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

Heading: The School District’s Proposed

Text: Remedy Cap We begin with the District, which contends, first, that § 1415(b)(6)(B) describes the same two-year statute of limitations as § 1415(f)(3)(C) and, second, that this statute of limitations limits the scope of a child’s remedy to those injuries that actually occurred in the two years before the filing of a complaint, no matter when the parent reasonably discovered the injury. The obvious problem with the District’s first contention is that, as the District Court noted in rejecting it, the language and plain meaning of the subsections are, in fact, quite different: Section 1415(f)(3)(C) provides that parents who have been unable to secure relief for alleged violations through informal channels and are resorting to requesting a due process hearing must do so “within 2 years of the date the parent or agency knew or should have known about the alleged action that forms the basis of the complaint.” 20 U.S.C. § 1415(f)(3)(C). Section 1415(b)(6)(B), on the other hand, describes that very same complaint that parents shall have the opportunity to present as “set[ting] forth an alleged violation that occurred not more than 2 years before the date the parent or public agency knew or should have known about the alleged action that forms the basis of the complaint.” Id. § 1415(b)(6)(B). The District does not attempt to reconcile the language of these provisions; it simply asks us ipse dixit to declare them identical and further asks that we read this single statute of limitations to permit relief only for those injuries that occurred no more than two years before the filing of the complaint. The problem is that this is not what the statute says and the District’s logic proves an unworkable syllogism: Section 1415(b)(6)(B) makes reference to (a) injuries that 22 occurred no more than two years before (b) the reasonable discovery date; § 1415(f)(3)(C) provides that (b) this reasonable discovery date must be no more than two years before (c) the filing of the complaint; but neither subsection references (a) injuries that occurred no more than two years before (c) the filing of the complaint. The District’s reading not only lacks textual support but affirmatively contravenes the language and purpose of Congress in using a reasonable discovery date. When fashioning a statute of limitations, a legislature may choose as the date from which the limitations period begins to run either the date the injury actually occurred, an approach known as the “occurrence rule,” or the date the aggrieved party knew or should have known of the injury, that is, the “discovery rule.” See Knopick v. Connelly, 639 F.3d 600, 607 (3d Cir. 2011) (discussing these rules in the context of Pennsylvania tort law); see also Oshiver v. Levin, Fishbein, Sedran & Berman, 38 F.3d 1380, 1385 (3d Cir. 1994) (explaining that the discovery rule provides that the date the statute of limitations begins to run “is not the date on which the wrong that injures the plaintiff occurs, but the date on which the plaintiff discovers that he or she has been injured”). Under the discovery rule, a plaintiff’s time to bring suit is not in any way shortened by his or her reasonable ignorance: “the statutory limitations period begins to run and the plaintiff is afforded the full limitations period, starting from the point of [discovery], in which to file his or her claim.” Oshiver, 38 F.3d at 1386.10 10 We have acknowledged there are different views as to whether the discovery rule is properly characterized as delaying the date of claim accrual or as tolling the limitations 23 The discovery rule controls here. Generally, “absen[t] . . . a contrary directive from Congress, we apply the federal discovery rule” as a default. Disabled in Action of Pa. v. SEPTA, 539 F.3d 199, 209 (3d Cir. 2008) (internal quotation marks omitted). Here, of course, Congress left nothing to doubt, unambiguously providing in the IDEA that the date from which any limitations period begins to run is the date the parents “knew or should have known” of the basis for the claim. See 20 U.S.C. §§ 1415(b)(6)(B), (f)(3)(C). The District thus does not argue that the occurrence rule applies, nor could it, because to do so would be contrary to the IDEA’s explicit, twice-repeated discovery rule. Instead, it attempts an end run around the rule by proposing a two-year cap on redress from the date of the complaint, with the same effect: the requirement that a claim be filed within two years of the date the violation actually occurred (not the date it was reasonably discovered) for that claim to be cognizable. Take a practical example. Assume a school