Opinion ID: 4647361
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Voluntary Cessation Exception to Mootness

Text: J.T. first argues that her claim fits within the voluntary cessation exception to mootness because “DCPS voluntarily changed V.T.’s accommodations in a later IEP.” Appellant Br. 19. But DCPS did not voluntarily cease the challenged conduct; the 2017 IEP expired due to the end of the 2016–17 school year. Thus, the voluntary cessation exception to mootness does not apply. We have held that “[t]he voluntary-cessation doctrine has no apparent relevance” where the “source of ‘cessation’ . . . lies beyond the unilateral legal authority of any of the named defendants.” Guedes v. ATF, 920 F.3d 1, 15 (D.C. Cir. 2019) (per curiam). As noted, the IDEA requires a child’s IEP Team to formulate a new IEP at least every year. See 20 U.S.C. § 1414(d)(4)(A)(i). Thus, the 2017 IEP did not expire because of DCPS’s conduct but because the 2016–17 school year ended. See Clarke v. United States, 915 F.2d 699, 705 (D.C. Cir. 1990) (en banc) (“[N]on-reenactment of a one-time condition that expired of its own terms cannot be viewed as cessation of conduct. . . . [T]he expiration date of the [challenged action] was set well before this dispute arose.”). Accordingly, the voluntary cessation doctrine has no applicability where, as here, the challenged IEP has been replaced by a new IEP and the parties have agreed to the terms in the new IEP. C. Capable of Repetition but Evading Review Exception to Mootness J.T. also argues that the case is not moot because the capable of repetition but evading review exception to mootness applies. Although J.T.’s claim meets the evading review prong, it fails to meet the capable of repetition prong because the 12 challenge focuses on a fact-specific inquiry rather than a recurring legal question. The capable of repetition but evading review exception applies if “(1) the challenged action was in its duration too short to be fully litigated prior to its cessation or expiration, and (2) there was a reasonable expectation that the same complaining party would be subjected to the same action again.” Weinstein v. Bradford, 423 U.S. 147, 149 (1975) (per curiam); see also S. Pac. Terminal Co. v. ICC, 219 U.S. 498, 515 (1911) (announcing exception). The party invoking the exception bears the burden to show that both elements are satisfied. Del Monte Fresh Produce Co. v. United States, 570 F.3d 316, 322 (D.C. Cir. 2009). We examine the “evading review” prong first. “To evade review, the challenged action must be incapable of surviving long enough to undergo Supreme Court review.” United Bhd. of Carpenters & Joiners of Am. v. Operative Plasterers’ & Cement Masons’ Int’l Ass’n of the U.S. & Can., 721 F.3d 678, 688 (D.C. Cir. 2013). We have held that “there can be no doubt that a one-year placement order under the IDEA is, by its nature, ‘too short [in duration] to be fully litigated prior to its . . . expiration.’” Jenkins v. Squillacote, 935 F.2d 303, 307 (D.C. Cir. 1991) (quoting Honig v. Doe, 484 U.S. 305, 333 (1988) (Scalia, J., dissenting)) (alteration in original). Accordingly, J.T.’s challenge to the 2017 IEP meets the “evading review” prong because the 2017 IEP had a maximum shelf-life of fewer than four months, that is, from May 3 to August 23. Whether the dispute is “capable of repetition” is a closer question. “This prong requires that the same parties will engage in litigation over the same issues in the future.” Pharmachemie B.V. v. Barr Labs., Inc., 276 F.3d 627, 633 (D.C. Cir. 2002). 13 The party invoking the exception must show “a reasonable degree of likelihood that the issue will be the basis of a continuing controversy between the[] two parties.” Id. (internal quotations omitted) (alteration adopted). The relevant inquiry, however, is not “whether the precise historical facts that spawned the plaintiff’s claims are likely to recur.” Del Monte, 570 F.3d at 324. Rather, “[t]he ‘wrong’ that is, or is not, ‘capable of repetition’ must be defined in terms of the precise controversy it spawns,” to wit, “in terms of the legal questions it presents for decision.” PETA v. Gittens, 396 F.3d 416, 422– 23 (D.C. Cir. 2005). To determine the precise nature of the alleged wrong, “we must initially look to [J.T.’s] complaint.” Gittens, 396 F.3d at 423. The complaint alleges that: “On May 3, 2017, DCPS developed an ‘Amended [IEP]’ for V.T., which IEP is inappropriate for the following reasons”:

