Opinion ID: 2278481
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: Subject Matter Jurisdiction under the IDEA

Text: Subject matter jurisdiction is the court's ability to adjudicate a controversy of a particular kind. Henderson v. United States, 517 U.S. 654, 671, 116 S.Ct. 1638, 1647, 134 L.Ed.2d 880 (1996). If, by the law that defines the authority of the court, a judicial body is given the power to render a judgment over that class of cases within which a particular case falls, the court has subject matter jurisdiction. First Federated Commodity Trust Corp. v. Comm'r of Sec., 272 Md. 329, 335, 322 A.2d 539, 543 (1974). The powers of the OAH and its ALJ's are measured by the granting statute. Boyd v. Supervisor of Assessments, 57 Md.App. 603, 608, 471 A.2d 749, 751 (1984). An ALJ cannot enlarge agency jurisdiction, nor may subject matter jurisdiction be conferred upon the agency by the courts or the parties before the OAH. Boyd, 57 Md.App. at 608, 471 A.2d at 751-52. The scope of an administrative hearing is limited to the matters contained in the complaint filed triggering the hearing. County of San Diego v. Cal. Special Educ. Hearing Office, 93 F.3d 1458, 1465 (9th Cir.1996). In the instant case, the ALJ concluded as a matter of law, that the Parents' request for an administrative order requiring HCPS officials to administer the Child medication without the right of school officials to consult the physician in order to obtain clarification and parameters of when the medication should be withheld based on symptoms noted at the time of administration be dismissed for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted under the IDEA or Maryland special education law, because the dispute was outside of his statutory jurisdiction to hear only special education complaints. A.A.'s parents maintain that the ALJ had subject matter jurisdiction under the IDEA and/or the Maryland Education Article to compel the HCPS to provide medication to A.A., on the terms dictated by them, because the administration of medication is a related service. Accordingly, the HCPS's discontinuation of administration of A.A.'s medications falls into the ALJ's jurisdiction to hear disputes concerning any matter relating to the . . . provision of a free appropriate public education to [a] child. They argue that if the IDEA, or any of the regulations issued pursuant to it, encompass the administration of medication, then the OAH has the authority to resolve the parties' dispute. Referring to Sellers, the parents argue that, when a school system seeks to change a child's identification, evaluation, placement, or receipt of a free appropriate public education, the parents are entitled to air [those] complaints to an `impartial due process hearing.' 141 F.3d at 527. The parents essentially contend that the HCPS's action constitutes a refusal or change of a related service, or the imposition of unjustified conditions on the delivery of such service, entitling them to a due process hearing under the IDEA to challenge that action. Were it otherwise, they claim the IDEA would be transformed from a cooperative process to a situation where a school board may dictate unilateral changes in the delivery of related services to disabled children. Appellee insists that the ALJ's subject matter jurisdiction is limited to the four categories outlined in the IDEA statute, namely, disputes concerning the identification, evaluation, and placement of a disabled child, or the provision of a FAPE to that child. Accordingly, it contends that this particular dispute, concerning the right of parents of a disabled child to require a school to contact them for approval before speaking to the child's treating psychiatrist regarding the consequences of administering medication, falls outside of that jurisdiction. The HCPS argues that its request for the nurse to contact the psychiatrist did not constitute the imposition of a change regarding the administration of medication, but instead was a request for clarification of how and when decisions may be arrived at for withholding medication should observed conditions warrant that. It claims that the simple fact that the IDEA deems the administration of medication potentially a related service does not mean necessarily that any dispute that is somehow related to the provision of that related service is within the jurisdiction of the ALJ. We disagree with the parents' contention that the particular dispute in this case sufficiently touches and concerns a related service within the contemplation of the regulatory scheme. The dispute in this case is not so much over the administration of medications to a child, which the HCPS concedes is deemed generally a related service contemplated by the IDEA, but instead relates to the ability of a child's parents to regulate communications between the school personnel designated to administer the drugs and the child's treating/prescribing psychiatrist. The IDEA does not intend to address claims such as these, even had the ALJ concluded that the administration of medication inferentially was provided for as a related service in A.A.'s IEP. The dispute in this case involves a medical treatment issue, not a special education one. As a result, the controversy resides outside of the expertise and training of an ALJ who adjudicates disputes regarding the IDEA. Allowing parties to use the IDEA as the mechanism for trying such disputes would open the doors to lawsuits under the IDEA for a multitude of matters unrelated to the proper scope of special education. The HCPS, under normal circumstances, has not refused to administer A.A.'s medication. It only refused to do so in the absence of the ability to consult directly and freely with A.A.'s treating/prescribing psychiatrist where the school nursing staff observed what they believed were potentially harmful side effects of the medications or contraindications to the continued administration of the drugs. Had the HCPS refused flatly to administer