Opinion ID: 3033620
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Sabree ex rel. Sabree v. Richman

Text: In Sabree, the issue was whether Title XIX of the Social Security Act, known as the “Medicaid Act,” which “established a cooperative federal-state program under which the federal government furnishes funding to states for the purpose of providing medical assistance to eligible low-income persons,” conferred on aggrieved individuals an enforceable private right of action. 367 F.3d 180, 182 (3d Cir. 2004) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). States that accepted funding under the Act were required to comply with its terms and any regulations promulgated under them, including a term requiring the creation and implementation of a “state medical assistance plan” that had been approved by the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Id. Plaintiffs brought suit under a number of provisions of the Medicaid Act. The first provision sued under, 42 U.S.C. § 1396a(a)(8), provided as follows: “‘A State plan for medical assistance must . . . provide that all individuals wishing to make application for medical assistance under the plan shall have opportunity to do so, and that such assistance shall be furnished with reasonable promptness to all eligible individuals . . . .’” Id. at 182 n.4 (quoting 42 U.S.C. § 1396a(a)(8)) (emphasis added). The second provision, 42 U.S.C. § 1396a(a)(10), provided: “‘A State plan for medical assistance must . . . provide . . . for making medical assistance available, . . . to . . . all [eligible] individuals . . . .’” Id. at 182 n.5 (quoting 42 U.S.C. § 1396a(a)(10)) (emphasis added) (brackets in original). And the third provision, 42 U.S.C. § 1396d(a)(15), provided: “‘For purposes of this title [42 U.S.C. §§ 1396 et seq.] . . . [t]he term ‘medical assistance’ means payment of part or all of the cost of the following care and services . . . for individuals . . . who are [eligible:] . . . services in an intermediate care facility for the mentally retarded. . . .’” Id. at 182 n.6 (quoting 42 U.S.C. § 1396d(a)(15)) (emphasis added) (alterations in original). We began by explaining that the Blessing Court, having drawn on a number of the Court’s prior decisions, had formulated 15 a three-prong test to determine whether Congress had conferred enforceable individual rights in a statute. Under that test, “a statute must (1) be intended by Congress to benefit the plaintiff, (2) not be ‘vague and amorphous,’ and (3) impose an unambiguous ‘binding obligation on the States.’” Sabree, 367 F.3d at 186 (quoting Blessing, 520 U.S. at 340-41). We noted that while Gonzaga had not abandoned this test, it did dispel “[the] confusion [that] has led some courts to interpret Blessing as allowing plaintiffs to enforce a statute under § 1983 so long as the plaintiff falls within the general zone of interest that the statute is intended to protect; something less than what is required for a statute to create rights enforceable directly from the statute itself under an implied private right of action.” Id. at 186-87 (quoting Gonzaga, 536 U.S. at 283) (alterations in original). With these principles in mind, we turned to the text of the Medicaid Act to determine whether it used rights-creating language. We found that it did, and that the language used was “clear and unambiguous.” Id. at 189. We stated that “we can hardly imagine anyone disputing that a state must provide the assistance necessary to obtain ICF/MR services, and that it must do so with ‘reasonable promptness,’ and the government does not do so.” Id. Next, we stated that in order “[t]o determine whether these provisions provide plaintiffs with unambiguously conferred rights, we begin with what has come to be called the ‘Blessing Test,’” id., i.e., the three-prong test discussed above. We found that that test was satisfied because “(1) plaintiffs were the intended beneficiaries of §§ 1396a(a)(10), 1396d(a)(15), and 1396a(a)(8); (2) the rights sought to be enforced by them are specific and enumerated, not ‘vague and amorphous’; and (3) the obligation imposed on the states is unambiguous and binding.” Id. Because Gonzaga had held that satisfaction of the Blessing test may only indicate that a plaintiff falls within the “‘general zone of interest that the statute is intended to protect,’” however, we turned again to the text of the Medicaid Act to determine whether 16 Congress had used “‘rights-creating terms.’” Id. at 189-90 (quoting Gonzaga, 536 U.S. at 287). We concluded that the import of the relevant language of the Act was “difficult, if not impossible” to distinguish from the relevant language of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972—the two statutes cited by the Gonzaga Court to contain archetypal rights-creating language. Just as in Titles VI and IX, the relevant terms used in Title XIX are “mandatory rather than precatory.” Further, the “individual focus” of Sections 1396a(a)(10), 1396d(a)(15), and 1396a(a)(8) is unmistakable. The relevant Title XIX provisions enumerate the entitlements