Opinion ID: 770326
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Action or Proceeding

Text: 13 The parties do not dispute that, under S 1415(i)(3)(B), prevailing parents can recover attorney fees that they expended in an impartial due process hearing. Defendant argues, however, that the CRP, unlike the due process hearing, is not an action or proceeding brought under [S 1415]. Accordingly, Defendant argues, CRP-related attorney fees cannot be recovered under S 1415(i)(3)(B). 14 Initially, we note that there is nothing in the text of S 1415 that suggests that attorney fees cannot be awarded for IEP meetings that are ordered by an SEA to resolve a CRP complaint. Section 1415(i)(3)(B) provides that a district court may award attorney fees [i]n any action or proceeding brought under this section. Had Congress intended that attorney fees be available only in those cases involving an impartial due process hearing under S 1415(f), it could have and would have written the statute more narrowly to say so. 15 Indeed, in the same subsection ofS 1415 that includes the attorney fees provision, Congress exhibited its ability to refer expressly to the impartial due process hearing procedures that are contained in S 1415(f). See 20 U.S.C. S 1415(i)(1)(A) (A decision made in a hearing conducted pursuant to subsection (f) . . . of this section shall be final . . . .); 20 U.S.C. S 1415(i)(2)(A) (Any party aggrieved by the findings and decision made under subsection (f) . . . .). If Congress had wanted to provide for the recovery of attorney fees only in those cases in which a due process hearing was conducted, it could have worded S 1415(i)(3)(B) in the same fashion as S 1415(i)(1)(A) and (i)(2)(A). However, Congress chose different and broader wording, a choice that supports our conclusion that Congress did not intend to restrict awards of attorney fees to only those cases in which the parents of a disabled child opt to pursue an impartial due process hearing. See Russello v. United States, 464 U.S. 16, 23 (1983) ([W]here Congress includes particular language in one section of a statute but omits it in another section of the same Act, it is generally presumed that Congress acts intentionally and purposely in the disparate inclusion or exclusion.) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). 16 As noted above, S 1415(i)(3)(B) provides that a district court may award attorney fees [i]n any action or proceeding brought under this section. (Emphasis added.) Congress' use of the word any is significant, because it suggests that there is more than one type of proceeding in which a district court is authorized to award attorney fees. See Webster's Third New Int'l Dictionary 97 (unabridged ed. 1993) (defining any as one indifferently out of more than two). Accordingly, the word any, as used in S 1415(i)(3)(B), militates in favor of concluding that Congress intended that attorney fees could be awarded in cases involving complaint resolution proceedings other than impartial due process hearings. 17 Our conclusion that, for purposes of S 1415(i)(3)(B), a CRP is a proceeding is consistent with this court's decision in Mitchell. In that case, the parents of a disabled child requested an administrative due process hearing to resolve issues regarding their child's educational placement. After the opening arguments were made in the administrative hearing, the hearing was continued at the request of the school district. Before the hearing was set to reconvene, the parties settled. The parents then filed a petition in the district court, seeking attorney fees. 4 The district court granted the parents' petition. 18 On appeal, the school district argued that attorney fees were not available to the parents, because the case was settled before a due process hearing took place. The court noted that the clear language of [the attorney fees provision] contemplates an award of attorneys' fees at the administrative level. The provision specifically refers to `any action or proceeding brought.'  Mitchell, 940 F.2d at 1284. We held that S 1415(i)(3)(B) allows the prevailing parents to recover attorneys' fees when settlement is reached prior to the due process hearing. Id. at 1285. 19 Here, Plaintiffs' dispute with Defendant was resolved through Oregon's CRP. As in Mitchell, the dispute was resolved without the need of a due process hearing. Under this court's holding in Mitchell, the district court was not precluded from awarding attorney fees on the ground that, under S 1415(i)(3)(B), attorney fee awards are available only in connection with due process hearings. 20 In sum, the text of S 1415(i)(3)(B) suggests that Congress intended that attorney fee awards be available in actions and proceedings under S 1415 as well as in impartial due process hearings. The question before us then becomes whether the CRP is one of those other actions or proceedings for which S 1415(i)(3)(B) provides an award of attorney fees. 21