classroom ratio;

noise;
the classroom;
outside of the classroom;
[sic] of hallways;
attend all specials with the same small group as his academic class;
lunch; 14 j. it does not prescribe a location for instruction and services. J.A. 12 (¶ 17) (alteration in original). Plainly, J.T.’s challenge to the 2017 IEP is fact-specific. As we have made clear, “a ‘legal controversy so sharply focused on a unique factual context’ w[ill] rarely present ‘a reasonable expectation that the same complaining party would be subjected to the same actions again.’” Gittens, 396 F.3d at 424 (quoting Spivey v. Barry, 665 F.2d 1222, 1234–35 (D.C. Cir. 1981)). Importantly, if we were to decide now whether the 2017 IEP provided V.T. with a FAPE in 2017, the decision would not determine whether an IEP provides V.T. with a FAPE today or in the future. This conclusion necessarily follows from the IDEA’s requirement that every IEP include “a statement of the child’s present levels of academic achievement and functional performance” and set out “measurable annual goals, including academic and functional goals.” 20 U.S.C. §§ 1414(d)(1)(A)(i)(I)-(III) (emphases added); see also Branham v. District of Columbia., 427 F.3d 7, 12 (D.C. Cir. 2005) (“[D]etermining what constitutes a FAPE will always require a fact-intensive and child-specific inquiry.”). Indeed, J.T. has acknowledged that “[t]o the degree that the 2018 IEP does not include changes [J.T.] originally sought in the 2017 IEP, it is because V.T. had developed during the 2017–18 school year such that he no longer needed those accommodations.” See Pl.’s Objs. to R&R at 23–24, J.T. v. District of Columbia, No. 17-cv-1319 (D.D.C. Aug. 1, 2019). Thus, if a specific issue like class size were to recur, as it apparently did in the 2019 IEP,2 it would arise in a materially 2 See Reply Br. 9 & n.6. The 2019 IEP prescribed a class size of six to nine students. J.T. argued for a maximum class size of four 15 different factual context from that presented in the 2017 IEP.3 Accordingly, the precise controversy alleged in J.T.’s complaint—specific deficiencies in the inoperative 2017 IEP—does not present the type of recurring legal question the capable of repetition but evading review exception to mootness was designed to permit. The Tenth and Seventh Circuits have concluded that similar fact-specific IEP challenges do not fall within the capable of repetition but evading review exception to mootness. See Nathan M. ex rel. Amanda M. v. Harrison Sch. Dist. No. 2, 942 F.3d 1034, 1041–46 (10th Cir. 2019); Brown v. Bartholomew Consol. Sch. Corp., 442 F.3d 588, 598–600 (7th Cir. 2006). In Nathan M., the Tenth Circuit concluded that a parent’s five alleged IDEA violations related to the child’s 2016 IEP were moot. Nathan M., 942 F.3d at 1044–45. By the time the case reached the Tenth Circuit, a 2019 IEP that included provisions different from those in the 2016 IEP governed the child’s education. Id. at 1045. In concluding that the case was moot, the Tenth Circuit found that “[n]othing in [the parent’s] briefing hints at a ‘precise controversy’ presenting ‘legal questions’ for our decision.” Id. at 1046 (quoting Gittens, 396 F.3d at 422–23). Instead, the Tenth Circuit found the parents’ challenges suffered from “fatal vagueness” and were “fact-specific disagreement[s] unlikely to recur in a recognizable form in a future IEP.” Id. at 1045. Accordingly, the Tenth Circuit found that, if it decided the students, the same position taken by J.T. in the 2017 IEP discussions. See id. The 2017 IEP set a maximum class size of eight students. J.A. 244. And the 2018 IEP, to which all parties agreed, set a maximum class size of six students. J.A. 24. 