available to “all eligible individuals.” The provisions do not focus on “the [entity] . . . regulated rather than the individuals protected.” Neither do the statutory references to the individual appear “in the context of describing the type of ‘policy or practice’ that triggers a funding prohibition.” Id. at 190 (citations omitted) (brackets in original) But, we continued, the Gonzaga Court had instructed that “not only should the text of the statute be examined, but also its structure.” Id. at 191. Turning to the general structure of the Medicaid Act—that is, its other provisions viewed in the aggregate—we conceded that it gave us “some pause.” Id. Its opening section, for instance, stated that “Title XIX was enacted ‘[f]or the purpose of enabling each State . . . to furnish . . . medical assistance.’” Id. (quoting 42 U.S.C. § 1396) (brackets in original). We acknowledged that “[t]his language says nothing of individual entitlements or rights, but reminds us that we are dealing with an agreement between Congress and a particular state.” Id. We then turned to § 1396c of the statute, which we explained “empowers the Secretary of HHS to suspend payments to a state if it fails to ‘comply substantially’ with the requirements of Title XIX.” Id. We concluded that “[t]his language not only confirms that Title XIX by its terms creates a relationship between Congress and a particular state, but it recalls, as well, the ‘comply substantially’ language in Blessing and Gonzaga University.” Id. at 191-92. 17 Balanced against the specific rights-creating language discussed above, however, we held, in what was a very close case, that the Medicaid Act conferred rights that the plaintiffs could enforce. Id. at 192. B. The NCLBA’s Notice and Supplemental Educational Services Provisions Do Not Confer a Private Right of Action Upon Aggrieved Individuals We return to the case before us. As we noted at the outset, no federal court of appeals has decided whether the Act’s various notice and supplemental educational services provisions confer on individuals a private right of action to enforce those provisions. It is worthy of mention, however, that every district court that has decided the question has held that, whatever the provision at issue, the Act does not confer a right of action enforceable by individuals or individual providers of supplemental educational services.5 We begin, as we must, by looking at the three provisions of the Act under which appellants seek relief: 20 U.S.C. § 6316(b)(6), 20 U.S.C. §§ 6316(e)(1)-(2), and 20 U.S.C. § 6311(h)(6). As set forth in greater detail above, the Act’s notice provision (20 U.S.C. § 6316(b)(6)) states that in the event a school is identified for “improvement,” “corrective action,” or “restructuring,” the local educational agency “shall promptly provide to a parent or parents” 5 See Simmons v. Santa Cruz County Dep’t of Educ., No. 07-04064, 2008 WL 1777384, at  (N.D. Cal. Apr. 18, 2008); Catapult Learning, Inc. v. Bd. of Educ. of St. Louis, No. 4:07-935, 2007 WL 2736271, at  (E.D. Mo. Sept. 17, 2007); Holder v. Gienapp, No. 06-221, 2007 WL 952039, at  (D.N.H. Mar. 28, 2007); Alliance For Children, Inc. v. City of Detroit Pub. Schs., 475 F. Supp. 2d 655, 662-63 (E.D. Mich. 2007); Blanchard ex rel. Blanchard v. Morton Sch. Dist., No. 06-5166, 2006 WL 2459167, at  (W.D. Wash. Aug. 25, 2006); Stokes ex rel. K.F. v. U.S. Dep’t. of Educ., No. 05-11764, 2006 WL 1892242, at  (D. Mass. July 10, 2006); Coachella Valley Unified Sch. Dist. v. California, No. 05-02657, 2005 WL 1869499, at  (N.D. Cal. Aug. 5, 2005); Fresh Start Acad. v. Toledo Bd. of Educ., 363 F. Supp. 2d 910, 916 (N.D. Ohio 2005); Ass’n of Cmty. Orgs. v. N.Y. City Dep’t of Educ., 269 F. Supp. 2d 338, 344-47 (S.D.N.Y. 2003). 18 a number of explanations, see 20 U.S.C. § 6316(b)(6), including an explanation of “the parents’ option to transfer their child to another public school . . . or to obtain supplemental educational services for the child,” id. § 6316(b)(6)(F). In addition, under 20 U.S.C. § 6311(h)(6), at the beginning of each school year, and regardless of whether the school is identified as in need of improvement, “a local educational agency that receives funds under this part shall notify the parents of each student attending any school receiving funds under this part that the parents may request, and the agency will provide the parents on request . . . , information regarding the professional qualifications of the student’s classroom teachers.” Id. § 6311(h)(6)(A). Appellants also seek to enforce their “right to request and/or receive SES” (J.A. 36) under 20 U.S.C. § 6316(e)(1)-(2), which states that in the event a school is identified for “improvement,” “corrective action,” or “restructuring,” “the local educational agency serving such school shall . . . arrange for the provision of supplemental educational services to eligible children in the school from a provider with a demonstrated record of effectiveness, that is selected by the parents.” Id. § 6316(e)(1). As did the statutory provisions in Sabree, these