Opinion ID: 797778
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: W. reached a settlement with JCPS and its officials in February 2004

Text: 2 The procedure leading to the amendment of A.W.'s original complaint was as follows: the NJDOE defendants, including Gantwerk and Zangrillo, filed a motion to dismiss A.W.'s complaint for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, based on sovereign immunity and other grounds. A.W. filed a motion in opposition and also filed a motion to amend his complaint. On March 18, 2002, the District Court issued an order denying the motion to dismiss and granting A.W. leave to file an amended complaint. The defendants appealed this order, which we affirmed, holding that the various defendants had waived sovereign immunity from suit under the IDEA and Section 504 by accepting federal financial assistance See A.W. v. Jersey City Pub. Schs., 341 F.3d 234 (3d Cir.2003). 3 The official's conduct in Saucier allegedly violated the plaintiff's Fourth Amendment rights and was actionable pursuant to Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388, 91 S.Ct. 1999, 29 L.Ed.2d 619 (1971). The analysis in Saucier is equally applicable to actions for alleged constitutional violations brought pursuant to § 1983. See Scott v. Harris, ___ U.S. ___, 127 S.Ct. 1769, 1774, ___ L.Ed.2d ___ (2007). 4 A.W. has not brought claims against defendants directly under the IDEA or Section 504. Appellee Br. 15. We therefore need not address whether defendants could be sued directly under these statutes, rather than under § 1983 5 We also think that it can be said that the question of whether § 1983 is available to remedy violations of the IDEA and Section 504 is `inextricably intertwined' with the issue of qualified immunity, that is, . . . its review is `necessary to ensure meaningful review' of the qualified immunity issue, and that we therefore have jurisdiction over this aspect of the District Court's order See Walker v. City of Pine Bluff, 414 F.3d 989, 993 (8th Cir.2005); see also Farm Labor Org. Comm. v. Ohio State Highway Patrol, 308 F.3d 523, 549 (6th Cir.2002) (Under the doctrine of pendent appellate jurisdiction, . . . a court of appeals may, in its discretion, `exercise jurisdiction over issues that are not independently appealable when those issues are inextricably intertwined with matters over which the appellate court properly and independently has jurisdiction.') (quoting Chambers v. Ohio Dep't of Human Servs., 145 F.3d 793, 797 (6th Cir.1998); Malik v. Brown, 71 F.3d 724, 727 (9th Cir.1995)). 6 The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in a strikingly similar situation has also viewed the issue of the availability of relief as a threshold issue and, concluding that § 1983 was not available to remedy the alleged statutory violations, dismissed an appeal of a denial of qualified immunity as moot See Morris-Hayes v. Bd. of Educ. of Chester Union Free Sch. Dist., 423 F.3d 153, 159 (2d Cir.2005). We choose a different approach, ending up with the same result. 7 The District Court did not specifically address whether the alleged Section 504 violations were actionable under § 1983, perhaps because defendants focused their arguments on the alleged IDEA violations. We address this issue, however, because determining whether an alleged statutory violation is actionable is part and parcel of our threshold inquiry into defendants' qualified immunity defense 8 The Smith decision refers to the Education of the Handicapped Act (EHA). Congress changed the name of the statute to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in 1990. See Pub.L. No. 101-476, 104 Stat. 1141 (1990). To avoid confusion, we refer to the statute throughout this opinion as the IDEA. 9 At the time we decided Matula, this provision was codified at 20 U.S.C. § 1415(f). Throughout this opinion, we refer to it at its current location in the Code, § 1415( l ). 10 Several district courts have also made this observation See, e.g., Carney v. Nevada, No. 05 Civ. 713, 2007 WL 777697, at  (D.Nev. Mar. 12, 2007); Alex G. v. Bd. of Trustees of Davis Joint Unified Sch. Dist., 332 F.Supp.2d 1315, 1318-19 (E.D.Cal.2004) ([I]t appears that Congress intended to permit § 1983 suits to enforce rights secured independently of the IDEA. But this does not mean that Congress also intended to allow plaintiffs to use § 1983 to enforce the IDEA, thereby foregoing the various procedural and remedial requirements and restrictions that exist when a claim is brought under the IDEA.). 