3 For example, V.T.’s 2018 IEP and 2019 IEP include a designated aide for V.T. for six hours a day, which affects whether additional children in the classroom would impede V.T.’s academic progress. 16 parent’s challenge, it would be issuing an advisory opinion that “would tell the parties who was right about [the child’s] 2016 IEP, but nothing more, thus failing to ensure that future repetitions of the alleged injury could be avoided.” Id. at 1046 (internal quotations omitted) (alteration adopted). The same conclusion follows in this case. Similarly, the Seventh Circuit in Brown addressed a challenge to the appropriateness of an IEP. Brown, 442 F.3d at 590. By the time the challenge reached the Seventh Circuit, the parents had agreed to a new IEP for the upcoming school year. Id. at 590, 596. In determining whether a reasonable expectation existed that, in the future, the educational agency would again subject the child to an IEP that allegedly denied him a FAPE, the Seventh Circuit concluded: What was right for [the child] in kindergarten may not be the proper educational program when he enters the third grade. The dispute over the 2002–2003 IEP turned on whether [he] was ready for full-time mainstream class. Now, as a nine-year old, [his] readiness for mainstream education presents a different question calling for reassessment of his educational development. Were we to decide, at this later date, whether mainstreaming was right for [him] back in 2002–2003, we would be issuing, in effect, an advisory opinion. Our decision would merely tell the parties who was correct about [his] outdated IEP. It would do nothing to define the contours of the parties’ continuing legal relationship under the IDEA such that future repetitions of the injury could be avoided. The case therefore must be dismissed as moot. 17 Id. at 599–600. Nathan M. and Brown provide persuasive support for the conclusion reached here—J.T.’s fact-specific challenge to the 2017 IEP does not satisfy the exception’s capable of repetition prong. Although J.T. cites United States Supreme Court and D.C. Circuit cases that have held that conduct challenged under the IDEA may present a legal issue capable of repetition, those cases are inapposite. Those cases involved a legal question that had broader implications for the parties. For example, in Honig, the Supreme Court addressed whether a school district’s policy of unilaterally changing a student’s placement because of behavior growing out of the student’s disability violated the IDEA’s stay-put provision, 20 U.S.C. § 1415(e)(3). Honig v. Doe, 484 U.S. 305, 318–23 (1988). The legal question presented in Honig, therefore, was whether a “dangerousness” exception should be read into the unequivocal stay-put mandate in § 1415(e)(3). Id. at 323. This legal question is meaningfully different from the question J.T. asks us—whether the 2017 IEP should have included her requested provisions. Our IDEA cases are similarly inapposite. In Jenkins, we held that “the degree of specificity required of the District in providing notice to parents under the IDEA is . . . . reasonably likely to be a recurring legal question with respect to the District’s educational plans for the very pupil whose parents are now before this court.” Jenkins, 935 F.2d at 308. There, the “case [wa]s not simply about where [the child] would attend school for the [particular] school year, but rather about what sort of legal standard the District must meet in providing notice to [his] parents, and to other parents as well.” Id. at 306. Similarly, in District of Columbia v. Doe, we concluded that “the legal issue—an IDEA hearing officer’s authority to revise DCPS-imposed discipline upon finding that an infraction is not a manifestation of a disability—is almost certain to be ‘a 18 recurring one.’” District of Columbia v. Doe, 611 F.3d 888, 895 (D.C. Cir. 2010) (quoting Jenkins, 935 F.2d at 308). And in Abney, we found that whether, by statute, the parent must be notified of certain decisions involving her son was a recurring legal issue where DCPS “seemed indifferent to [the child’s] education.” Abney ex rel. Kantor v. District of Columbia, 849 F.2d 1491, 1495–96 (D.C. Cir. 1988). Our “capable of repetition” precedent in the IDEA context thus authorizes the review of recurring legal questions arising from the statute. In contrast, J.T.’s challenge is based on the fact-specific provisions of her son’s 2017 IEP. Seeking to avoid the conclusion that this IDEA challenge does not present a recurring legal issue, J.T. offers three issues she argues are likely to recur: (1) the IDEA hearing officer misapplied the burden of proof in the administrative hearing and that injury is likely to recur; (2) DCPS’s development of an IEP “that contradicts the recommendations of [V.T.’s] providers in key areas, without any basis for those discrepancies,” is likely to recur; and (3) the dispute over the maximum class size in V.T.’s IEP is likely to recur and did recur in the 2019 IEP. Appellant Br. 26. The first two issues were not raised in the complaint. Our precedent mandates that the assertion of broader injuries than those alleged in a complaint meet with skepticism in evaluating mootness, if they are considered at all. Clarke v. United States, 915 F.2d 699, 703 (D.C. Cir. 1990) (en banc) (“[W]here plaintiffs are resisting a mootness claim we think they must be estopped to assert a broader notion of their injury than the one on which they originally sought relief.”). Granted, J.T. made the burden of proof and IEP development arguments in her summary judgment brief in district court before the magistrate judge’s sua sponte mention of mootness. Even if we were to consider the two arguments, however, the same conclusion 19 follows—in this case, they do not present legal questions capable of repetition. Specifically, a key constraint in the 2017 IEP process (which the hearing officer identified) was that “DCPS was not permitted to observe” V.T. at Kingsbury. J.A. 323–24 (November 27, 2017 HOD, at 5 ¶ 5). The lack of observation was central to both issues. The crux of the first issue was that, because of the lack of observation, DCPS had little direct evidence that the accommodations J.T. requested were more restrictive than necessary. In J.T.’s view, the hearing officer was required to side with the parents under the circumstances. The second issue is similar. J.T. argues that, because DCPS had not observed V.T. in a classroom, it was required to include J.T.’s and Kingsbury’s recommended terms in the IEP. Subsequent events make clear that this fact-specific situation is unlikely to recur. DCPS observed V.T. at Kingsbury twice in December 2017 and all parties agreed to the 2018 IEP based in part on the data from those DCPS observations.4 Magistrate Judge R&R at 45–47, J.T. v. District of Columbia, No. 17-cv-1319 (D.D.C. June 11, 2019). Moreover, J.T.’s burden of proof argument is highly dependent on the specific evidence before the hearing officer in 2017. J.T.’s IEP development argument is similarly dependent on a specific set of facts. Simply put, resolving these two issues would “do nothing to define the contours of the parties’ continuing legal relationship under the IDEA.” Brown, 442 F.3d at 599–600. Accordingly, neither the challenge to the IEP’s development process nor the challenge to the hearing 4 DCPS has received additional information pertinent to V.T.’s educational needs since 2017, including a comprehensive psychological evaluation completed in 2019. Appellee Br. 6 n.3, 36. 20 officer’s application of the burden of proof presents a recurring legal question capable of repetition. The third issue—the appropriate maximum class size for V.T.—is the only purportedly repetitive issue alleged in J.T.’s complaint. The appropriate maximum class size is plainly a factual question, the answer to which is likely to change both (i) over time in response to V.T.’s development and (ii) in response to other changes in V.T.’s IEP (e.g., providing a dedicated aide to V.T.). Accordingly, this dispute is not the type of legal question that is capable of repetition as it is “sharply focused on a unique factual context.” Gittens, 396 F.3d at 424 (internal quotations omitted). For the foregoing reasons, the district court’s judgment of dismissal is affirmed. So ordered.