statutory provisions clearly and unambiguously obligate the State to provide certain notices and to provide supplemental educational services to students when requested. This, however, does not end our inquiry, because while the provisions create law, “[w]hether the same provisions confer rights, enforceable by individuals, is another question.” Sabree, 367 F.3d at 189. To answer that question, we are required to determine whether the provisions at issue here pass the “Blessing test,” that is, whether (1) appellants were the intended beneficiaries of these provisions, (2) the rights sought to be enforced by appellants are specific and enumerated rather than vague and amorphous, and (3) the obligation imposed on the State is “unambiguous and binding.” Id. For the reasons that in Sabree we found the Medicaid Act to pass this test, the NCLBA’s provisions also pass muster. Thus, it is plain from the terms of those provisions that students and their parents are intended to benefit from them, that the rights sought to be enforced are specific in that the provisions spell out precisely what types of notice and supplemental educational services must be given and when, and that the obligation imposed on the State is 19 unambiguous and binding. Again, however, our inquiry does not end with those conclusions. [T]he Blessing Test may only indicate that plaintiffs “fall[ ] within the general zone of interest that the statute is intended to protect; something less than what is required for a statute to create rights enforceable directly from the statute itself . . . .” To ensure that Congress unambiguously conferred the rights asserted, we must determine whether Congress used “rights-creating terms.” Id. at 189-90 (quoting Gonzaga, 536 U.S. at 283-84) (second brackets in original). At this stage in Sabree, we found that Congress had used rights-creating language in the relevant Medicaid Act provisions based on the fact that those provisions were essentially indistinguishable from the language used in Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972—the two exemplars of rights-creating language cited by the Gonzaga Court. In contrast, however, the terms used in the relevant provisions of the NCLBA, while admittedly similar in some ways to the Medicaid Act’s provisions, are materially distinguishable from the language found in Titles VI and IX. The command used in those statutes—“No person . . . shall . . . be subjected to discrimination”—makes its one and only subject a “person.” In the NCLBA, there are two subjects: the primary subject is always the State and the “local educational agency,” while “the parents of each student” are the secondary subject—they benefit from the provision but only as a result of regulation imposed upon the State and its actors. Stated somewhat differently, the focus of the NCLBA is on the entity regulated and is at least one step removed from the interests of individual students and parents, whereas the focus of the Medicaid Act is on the individuals protected rather than the entity regulated. As is discussed above, in § 6316(b)(6) the entity being regulated is the local educational agency, while the students and their parents are the beneficiaries of that regulation. Similarly, § 6311(h)(6) states that “a local educational agency that receives 20 funds under this part shall notify the parents of each student” of their child’s teacher’s qualifications. Once again, because it is the local educational agency that is receiving federal funding (by way of the State), the Act’s primary focus is on the regulation of the agency. The students and parents benefit secondarily from that regulation. So, too, with § 6316(e)(1). In the event a school is identified as needing improvement, corrective action, or restructuring, “the local educational agency serving such school shall . . . arrange for the provision of supplemental educational services to eligible children.” 20 U.S.C. § 6316(e)(1). Similarly, the supplemental educational services provisions focus on students in the aggregate, and on the lowest-achieving students and students from low-income families more specifically. In either instance, the focus is not on the individual. Section 6316(e)(1) states that local educational agencies are obligated to arrange for the provision of supplemental educational services to “eligible children.” Section 6316(b)(10)(C) states that if the applicable local educational agency does not have sufficient funds to provide supplemental educational services to all eligible children, the lowest-achieving students shall be prioritized. Moreover, both of these restrictions are in addition to the State’s overarching right to waive a local educational agency’s obligation to provide any supplemental educational services under certain circumstances. Id. § 6316(e)(10)(A). By prioritizing certain students (low-income and the lowest-achieving) over others (higher-income and better-performing), the Act is focusing in the aggregate and not on any individual student’s right to receive supplemental educational services.6 This sort of prioritization is akin to the Blessing Court’s conclusion that no private right of action existed under the statute at issue there because, at least in part, it focused on systemwide performance. Moreover, as previously indicated, the provisions of the Medicaid Act with which we were concerned in Sabree dealt with what are essentially financial benefits, since the “medical 6 Because Congress did not confer any individual rights under the Act, we need not reach the question of whether Congress evinced an intent to preclude individual suits. See Sabree, 367 F.3d at 193. 