the medications under any circumstances, and A.A. needed the medications to benefit from her special education, subject matter jurisdiction over such a dispute likely would exist. When the issue, as here, however, deals principally with medical and ethical concerns, rather than those touching on special education, the IDEA provides no jurisdiction to resolve disputes through the due process complaint process. Appellee's position reflects its concern about potential liability if it administers blindly drugs to students without the ability to contact physicians regarding withholding the drugs if circumstances suggest it prudent to do so. The school nurse arguably sees A.A. as or more frequently than Dr. Eist and, therefore, also may have a valid opinion as to the matter of the administration of A.A.'s medications. Unlike Dr. Eist, the nurse's assessments, with the added input of classroom observations from concerned teachers, are based on daily and continuing observation within the classroom environment. Christopher M. v. Corpus Christi Indep. Sch. Dist., 933 F.2d 1285, 1292 (5th Cir.1991). Based on the nurse's observations and the school system's arguably valid liability concerns, the HCPS decided that, in the face of the parents' concerns and demands, a more reasonable option, which would still allow A.A. to receive her FAPE, would be to have A.A.'s parents administer her medications during the school day, according to Dr. Eist's orders. See generally Davis v. Francis Howell Sch. Dist., 138 F.3d 754, 757 (8th Cir.1998) (holding, in a complaint based on alleged violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Rehabilitation Act, and 20 U.S.C. § 1983, that a school district's offer to allow the [parents] . . . to give [the child] his Ritalin during the school day is a reasonable accommodation as a matter of law because questions of liability could impose a large burden on the school system). These issues raise questions of what constitutes reasonable medical practice, not the provision of related services to a child receiving special education. Were we to adopt the logic of the parents' interpretation of the IDEA that a matter relating, however tangentially, to any related service may become the proper basis for an IDEA claim, then administrative proceedings before ALJs may become prolific precursors or parallel proceedings to wrongful death or other tort actions resulting from the improper administration of medication as a related service. Clearly, the IDEA was not meant to provide a forum for the advancement of such claims. See, e.g., Hunter v. Bd. of Educ., 292 Md. 481, 484, 439 A.2d 582, 584 (1982) ([D]ecisions generally hold that a cause of action seeking damages for acts of negligence in the educational process is precluded by considerations of public policy, among them being the absence of a workable rule of care against which the defendant's conduct may be measured . . . and the extreme burden which would be imposed on the already strained resources of the public school system); Tabor v. Baltimore City Pub. Sch., 138 Md.App. 747, 751, 773 A.2d 628, 630 (2001) (Maryland does not recognize a tort action seeking damages based on negligent education.); Sellers, 141 F.3d at 527 (holding that the purpose of these procedural [due-process] mechanisms is to preserve the right to a free appropriate public education, not to provide a forum for tort-like claims of educational malpractice); Brown v. Houston Sch. Dist., 704 So.2d 1325, 1328 (Miss. 1997) (holding no valid IDEA claim for failure to meet a child's educational needs where a special education student, who was sent to the principal's office for misbehaving, escaped the office, ran outside, and was subsequently found dead nearby the school); Ortega v. Bibb County Sch. Dist., 397 F.3d 1321, 1325-26 (11th Cir.2005) (cataloguing U.S. Courts of Appeals' agreement on this general principle). In tort-sounding cases, the connection to special education would be too attenuated to support a due process claim under the IDEA. Thus, we decline to adopt such a broad reading of the IDEA and its Maryland counterpart as would facilitate such tort-fraught claims being brought under these statutes. The dispute in this case does not touch truly on the provision of the administration of medications as a related service, but is instead about an ethical issue, the need for school nurses to consult directly with prescribing physicians, which is associated only tangentially with a related service. The parents argue that the HCPS's position infringes upon their right to privacy and their fundamental right and liberty interest in the care, custody, and control of their child, relying on Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57, 120 S.Ct. 2054, 147 L.Ed.2d 49 (2000), In re Yve S., 373 Md. 551, 819 A.2d 1030 (2003), and In re Adoption/Guardianship No. 10941, 335 Md. 99, 642 A.2d 201 (1994). [25] It is telling that none of the parental autonomy issues addressed in those cases are cognizable as causes of action under the IDEA. The parents also urged that their dispute implicates other issues, such as the doctor-patient privilege and the relative role of doctor vís-a-vís nurse. Congress never intended that these issues would be resolved under the auspices of the IDEA. Finally, A.A.'s parents contend that the ALJ ignored additional facts that they sought, and were prepared, to introduce at the hearing through expert and lay witnesses. For example, the parents claim that, at the hearing, they were prepared to disprove the factual predicate underlying the HCPS's demand for direct communication with Dr. Eist, namely to prove that A.A.'s symptoms of lethargy were not caused by the medication and that, even if they were, did not merit an interruption in her medication regime. These facts, even viewed in a light most favorable to the parents, simply bolster our view that this dispute falls outside the scope of the IDEA as a medical treatment issue, and not a special education issue.