Opinion ID: 2805945
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Reimbursement Claim

Text: In a case under IDEA, this court reviews a district court’s findings of fact for clear error. L.M. v. Capistrano Unified Sch. Dist., 556 F.3d 900, 908 (9th Cir. 2009). We review questions of law and mixed questions of fact and law de novo, unless the mixed question is primarily factual. Amanda J. ex. rel. Annette J. v. Clark Cnty. Sch. Dist., 267 F.3d 877, 887 (9th Cir. 2001). The IDEA aims to provide “all children with disabilities . . . a free appropriate public education that emphasizes special education and related services designed to meet their unique needs and prepare them for further education, employment, and independent living[.]” 20 U.S.C. § 1400(d)(1)(A). If parents believe their child is not receiving a free appropriate public education (commonly referred to as a “FAPE”), they may be able to place the child in a private program and then seek reimbursement from the public school district. 20 U.S.C. § 1412(a)(10)(C)(ii); 34 C.F.R. § 300.148(c). The federal statute provides that the parent must seek a hearing within two years of an alleged denial of a FAPE, but permits states to set a different limitations period. 20 U.S.C. § 1415(b)(6)(B), (f)(3)(C). Under Haw. Rev. Stat. § 302A–443(a), parents in Hawaii have two years to initiate the process by requesting a due process hearing, but a filing is required “within one hundred and eighty days of a unilateral special education placement, where the request is for reimbursement of the costs of the placement.” The statute does not define “unilateral special education placement.” There are no reported Hawaii state court decisions interpreting this provision. SAM K. V. STATE OF HAWAII DEP’T OF EDUC. 11 Our court considered the meaning of “unilateral special education placement” as used in Section 302A–443 in K.D., 665 F.3d at 1110. We adopted a definition previously set forth in a District of Hawaii decision and held that “a unilateral special education placement occurs when one party unilaterally (i.e., without consent or agreement of the other party) enrolls the student in a special education program.” Id. at 1122 (quoting Makiko D. v. Hawaii, No. 06-cv-00189, 2007 WL 1153811, at  (D. Haw. Apr. 17, 2007)) (internal quotation marks omitted). In K.D., a student’s family reached a settlement agreement in March 2007 with the Hawaii DOE under which the DOE agreed to pay for the student’s private tuition, by coincidence also at Loveland Academy, for the then-current 2006–07 school year. The agreement provided that the student was to participate in planning for transition to a public school for the following school year, if deemed appropriate. Before that next school year began, the DOE presented a IEP providing for placement in a public school. The family did not respond and re-enrolled the student in the Loveland program. After a due process hearing, the administrative hearings officer concluded that the public school placement proposed by the DOE would have provided a FAPE. The hearings officer also dismissed the family’s claims for private program tuition reimbursement for the 2007–08 year. Although the family argued that it was entitled to maintain the placement at Loveland as a “stay put” placement during the pendency of litigation, the request was rejected as untimely because the placement at Loveland for the 2007–08 year was found to have been “unilateral” and the request for reimbursement was made over a year later. 12 SAM K. V. STATE OF HAWAII DEP’T OF EDUC. Our court affirmed that decision. In particular, we agreed that the placement for 2007–08 was properly described as “unilateral.” We noted that the March 2007 settlement agreement never called for “placement” at Loveland and only required tuition reimbursement for the prior year. Id. at 1119. The agreement also referenced at least the possibility that the student would transition to a public school for the next year. Id. We observed that the “settlement agreement specified in several places that it applied only to the 2006–07 school year[.]” Id. at 1120. The decision to enroll the student at Loveland the following year was, therefore, a “unilateral” decision by the family. “The enrollment thus occurred without consent or agreement of the other party.” Id. at 1122 (internal quotation marks omitted). The DOE points to K.D. and argues that this case is the same. We disagree, however, and conclude that this case is different in at least one important respect. In K.D. the settlement agreement explicitly contemplated a public school placement for the following year, and the DOE proposed such a placement before the next school year began. In the current case, the DOE did not present an IEP providing for a public school placement for the 2010–11 school year until January 2011, at least halfway through that year. The DOE did not make clear that its position was final until it sent a letter to that effect in March 2011, after most of the 2010–11 school year had already gone by. Prior to that time, Sam was still attending the Loveland program, as the DOE necessarily knew. The DOE had not proposed anything else, and it presumably did not intend that Sam would receive no educational services in the meantime. In those circumstances, it does not appear to us that the placement at Loveland for the 2010–11 school year was “without consent SAM K. V. STATE OF HAWAII DEP’T OF EDUC. 13 or agreement” of DOE, as the term “unilateral” was defined in K.D. Agreement may be tacit. The inclusion of “consent” as an alternative to “agreement” in K.D.’s definition of “unilateral” further suggests that the manifestation of agreement need not be explicit. See generally Sierra Club v. Castle & Cooke Homes Hawaii, Inc., 320 P.3d 849, 861 (Haw. 2013) (recognizing “implied consent” as “[c]onsent inferred from one’s conduct rather than from one’s direct expression”) (quoting Black’s Law Dictionary 346 (9th ed. 2009)). Consent may be indicated by silence or inaction where such silence or inaction manifests a willingness for the conduct in question to happen. See generally Restatement (Second) of Torts § 892(1) (1965) (“(1) Consent is willingness in fact for conduct to occur. It may be manifested by action or inaction and need not be communicated to the actor. (2) If words or conduct are reasonably understood by another to be intended as consent, they constitute apparent consent and are as effective as consent in fact.”); Restatement (First) of Property § 516 cmt. c (1944) (“Manifestation of consent. The consent from which a license arises may be manifested by conduct of any kind. The manifestation may consist in the use of language, or in conduct other than the use of language. Such conduct may consist of acts indicative of a consent by the actor to the use of his land by another, or it may consist in failure to take reasonable action when inaction may reasonably lead to an inference of consent.”). Here, the DOE knew that Sam was enrolled at Loveland for the 2010–11 school year. By waiting so long into that school year to propose a different placement, the DOE tacitly consented to his enrollment at Loveland Academy. It is true that the hearings officer found that the Parents did not prove 14 SAM K. V. STATE OF HAWAII DEP’T OF EDUC. that the DOE was responsible for the failure to have an IEP for a public school program in place by the time that the 2010–11 school year began. But that does not change the fact that the DOE knew that Sam was going to be enrolled in Loveland in the meantime and necessarily consented to that enrollment for that school year because it had not offered another alternative. That did not mean that the DOE was precluded from proposing something different thereafter. Had it proposed an appropriate public school placement, it might have been able to maintain the position that Sam’s family should not be entitled to reimbursement for the time following the proposal of a proper public placement. But the hearings officer and the district court both concluded that the DOE’s proposed placement was not appropriate and that the Loveland program was, findings that the DOE no longer disputes. For now, the only question is whether the placement at Loveland for the 2010–11 school year was “unilateral.” We agree with the district court that it was not, and as a result, the 180-day limitations period did not apply. Reimbursement cannot be denied on that basis.2 Sam’s family is entitled to reimbursement for the 2010–11 school year. We affirm the decision of the district court to that effect. 2 The district court identified other reasons for reaching the conclusion that the placement was not unilateral, but we do not need to consider those other reasons. SAM K. V. STATE OF HAWAII DEP’T OF EDUC. 15