11 In Sellers, the court also called upon an interpretive rule whereby, because the IDEA was enacted pursuant to Congress' spending power, the statutory response to Smith should not be read to impose liability on state officials unless it is unambiguous. The court found a lack of the requisite clarity, in that § 1415( l ) does not state or imply that § 1983 suits may be brought for IDEA violations. 141 F.3d at 530. 12 The courts that have concluded that Congress intended to allow recourse to § 1983 to remedy IDEA violations have based their reasoning on the same reading of the legislative history of the IDEA that we adopted in Matula. See Marie O. v. Edgar, 131 F.3d 610, 620-22 (7th Cir.1997) (relying on § 1415( l ) and holding that Congress did not foreclose the enforcement of Part H of the IDEA through § 1983); Digre v. Roseville Schs., 841 F.2d 245, 250 (8th Cir.1988) (holding § 1983 is available to remedy IDEA and constitutional violations, as a result of the passage of § 1415( l )). The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has also allowed IDEA-based § 1983 claims to proceed, but without acknowledging that violations of statutory rights are not actionable under § 1983 if Congress did not so intend. See Weixel v. Bd. of Educ., 287 F.3d 138, 151 (2d Cir.2002) (reinstating § 1983 claim because plaintiff stated a cause of action under the IDEA, but not addressing whether IDEA violations were actionable under § 1983); Mrs. W. v. Tirozzi, 832 F.2d 748, 754 (2d Cir.1987) (finding that money damages are available in § 1983 action based on IDEA violation, but not addressing whether Congress intended § 1983 to provide a remedy for IDEA violations). Finally, some courts of appeals have not clearly decided whether § 1983 is available only to remedy violations of the constitutional rights of children with disabilities, or also to remedy violations of IDEA-created rights. See Gean v. Hattaway, 330 F.3d 758, 773 (6th Cir.2003) (noting that IDEA claims can in some circumstances be brought under § 1983 and citing case in which § 1983 action was brought to remedy violations of disabled student's constitutional rights); Angela L. v. Pasadena Ind. Sch. Dist., 918 F.2d 1188, 1193 n. 3 (5th Cir.1990) (stating in dicta that aggrieved parents of disabled children can still obtain relief through § 1983, as a result of the passage of § 1415( l )). 13 The Telecommunications Act amended the Communications Act of 1934 to include § 332(c)(7) 14 The Court's opinion in Rancho Palos Verdes did not address the legislative history of the Telecommunications Act, nor discuss whether it is appropriate to consider a statute's legislative history as evidence of what Congress intended. However, Justice Stevens suggested in his concurrence in Rancho Palos Verdes that the Court assumed that the legislative history of the statute is totally irrelevant in discerning whether Congress intended to allow § 1983 actions. 544 U.S. at 131, 125 S.Ct. 1453 (Stevens, J., concurring). It is therefore not clear whether a statute's legislative history qualifies as the sort of textual indication, explicit or implicit, id. at 122, 125 S.Ct. 1453, that may guide us in determining whether Congress intended a statute's remedy to be exclusive of § 1983. We need not decide this question, however, as the legislative history provides no additional support for A.W.'s position. 15 For some employment-related claims, the Rehabilitation Act incorporates the remedial scheme provided by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, rather than that of Title VI. 29 U.S.C. § 794a(a)(1). Title VII, unlike Title VI, mandates that aggrieved employees exhaust certain EEOC procedures prior to filing an action in court. Several of the decisions cited by defendants are therefore easily distinguishable because they examine the remedial scheme provided by Title VII, rather than Title VI See Lollar v. Baker, 196 F.3d 603, 610 n. 8 (5th Cir.1999); Holbrook v. City of Alpharetta, 112 F.3d 1522, 1531 (11th Cir. 1997); see also Vinson v. Thomas, 288 F.3d 1145 (9th Cir.2002) (relying on Lollar in non-employment case without acknowledging that Title VI, rather than Title VII, procedures are used for non-employment related complaints under Section 504).