21 assistance” that the State was obligated to provide under those provisions is defined as “payment of part or all of the cost of the [specified] care and services . . . for individuals . . . who are [eligible.]” 42 U.S.C. § 1396d(a)(15). We observed in Sabree that the Supreme Court made a point in Gonzaga of distinguishing precedent that dealt with statutes extending monetary benefits to individuals. Sabree, 367 F.3d at 185. In particular, we noted, the Court distinguished Wilder v. Virginia Hospital Assoc., 496 U.S. 498 (1990), because the issues there focused on certain provisions of the Medicaid Act that, among other things, “explicitly conferred specific monetary entitlements upon the plaintiffs” and “required States to pay an ‘objective’ monetary entitlement to individual health care providers, with no sufficient administrative means of enforcing the requirement against States that failed to comply[.]” Id. at 185 (quoting Gonzaga, 536 U.S. at 280-81, and Wilder, 496 U.S. at 522-23). Here, the benefits at issue are essentially nonmonetary, consisting chiefly of notice and information obligations of the State that redound to the benefit of students and their parents.7 We must look, finally, at the overall structure of the Act. In Sabree, we found that other provisions within the Medicaid Act gave us some pause because they spoke in terms of an “agreement between Congress and a particular state.” 367 F.3d at 191. We nonetheless found that those other provisions—the Medicaid Act’s appropriations and general introductory statement and its enforcement provision—could not “neutralize” the rights-creating language we had found in the specific provisions at issue. Id. at 192. The NCLBA’s general structure, including its introductory statement, its appropriations provisions, and its enforcement provision, also speak in terms of an agreement between Congress and a particular State. The Act’s introductory statement states that its purpose is “to ensure that all children have a fair, equal, and significant 7 The supplemental educational services obligations no doubt have real cash consequences, but those obligations, too, are unlike monetary benefits, as they are waiveable by the State and may be provided directly by local educational agencies rather than being paid for by the State. 22 opportunity to obtain a high-quality education.” 20 U.S.C. § 6301. While the reference to “all children” could ostensibly be read as a proclamation that each and every child shall have certain rights, Congress did not refer to the individual rights of each and every child. Indeed, the language that follows focuses on effecting this purpose by “holding schools, local educational agencies, and States accountable for improving the academic achievement of all students.” Id. § 6301(4). The focus of this introductory statement, then, is on producing benefits to certain beneficiaries (school children) through the regulation of State actors (the local educational agencies). It thus speaks in terms of an “agreement between Congress and a particular state.” Sabree, 367 F.3d at 191. The NCLBA’s general appropriations and enforcement provisions also evince an agreement between Congress and the States, rather than the creation of individual rights. The appropriations provision makes no mention of individuals; it simply states that for purposes of carrying out parts of the Act, Congress shall appropriate to State agencies certain amounts of money in each subsequent fiscal year. 20 U.S.C. § 6302(a). And as in Sabree, where the Medicaid Act’s enforcement provision “empower[ed] the Secretary of HHS to suspend payments to a state if it fails to ‘comply substantially’ with the requirements of Title XIX,” the NCLBA’s enforcement provision “creates a relationship between Congress and a particular state.” Sabree, 367 F.3d at 19192. It provides that “[i]f a State fails to meet any of the requirements of this section, . . . then the Secretary may withhold funds for State administration under this part until the Secretary determines that the State has fulfilled those requirements.” 