Opinion ID: 2973286
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Structure, Language, and

Text: Context of the Act We begin with the overarching structure of § 1415. See Gwaltney, 484 U.S. at 59-60; Evankavitch v. Green Tree Servicing, LLC, 793 F.3d 355, 363 (3d Cir. 2015) (examining the “structure and . . . parallels” of a statute to determine the meaning of its terms). As previously noted, after opening with a preamble that reiterates that a state must “establish and maintain procedures . . . to ensure that children with disabilities and their parents are guaranteed procedural safeguards,” 20 U.S.C. § 1415(a), the section next proceeds to list and briefly describe the “[t]ypes of procedures” mandated by the IDEA, id. § 1415(b). That listing, in § 1415(b), serves 30 in effect as a table of contents for the expanded descriptions of these same procedures that then appear in roughly the same order in § 1415(c)-(f). Thus, for example, § 1415(b)(3) requires written prior notice of changes to a child’s educational program, the details of which are described in § 1415(c)(1); § 1415(b)(4) ensures notice is available in a parent’s native language, as described in § 1415(d)(2); § 1415(b)(5) provides “[a]n opportunity for mediation,” as described in § 1415(e); and, as relevant here, § 1415(b)(6) provides an “[a]n opportunity for any party to present a complaint,” which is more fully described in § 1415(f). Id. § 1415(b)-(f). This structure makes clear that § 1415(b) was intended to preview and convey the same essential meaning as § 1415(f). Given that § 1415(b), in context, appears to be nothing more than a summary listing of the procedural safeguards more fully described in later subsections, we cannot conceive that Congress intended to bury within § 1415(b)(6) a sea change in the IDEA. That, however, would be the effect of cutting off at twenty four months in virtually all cases the courts’ power to award compensatory education, and “le[aving] parents without an adequate remedy when a school district unreasonably fail[s] to identify a child with disabilities.” Forest Grove Sch. Dist. v. T.A., 557 U.S. 230, 245 (2009) (noting “Congress’ acknowledgment of the paramount importance of properly identifying each child eligible for services”). This proposition appears particularly fanciful considering that Congress failed to even hint at such an intention either in § 1415(f), the full version of the due process hearing procedure of which § 1415(b)(6) is merely a précis, or in § 1415(i), which was reenacted in 2004 without any alteration to the “broad discretion” it grants federal courts 31 to remedy violations of the IDEA, Forest Grove, 557 U.S. at 238. As the Supreme Court “ha[s] repeatedly said[,] . . . Congress ‘does not alter the fundamental details of a regulatory scheme in vague terms or ancillary provisions—it does not, one might say, hide elephants in mouseholes.’” E.P.A. v. EME Homer City Generation, L.P., 134 S. Ct. 1584, 1612 (2014) (Scalia, J., dissenting) (quoting Whitman v. Am. Trucking Ass’ns, 531 U.S. 457, 468 (2001)). Moreover, it is “[a] standard principle of statutory construction . . . that identical words and phrases within the same statute should normally be given the same meaning.” Powerex Corp. v. Reliant Energy Servs., Inc., 551 U.S. 224, 232 (2007). Here, the words and phrases describing the IDEA’s statute of limitations and its exceptions indicate that § 1415(b) was intended to have the same meaning as the other references to a limitations period in § 1415, and, like them, to function as a filing deadline and not a remedy cap. Specifically, in three separate subsections of § 1415, the statute provides a federal time limit, but—using identical language—provides as an alternative: “or, if the State has an explicit time limitation . . . , in such time as the State law allows.” 20 U.S.C. §§ 1415(b)(6), (f)(3)(C), (i)(2)(B). Given that state limitations periods generally function as filing deadlines on claims that are known or should have been known, not remedy caps on claims not yet reasonably knowable, the only way those words can be read sensibly is if they provide an alternative to a federal filing deadline, i.e., a traditional statute of limitations. “Textual cross-reference confirms this conclusion,” Brown v. Gardner, 513 U.S. 115, 118 (1994), for § 1415(b)(6)(B) not only mirrors § 1415(f)(3)(C)’s state statute of limitations provision but also its two equitable 32 tolling exceptions, and does so simply by cross-referencing the “the exceptions to the timeline described in [§ 1415(f)(3)(D)],” 20 U.S.C. § 1415(b)(6), (f)(3)(C). This shorthand reference to these important tolling provisions, which are then set forth in full in § 1415(f), fortifies our conclusion that § 1415(b)(6) was merely intended as an abstract of § 1415(f), that it reflects the same limitations period as § 1415(f)(3)(C), and that this limitations period, pursuant to the “cooperative federalism” inherent in the IDEA, Schaffer ex rel. Schaffer v. Weast, 546 U.S. 49, 52 (2005) (quoting Little Rock Sch. Dist. v. Mauney, 183 F.3d 816, 830 (8th Cir. 1999)), defers to state limitations periods when appropriate and otherwise functions as a traditional statute of limitations—not a remedy cap. Indeed, while it would make no sense for a state filing deadline to displace a federal remedy cap or elements of a prima facie case, it makes perfect sense that Congress, according due weight to principles of federalism, would allow a state filing deadline to displace a federal one. Likewise, it would be odd indeed for § 1415(b)(6)(B), if it actually described a remedy cap or a prima facie case, to apply equitable tolling provisions from § 1415(f)(3)(D), but quite logical if § 1415(b)(6)(B) merely restates the statute of limitations to which those equitable exceptions apply. That is, when we “look to the [section’s] surrounding words and provisions and their context,” Tavarez v. Klingensmith, 372 F.3d 188, 190 (3d Cir. 2004), and apply “the cardinal rule that a statute is to be read as a whole,” King v. St. Vincent’s Hosp., 502 U.S. 215, 221 (1991), it is clear that § 1415(b)(6)(B), 33 though poorly penned, was intended merely as a synopsis of § 1415(f)(3)(D)’s statute of limitations.15