Opinion ID: 452178
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: (a) Sec. 1983 AND THE EHA

Text: 21 The plaintiffs and the Board read Smith as supporting their respective positions on Sec. 1983. A review of that case is therefore appropriate. 22 In Smith the plaintiffs brought suit under the EHA, Sec. 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, and Sec. 1983. The Sec. 1983 claim was based on alleged violations of the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. The plaintiffs ultimately obtained relief on the basis of state law. Although the EHA does not provide for attorney's fees to a prevailing party, the district court awarded plaintiffs fees and costs in the amount of $32,109. The court based the award on 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1988, because plaintiffs had stated independent constitutional claims via Sec. 1983, and on Sec. 505 of the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. Sec. 794a(b), because plaintiffs had alleged a violation of Sec. 504. 5 On appeal, the First Circuit reversed. Smith v. Cumberland School Committee, 703 F.2d 4 (1st Cir.1983). 23 The Supreme Court affirmed the court of appeals, holding that the plaintiffs were not entitled to attorney's fees under either Sec. 1988 or Sec. 505 of the Rehabilitation Act. Smith, 104 S.Ct. 3457. The Court arrived at this conclusion after examining the law on awarding attorney's fees on the basis of substantial, though unaddressed, constitutional claims, see Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 103 S.Ct. 1933, 76 L.Ed.2d 40 (1983), and the substantive aspects and detailed procedural requirements of the EHA, a statutory scheme which does not mention attorney's fees. 24 The Court, after noting that the plaintiffs' unaddressed due process and equal protection claims, bought under Sec. 1983, were virtually identical to the EHA claims, undertook a separate analysis of these independent constitutional claims. The Court recognized the comprehensive nature of the procedures and guarantees set out in the EHA as well as the intent of Congress to place on local and state educational agencies the primary responsibility for developing a plan to accommodate the needs of each individual handicapped child. Smith, 104 S.Ct. at 3469. The court also noted that in enacting the EHA, Congress attempted to accommodate the equal protection claims of handicapped children. Id. at 3472. With these factors in mind, the Court concluded that where a handicapped child asserts a right to a free appropriate public education, and the EHA is available, a claim based either on the EHA or on the Equal Protection Clause may be brought only under the EHA. Id. at 3470. Hence, the plaintiffs were not entitled to fees on the basis of their Sec. 1983 equal protection claims. 25 The Court was more circumspect in the way it handled the unaddressed due process claim. The Court raised but did not decide the issue of whether the procedural safeguards set out in the EHA manifest Congress' intent to preclude resort to Sec. 1983 on a due process challenge. Id. It was not necessary to resolve this threshold issue because the due process claim simply had no bearing on the substantive issue of the lawsuit--which agency was required to pay for the education of the minor handicapped plaintiff--and therefore could not support the award of fees. Id. at 3471. 26 The Board urges that Smith supports the district court's dismissal of the Sec. 1983 claim. The Board, however, reads that decision more broadly than we do, and totally ignores the fact that the Court in Smith, admittedly in dicta, took pains to distinguish a due process claim from an equal protection claim. 27 Smith suggests that not all Sec. 1983 claims are to be treated alike. Indeed, the Court expressly noted that the issue raised by an independent due process challenge is not the same as that presented by a substantive equal protection claim to a free appropriate public education. Id. at 3470 n. 17. Further, unlike an independent equal protection claim, maintenance of an independent due process challenge to state procedures would not be inconsistent with the EHA's comprehensive scheme. Id. at 3471 n. 17. Finally, speaking specifically to the issue of attorney's fees, the Court noted that Congress has not indicated that agencies should be exempt from a fee award where plaintiffs have had to resort to judicial relief to force the agencies to provide them the process they were constitutionally due. Id. 28 In our view, the approach the Supreme Court employed in Smith counsels holding that where, as here, a party is denied due process by effectively being denied access to the carefully tailored administrative and judicial mechanism found in the EHA, Id. at 3468, that party may seek relief under Sec. 1983. The thrust of the Court's equal protection claim holding is unmistakable: Congress enacted the EHA, with its panoply of procedures, to clarify and make enforceable the handicapped child's right to a free appropriate public education. This right is grounded on the Equal Protection Clause. 6 Accordingly, a plaintiff asserting that equal protection right as a basis for relief understandably should do so via the EHA, with all that that implies. This rationale, however, breaks down in the facts of this case. 29 The EHA establishes an enforceable substantive right to a free appropriate public education. Id. Moreover, Congress intended the carefully tailored administrative and judicial mechanism set forth in the EHA to be the vehicle to enforce that right. Id. The plain language of the statute itself, however, suggests that Congress must not have intended the EHA to be the exclusive method to redress denial of access to that very mechanism. 30 The EHA provides that [a]ny party aggrieved by the findings and decision resulting from the administrative proceeding may bring an action with respect to the complaint presented initially to educational authorities. 