Opinion ID: 202265
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Compensatory Damages Against the Commonwealth Defendants

Text: 57 Defendants argue that the types of compensatory damages awarded by the jury were not available as a matter of law. 58
59 The key question is whether the IDEA permitted an award of the various types of damages sought, given that we have held that the other federal causes of action, on the facts here, do not provide any broader remedies than those available under the IDEA. 19 60 [T]ort-like money damages are not within the scope of appropriate relief under the IDEA, because the IDEA's primary purpose is to ensure FAPE, not to serve as a tort-like mechanism for compensating personal injury. Nieves-Márquez, 353 F.3d at 124-25. This was the law of this and every other circuit that had addressed the issue by the time of trial. 20 61 In an IDEA-based suit like this one, monetary relief is limited to [a]wards of compensatory education and equitable remedies that involve the payment of money, such as reimbursements to parents for expenses incurred on private educational services to which their child was later found to have been entitled. Id. at 124. The IDEA provides that a court or a hearing officer may require the agency to reimburse the parents for the cost of [private school] enrollment if the court or hearing officer finds that the agency had not made [FAPE] available to the child in a timely manner prior to that enrollment. 20 U.S.C. § 1412(a)(10)(C)(ii); see also Ms. M. ex rel. K.M. v. Portland Sch. Comm., 360 F.3d 267, 268 (1st Cir.2004). Such [r]eimbursement is `a matter of equitable relief, committed to the sound discretion of the district court.' 21 Roland M. v. Concord Sch. Comm., 910 F.2d 983, 999 (1st Cir.1990) (quoting Town of Burlington v. Dep't of Educ., 736 F.2d 773, 801 (1st Cir.1984), aff'd sub nom. Sch. Comm. v. Dep't of Educ., 471 U.S. 359, 369, 105 S.Ct. 1996, 85 L.Ed.2d 385 (1985)); see also Florence County Sch. Dist. Four v. Carter ex rel. Carter, 510 U.S. 7, 16, 114 S.Ct. 361, 126 L.Ed.2d 284 (1993) (Courts fashioning discretionary equitable relief under IDEA must consider all relevant factors, including the appropriate and reasonable level of reimbursement that should be required.). In fashioning appropriate relief, courts have generally interpreted the IDEA as allowing reimbursement for the cost not only of private school tuition, but also of related services, see 20 U.S.C. § 1401(26) (defining related services to include transportation, and such developmental, corrective, and other supportive services (including ... psychological services ...) as may be required to assist a child with a disability to benefit from special education). See, e.g., Sch. Comm., 471 U.S. at 369, 105 S.Ct. 1996 (allowing for reimbursement under the predecessor statute to the IDEA); M.M. ex rel. C.M. v. Sch. Bd., 437 F.3d 1085, 1100-01 (11th Cir.2006) (per curiam); see also 34 C.F.R. § 300.24. This law was also clear at the time of trial. 62 We quickly dispose of one defense argument. Pointing to a provision of the IDEA, which states that the cost of reimbursement may be reduced or denied in certain circumstances, such as upon a judicial finding of unreasonableness with respect to actions taken by the parents, 20 U.S.C. § 1412(a)(10)(C)(iii), defendants argue that Díaz was not entitled to reimbursement because her actions were unreasonable. But the jury verdict and grant of substantial damages confirmed that defendants' proposed IEPs were inadequate and untimely. Under these circumstances, we cannot conclude that Díaz's decision to enroll Lyssette in a private school was so unreasonable that it was an abuse of discretion to award tuition reimbursement. 63 Defendants' final argument, that Díaz is not entitled to prospective relief in the amount of future educational expenses until Lyssette reaches maximum school age, has more bite. As the term reimbursement suggests, tuition reimbursement is a backward-looking form of remedial relief; [r]eimbursement merely requires the [defendant] to belatedly pay expenses that it should have paid all along and would have borne in the first instance had it developed a proper IEP. Sch. Comm., 471 U.S. at 371-72, 105 S.Ct. 1996. It goes without saying that those expenses must be actual and retrospective, not anticipated. Indeed, this reasoning is at the heart of the distinction, recognized by this court, between tuition reimbursement and compensatory education. 22 See Ms. M. ex rel. K.M., 360 F.3d at 273 ([W]hen this court has used the term `compensatory education,' it has usually assumed that the remedies available involve prospective injunctive relief, which would not encompass tuition reimbursement.); see also id. at 273-74 (citing cases). This was also plainly the law at the time of trial. 64 Under normal IDEA principles, Díaz is thus not entitled to be reimbursed for educational expenses that she has yet to pay. She is entitled to no more than the sum of the educational expenses she has already paid —that is, the sum of Lyssette's private school tuition and costs for transportation, see 34 C.F.R. § 300.24(b)(15), and psychological services, see id. § 300.24(b)(9), that she has paid through the conclusion of the 2005-2006 school year. 23 All other compensatory damages awarded by the jury, including those for lost wages and emotional distress, are simply not available as a matter of law. We discuss later whether defendants are nonetheless bound to pay damages not available as a matter of law because of their failure to timely object. 65
