Opinion ID: 770326
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: jurisdiction

Text: 10 Title 20 U.S.C. S 1415(i)(3)(B) provides that, [i]n any action or proceeding brought under this section, the court, in its discretion, may award reasonable attorneys' fees as part of the costs to the parents of a child with a disability who is the prevailing party. We first must consider whether, under that statute, the district court can hear an action such as this one. Although we have not expressly so held before today, our prior cases imply that the district court has jurisdiction over a case in which fees are sought although liability is established outside the district court proceeding itself. See BarlowGresham Union High Sch. Dist. No. 2 v. Mitchell, 940 F.2d 1280, 1285 (9th Cir. 1991) (allowing the prevailing parents to recover attorneys' fees when settlement is reached prior to the due process hearing); McSomebodies v. Burlingame Elementary Sch. Dist., 897 F.2d 974 (9th Cir. 1989) (awarding the parents of a disabled child attorney fees incurred in an administrative due process hearing under the Handicapped Children's Protection Act). 11 When a parent obtains affirmative relief in a proceeding brought under the IDEA, then the parent is the prevailing party. 20 U.S.C. S 1415(i)(3)(B); see also Kletzelman v. Capistrano Unified Sch. Dist., 91 F.3d 68, 70 (9th Cir. 1996) (This court has construed section 1415[(i)(3)(B)] to justify the award of attorneys' fees to parents who prevailed at an administrative hearing or reached a favorable settlement prior to a scheduled administrative hearing.). If, as we hold below, the CRP is a proceeding brought under S 1415, then a court may award fees to a plaintiff parent who obtains affirmative relief in that manner. To hold otherwise would be to render meaningless the statutory wording that the court may award fees in any . . . proceeding brought underS 1415, even if it is not an action. Moreover, if a plaintiff parent's rights under the IDEA include the right to recover fees expended in a successful CRP, the right would be unenforceable if we were to hold that a district court lacks jurisdiction to enforce it. 12