Deptford, DOE
and DDD are obligated, under the IDEA, to pay at least for the
residential portion of S.C.'s education in the Lindens program.
Deptford also alleges in its Third-Party Complaint that the DOE
and DDD have failed to enter into an "interagency agreement" to
provide for DDD's provision of services to students who require
them in order to receive a FAPE.
On March 14, 2002, the State Defendants filed a Motion to
Dismiss Deptford's Third-Party Complaint for failure to state a
claim. In the course of resolving that Motion, I determined that
this Court may lack subject matter jurisdiction to hear the
Third-Party Complaint. Accordingly, on April 16, 2002, I sent a
letter to the parties asking for supplemental briefing on the
question of this Court's subject matter jurisdiction. I resolve
both sets of issues in this Opinion.
1. Whether the IDEA Provides Deptford with a Private Right
of Action to Assert its Third-Party Claims
Federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction; we may not
hear actions without authorization from Congress. See U.S.
Const. Art. III § 1. "The judicial task is to interpret the
statute Congress has passed to determine whether it displays an
intent to create not just a private right but also a private
remedy." Alexander v. Sandoval, 532 U.S. 275, 286, 121 S.Ct.
1511, 149 L.Ed.2d 517 (2001). Although the Third-Party Complaint
does not identify the source of this Court's jurisdiction, in
response to my request for supplemental briefing, Deptford
argued principally that it has a private right of action against
the State Defendants pursuant to 20 U.S.C. § 1415(i)(2)
(2000).*fn1
The difficulty with Deptford's argument is that, by its terms,
the IDEA limits the scope of suits brought under it to those
that are brought "with respect to the complaint presented" under
§ 1415. Id. The issue of the State Defendants' liability for
S.C.'s placement, and the DOE's failure to promulgate an
"interagency agreement," were not raised in "the complaint
presented" to the ALJ. Accordingly, there is some question
whether or not Congress' express grant of jurisdiction to
parties aggrieved by the ALJ's findings can extend to Deptford's
third-party claims. In addition, the State Defendants argue
that, even if the IDEA would grant a right of action in general,