20 U.S.C. § 6311(g)(2). Read in concert with the less-than rights-creating language used in the notice and supplemental educational services provisions, the overall structure of the Act supports the conclusion that Congress did not intend to confer enforceable individual rights under those provisions. Again we note the contrast between this case and Sabree, in which we observed that our decision about a private right of action was buttressed by Supreme Court precedent addressing the identical language at issue in that case. Sabree, 367 F.3d at 192 (“Our confidence in this conclusion rests securely on the fact that the Court has refrained from overruling [decisions] 23 which upheld the exercise of individual rights under statutes that contain similar (or, in the case of Wilder, identical) provisions to [the statutory provision at issue].”). There is no such Supreme Court precedent favoring appellants here. On the contrary, the closest analog is Gonzaga, which supports the conclusion that there is no private right of action. We mentioned, as we began our discussion, that, without exception, the district courts that have considered the issue we have considered have reached the same conclusion we reach. We close our discussion with mention of but one of those decisions, a decision we find to be particularly thorough and very much on point: Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now v. New York City Department of Education, 269 F. Supp. 2d 338 (S.D.N.Y. 2003). In that decision, the District Court, applying Gonzaga, held that “the notice, transfer and SES provisions do not contain the kind of ‘rights-creating’ language that the Supreme Court has deemed ‘critical to showing the requisite congressional intent to create new rights.’” Id. at 344 (quoting Gonzaga, 536 U.S. at 287.) Of greatest importance to the District Court was the fact that, in its view, those provisions “focus on two entities—states and local educational agencies—and the restrictions that flow from their decisions to receive NCLBA funding.” Id. Thus, [t]he NCLBA is drafted to focus on the regulation of these entities and not on conferring any direct benefit, entitlement or right upon individual[s], such as parents and students. Congress, well aware of how to confer entitlements on individuals, could have drafted the NCLBA to provide that parents have the right to transfer their children or that students have the right to receive SES, but instead focused on what states and local educational agencies must provide to parents and children and on regulating the states and local educational agencies. Id. Under Gonzaga, the Court continued, where a statute focuses on the entity to be regulated (here, the States and local educational agencies) and the benefit to be conferred on an individual is 24 secondary, i.e., it flows to individuals as a result of the regulation of the States and local educational agencies, Congress has not created the type of individual entitlement that characterize the unambiguous intent to create personal rights. Next, the District Court found that the Act’s transfer and supplemental educational services provisions at issue have only an aggregate focus; they are not concerned with whether the needs of any particular person have been satisfied. The Court explained: [B]oth the transfer and SES provisions give priority for receiving those benefits to children from lowincome families. This indicates that Congress was concerned with improving the educational conditions of children as a whole, and specifically, the condition of the subset of children from lower income families, rather than ensuring that each individual child was provided with a right to transfer out of a failing school or a right to receive SES. In addition, with respect to the transfer provisions, the terms and conditions on transfers can be altered collectively for an entire group of students because the local educational agency can enter into cooperative agreements with other local educational agencies, but those agreements are required only “to the extent practicable” and depend on the agreement of other local educational agencies. The same is true of the ability of children to receive SES, which the local educational agency may choose to waive on behalf of all of its students. The decisions whether to seek a waiver or to enter into cooperative agreements cannot be made by individual students, and are collective judgments that affect all students attending failing schools under the control of the local educational agency. As such, the NCLBA has an aggregate focus, which indicates that Congress did not intend to create individually enforceable rights under the statute. 25 Id. at 3458 (citations omitted). Finally, the District Court found that the nature of the Act’s enforcement mechanism supported the conclusion that Congress did not intend to create individual rights. The Act contains no procedures—administrative or judicial—by which individuals can enforce violations of its notice, transfer, or supplemental educational services provisions. Instead, only the Secretary of Education can enforce a State’s violation of the Act. Again, the Court quoted Gonzaga, where the enforcement scheme of FERPA was similarly centralized in the Secretary of Education: “‘[i]t is implausible to presume that the Congress nonetheless intended private suits to be brought before thousands of federal-and statecourt judges . . . .’” Id. at 346 (quoting Gonzaga, 536 U.S. at 290).