district unreasonably fails to identify a child’s disability from the beginning of first grade through the end of third grade. Assume also that at the end of third grade, the parents first reasonably discover the injury, and the school district immediately begins providing the student with the period for a claim that accrued upon occurrence of the injury, and recently have held that the federal discovery rule is properly viewed as the latter. See William A. Graham Co. v. Haughey, 646 F.3d 138, 150 (3d Cir. 2011). This distinction is immaterial to our resolution here, for “[t]he distinction between the two concepts . . . makes no difference for purposes of deciding whether a claim survives a statute-oflimitations defense.” Id. at 148. 24 educational supports he or she needs going forward but declines to provide that child with compensatory education to make up for the three years the child was deprived a FAPE. Under the theory espoused by the District, even if the parents filed a due process complaint the very same day they reasonably discovered the injury, the child’s compensatory education for the three years of this violation would be capped at two years (the second and third grade years that occurred within the two years before the filing of the complaint). Moreover, those two years of compensatory education would diminish daily for each day after the reasonable discovery date that the parents or their counsel conducted due diligence, explored settlement options, or prepared the complaint before filing. Nothing in the plain language of the statute suggests such an absurd result. Cf. Reiter v. Cooper, 507 U.S. 258, 267 (1993) (“While it is theoretically possible for a statute to create a cause of action that accrues at one time for the purpose of calculating when the statute of limitations begins to run, but at another time for the purpose of bringing suit, we will not infer such an odd result in the absence of any such indication in the statute.”).11 11 Perhaps for this reason, at oral argument, the District took another tack, stating that if a parent’s complaint was filed “very close in time” to the reasonable discovery date— that is, if a parent only waited a week or two to file a complaint, versus the two years he or she is entitled under the statute—a child would not lose any remedy at all. Oral Arg. at 13:25, available at http://www.ca3.uscourts.gov/oralargument-recordings. This supposed two-week grace period, like the District’s position generally, finds no support in the statutory text. 25 Putting aside the oddity of a statute of limitations functioning in this manner and its inconsistency with the broad remedial purposes of the IDEA (discussed more fully below), the text is clear that Congress eschewed the occurrence rule in favor of the discovery rule by hinging both § 1415(f)(3)(C) and § 1415(b)(6)(B) on the date the parents “knew or should have known” of the injury. See, e.g., Merck & Co. v. Reynolds, 559 U.S. 633, 651 (2010) (holding that when a “statute says that the plaintiff’s claim accrues only after the ‘discovery’ of . . . facts,” a limitations period does not “begin before ‘discovery’ can take place”); Beauty Time, Inc. v. VU Skin Sys., Inc., 118 F.3d 140, 144 (3d Cir. 1997) (“It is well-established that Pennsylvania law recognizes an exception to the statute of limitations which delays the running of the statute until the plaintiff knew, or through the exercise of reasonable diligence should have known, of the injury and its cause.” (internal quotation marks omitted)). Thus, the limitations period of § 1415(f)(3)(C) “begins to run once the plaintiff did discover or a reasonably diligent plaintiff would have discovered the facts constituting the violation—whichever comes first.” Merck & Co., 559 U.S. at 653 (internal quotation marks and alteration omitted).12 12 The discovery rule, of course, has a practical and “fundamental difference” with general equitable tolling doctrines, Oshiver, 38 F.3d at 1390, the concept we considered with regards to the IDEA in D.K., 696 F.3d at 245-47. Specifically, “[t]he purpose of the discovery rule is to determine . . . when the statute of limitations [effectively] begins to run.” Oshiver, 38 F.3d at 1390. Our general equitable tolling doctrine, on the other hand, “steps in to toll, or stop, the running of the statute of limitations in light of 26 Accordingly, § 1415(b)(6)(B), which runs backward from the reasonable discovery date (not the filing date), appears on its face to mean something different and, whatever that is, it is not, as the District would have it, that claims not known or reasonably known expire of their own accord if the injury occurred more than two years before the filing date.