20 U.S.C. Sec. 1415(e)(2). Additionally, the court, when reviewing the administrative proceedings, shall receive the records of the administrative proceedings, shall hear additional evidence [upon request], and, basing its decision on the preponderance of the evidence, shall grant ... relief. Id. We believe that this language presupposes the existence of an administrative hearing or record. Moreover, the Supreme Court has instructed that this statutory language is by no means an invitation to the [reviewing] courts to substitute their own notions of sound educational policy for those of school authorities. Rowley, 458 U.S. at 206, 102 S.Ct. at 3051. Rather, the state administrative proceedings are to be given due weight, mainly because [t]he primary responsibility for formulating the education to be accorded a handicapped child ... was left by the Act to state and local educational agencies in cooperation with the parents ... of the child. Id. at 207, 102 S.Ct. at 3051. The Court therefore also has made it clear that the principal office of a court proceeding under the EHA is to review the administrative determinations contemplated by the Act. With these principles in mind, we conclude that where, as here, the local educational agency deprives a handicapped child of due process by effectively denying that child access to the heart of the EHA administrative machinery, the impartial due process hearing, an action may be brought under Sec. 1983. 31 Post-Smith case law supports our conclusion. In Rose v. Nebraska, 748 F.2d 1258 (8th Cir.1984), the plaintiff brought suit under the EHA, Sec. 1983, and Sec. 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. The Sec. 1983 claim was that the hearing procedures adopted by the state destroyed the impartiality of the due process proceeding, in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The district court granted injunctive relief. After two appeals, the district court finally awarded, pursuant to Sec. 1988, attorney's fees for services rendered in connection with the successful request for an injunction. 32 Characterizing the Sec. 1983 due-process-type claim as parallel to the EHA claim, the court affirmed the award of attorney's fees. Id. at 1261. The court's position was that Smith rather strongly [implied] that an independent due-process claim, based on Sec. 1983, [did] lie under the facts before it. Id. at 1263. The court reasoned that notwithstanding the fact that the same theory is also the basis for a claim under the [EHA] itself, id., the clear implication of the Court's discussion in Smith concerning a due process challenge is that a Sec. 1983 suit and a fee award are appropriate when a plaintiff claims that he is being denied due process because of the partiality of the EHA administrative hearing. Id. 33 A recent Fifth Circuit decision also is instructive. In Teresa Diane P. v. Alief Independent School District, 744 F.2d 484 (5th Cir.1984), the plaintiffs brought suit alleging that the defendants denied Diane a free appropriate public education in violation of the EHA, the Rehabilitation Act, and Sec. 1983. The plaintiffs also alleged that the defendants denied Diane procedural due process by failing to adhere to the specific procedural safeguards provided by the Texas Education Agency pursuant to the [EHA], in violation of Sec. 1983. Id. at 491. After the plaintiffs were awarded a preliminary injunction, the parties settled the case. The district court awarded attorney's fees to the plaintiffs pursuant to the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. Sec. 794a(b), see supra note 5, and Sec. 1988. The defendants appealed. 34 The Fifth Circuit, relying on Smith, concluded that attorney's fees could not be awarded: (1) for representation done in connection with the administrative procedures under the EHA; (2) for work attributable to the Sec. 1983 claim based either on the EHA or an equal protection theory; or (3) for time spent on the Rehabilitation Act claim. See infra note 9. The court, however, treated the Sec. 1983 procedural due process claim differently. Mindful of the distinction made by the Supreme Court in Smith between an equal protection claim and a due process claim, the Fifth Circuit held that attorney's fees may be appropriate in [EHA] cases where procedural due process claims are involved, Teresa Diane P., 744 F.2d at 491, and remanded the case on the issue of whether substantial procedural due process claims were effectively raised and maintained. Id. 35 We find additional support for our decision in a recent Eleventh Circuit case. This court, in Victoria L. v. District School Board, 741 F.2d 369 (11th Cir.1984), affirmed the district court's summary judgment in favor of the defendant school board. The significance of this case, however, is not its holding; rather, for our purposes, the most important aspect of the case is the manner in which it reached that holding. 36 This court, on the basis of Smith, concluded that the plaintiffs could not assert their equal protection claim under either the Rehabilitation Act or the Fourteenth Amendment since the EHA is the  'exclusive avenue through which a plaintiff may assert an equal protection claim to a publicly financed special education.'  Id. at 372 (quoting Smith, 104 S.Ct. at 3468). The plaintiffs' procedural due process claim, however, was not disposed of quite so summarily. 37 We initially noted that in Smith the Supreme Court did not resolve the Sec. 1983--EHA/exclusivity issue when a due process claim is involved. Victoria L., 741 F.2d at 372. Rather than simply holding that a due process challenge could not be maintained apart from the EHA, we assumed that the conclusory allegations in the complaint that the defendants violated the Fourteenth Amendment by failing to comply with the procedural provisions of the EHA were sufficient to state a constitutional claim. Id. We held that summary judgment for the defendants was proper, however, because a review of the record revealed that the defendants in no way contravened the procedural requirements of the EHA. That review would have been unnecessary had we not recognized that a due process challenge, at least in certain circumstances, could be maintained outside of the EHA. 7 38 In short, based on the language of the EHA itself, the Smith decision, and postSmith case-law, we hold that the district court erroneously dismissed plaintiffs' Sec. 1983 due process claim. We accordingly remand on that issue.