66 [I]n the absence of consent[,] a suit in which the State or one of its agencies or departments is named as the defendant is proscribed by the Eleventh Amendment. Pennhurst State Sch. & Hosp. v. Halderman, 465 U.S. 89, 100, 104 S.Ct. 900, 79 L.Ed.2d 67 (1984); see also Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U.S. 651, 662-63, 94 S.Ct. 1347, 39 L.Ed.2d 662 (1974). This jurisdictional bar applies regardless of the nature of the relief sought. Pennhurst, 465 U.S. at 100, 104 S.Ct. 900. 67 Plaintiffs argue that the compensatory damages award, if not available under federal law, is justifiable under §§ 1802 and 1803 of the Puerto Rico Civil Code, which is the general negligence statute. 24 See P.R. Laws Ann. tit. 31, §§ 5141, 5142. Taking advantage of the rule that Eleventh Amendment immunity can be raised at any time because of its jurisdictional implications, Acevedo Lopez v. Police Dep't, 247 F.3d 26, 28 (1st Cir.2001), the Commonwealth defendants invoke for the first time on appeal their Eleventh Amendment immunity against suit in federal court on the Puerto Rico law claims. Plaintiffs offer no response. 68 The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico is treated as a state for purposes of Eleventh Amendment immunity analysis. Redondo Constr. Corp. v. P.R. Highway & Transp. Auth., 357 F.3d 124, 125 n. 1 (1st Cir.2004). The Commonwealth can waive its immunity in three ways: (1) by a clear declaration that it intends to submit itself to the jurisdiction of a federal court ...; (2) by consent to or participation in a federal program for which waiver of immunity is an express condition; or (3) by affirmative conduct in litigation. New Hampshire v. Ramsey, 366 F.3d 1, 15 (1st Cir.2004) (citations omitted). But the Commonwealth's waiver of sovereign immunity in its own courts is not a waiver of the Eleventh Amendment immunity in the federal courts. Pennhurst, 465 U.S. at 99 n. 9, 104 S.Ct. 900. 69 The Commonwealth defendants do not have Eleventh Amendment immunity against the federal IDEA and Rehabilitation Act claims, because they waived such immunity by accepting federal funds. See 20 U.S.C. § 1403(a) (conditioning a state's receipt of federal IDEA funds to its consent to suit under that statute); 42 U.S.C. § 2000d-7(a)(1) (same under the Rehabilitation Act); see also Nieves-Márquez, 353 F.3d at 127-30. 70 Although the Commonwealth has consented to be sued for damages in actions brought under the Commonwealth general negligence statute, such consent does not extend to actions filed in any courts but the Commonwealth's own. Neither Section 1802 or 1803 contains an explicit waiver of the Commonwealth's sovereign immunity. And Law 104, P.R. Laws Ann. tit. 32, § 3077, which abrogates the Commonwealth's immunity with respect to negligence suits filed against the Commonwealth in Puerto Rico's Court of the First Instance, does not extend that waiver to suits filed in federal court. See Pennhurst, 465 U.S. at 99 & n. 9, 104 S.Ct. 900 (noting that [a] State's constitutional interest in immunity encompasses not merely whether it may be sued, but where it may be sued). Moreover, as defendants point out, Law 51 itself does not waive the Commonwealth's immunity from suit in federal court; indeed, that statute does not even explicitly authorize private suits for its enforcement in any court, let alone in federal court. 25 Plaintiffs do not direct us to any law to the contrary, nor do they argue that the Commonwealth has waived its immunity by any other means, such as by its litigation conduct. 71 Defendants argue that the Commonwealth's immunity extends to its Department of Education. This court has assumed without discussion that the DOE's Eleventh Amendment immunity is coextensive with that of the Commonwealth's. Fernandez v. Chardon, 681 F.2d 42, 59 (1st Cir.1982); Litton Indus., Inc. v. Colon, 587 F.2d 70, 72 (1st Cir.1978) (There is no doubt that the complaint states a cause of action against the Commonwealth and/or the Department of Education of Puerto Rico for breach of contract, and it is equally clear that the [E]leventh [A]mendment effectively bars such a claim.). More recently, we have assume[d] without deciding that the Department of Education is properly considered the alter ego of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico for purposes of [E]leventh [A]mendment analysis. Marin-Piazza v. Aponte-Roque, 873 F.2d 432, 437 n. 6 (1st Cir.1989). We do so again here, since plaintiffs have utterly failed to present any argument to the contrary. 72 Plaintiffs, therefore, cannot look to state law to justify the compensatory damages award against the Commonwealth defendants. 73