Court Opinion

ID: 9472172
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:51:59.894843+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:47.305660
License: Public Domain

BAILEY ALDRICH,
Senior Circuit Judge (dissenting in part).
I concur in those portions of the opinion that deny recovery, but cannot in the part ordering reimbursement for transportation. I am sorry to dissent over what, in dollars and cents, is not a large matter, but I feel I must because, with great respect, I believe the court, in declining to face a dispositive issue, is being basically unfair.1 Both to demonstrate the unfairness, and the consequence to defendants, I first consider the merits, viz., that in spite of a regulation calling for transportation of handicapped children from and to their street-level front door, defendants have been charged with additional burdens due to the fact that plaintiffs’ front door was twelve damaged steps above the street.
The district court found,
“Bus drivers for the school department would carry George from the front door of his home down approximately twelve steps to the street level and into the bus. By January of 1976, however, George had gained weight and was so heavy (160 lbs.) that the bus drivers would no longer carry him. In addition to the child being overweight, the concrete steps were steep and cracked in some places, making it somewhat unsafe for anyone to attempt to carry George down to the street,” (Emphasis suppl.) (560 F.Supp., ante, at 503)
According to defendants’ witness’s uncontradicted testimony,
“The stairs were extremely steep. The stairs were broken and uneven in places.... [The] regulations said street level.... [The supervisor] came back to me and said nobody will accept the liability of carrying George Hurry, with all his problems, who also has an obesity problem, for fear they might fall and there might be some legal ramifications.” (Emphasis suppl.)
The underlying statute, Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EAHCA), 20 U.S.C. §§ 1413(a)(4)(B) and 1401(17), required furnishing, simply, “transportation.” The Rhode Island regulations, which the court quoted, and considered, *888spelt this out, one with respect to transportation generally, (“door to door”) and one specifically with regard to assistance, manifestly defining what was meant by “door”.
1.0. Responsibility — All handicapped children who need special transportation as a related service and as determined by the evaluation process and described in the I.E.P. shall be provided such service. It shall include free transportation to and from the home (door to door, if necessary ) to the educational program in which he/she is enrolled....
2.0 Transportation Needs of Handicapped Children.
2.1.2 A minimum of one aide assigned to each bus. Such aide, in addition to providing general care and supervision of all handicapped children on such bus, shall also provide assistance (from street level entrance of dwelling) to such children lacking the mobility to leave the home and board transportation vehicles, and shall further assist such children in debarking the vehicle and entering the school....” (Emphasis suppl.) (Id. at 506-07)
The district court found these regulations “clear,” and that, in failing to arrange for George’s reaching the street level, defendants “ignored their obvious duty.” I find them clear, but just the reverse. In my opinion “street level” means exactly what it says, and the court, although recognizing, ante, that the door was above the street level, excised from the regulation, without even discussion, precisely what had caused all the difficulties.
My brethren feel that because defendants did not attack it, the district court’s interpretation is the law of the case. Before reaching that question, I must first consider whether the ruling was wrong. I believe it plainly so. If anything seems clear, it is that there is a difference in kind between a street level entrance from which, if need be, a physically handicapped child may be taken in a wheelchair, or otherwise safely guided by the bus attendant, and a door twelve dangerous steps up, requiring a special attendant, or possibly two, and the risk of a substantial claim for negligence if anything goes wrong. As defendants pointed out in their brief, what would be their liability if a 160 pound, already handicapped, child were to be dropped down twelve concrete steps? Nor can I believe, where the state’s regulations do not require it, that the EAHCA requires the school department to remedy defects in the parents’ housing, or provide extra assistance and run dangerous risks because of them. The rule in Doe v. Anrig, 692 F.2d 800, 811-12 (1st Cir.1982) under which this case was tried, that the statute allowed a school department’s limited funds to be depleted only in exceptional situations, was too limited, but plaintiffs’ contention that they are entitled to the benefits of the statute without having to repair their own premises, or “move to a new home,” seems to me altogether too far in the opposite direction.
The court declines to decide this question.
“We do not believe that the issue of liability is properly before this court, so we do not find it necessary to interpret the Rhode Island regulations.... [B]ecause defendants have not raised or briefed the theory that they had no duty at all to negotiate the Hurrys’ steps, we do not reach that issue.”
This calls for a little history. As stated, at the time this case was tried the law of this circuit, much discussed in the district court’s opinion, was that a school department would not be liable in money damages for a breach of requirements, with two possible exceptions. One was bad faith, Doe v. Anrig, ante, and the district court found such. Whether this finding was justified, it certainly was not compelled. The record is replete with exhibits showing defendants’ efforts to remedy the situation, and, on appeal, they vigorously disputed the finding. Under the then law good faith would have been dispositive. On this issue defendants raised the meaning of the regulations. They did at the trial. See, inter *889alia, quotation, ante. They did here in their brief.
“The ‘Regulations of the Rhode Island Board of Regents for the Education of Handicapped Children’, adopted April 20, 1977, state in one place that service is to be ‘door to door, if necessary’, Section VII, Subsection 1.0, but another subsection requires that assistance be provided handicapped children ‘from the street level entrance of dwelling’, Section VII, Subsection 2.2. (Record Appendix, p. 2). Clearly, if the words ‘street level’ in this latter subsection are to have any meaning at all, it is as words of limitation on ‘entrance of dwelling ’.”2 (Emphasis suppl.)
The court now condemns defendants out of hand. The issue of “liability,” it says, is not before it. True, defendants argued the meaning of the regulations, but they did so only on the issue of good faith. And what has happened to good faith? That is no longer an issue.
Why is all this? Because, unknownst to the parties, Doe v. Anrig was overruled in an opinion circulated by West one week after oral argument. Doe v. Brookline School Committee, 722 F.2d 910, 919-21 (1st Cir.1983). I, of course, agree that Doe v. Brookline applies. Under Doe v. Brookline defendants became liable if they violated the regulations even in total good faith. Thus, because of a post-appeal change in the law, defendants are deprived of a complete defense upon which they understandably relied, and the court now deprives them of a defense they did not know they had to make, because, although their meaning of the regulation was relevant thereto, and argued, they did not stress it in the proper framework.
My brethren say that I chastize them. I speak only in sorrow. Not a sitting goes by but, in the interests of justice, we make points in our opinions, sometimes decisive ones, that counsel have not thought of. Here counsel is caught by surely an unexpectable change in the law, the overruling of a case only two years old. He loses his defense. He is the one who is chastized— if chastized is given its primary meaning, punished — because he was insufficiently perspicacious. He did raise the meaning of the regulation, resting on an easier (and in my opinion, adequate) approach, and for that he is forever barred — though there is no prejudice to plaintiffs — from taking another. Having argued that defendants acted in good faith because their interpretation of the regulation was reasonable, it is too late to argue that it was not only reasonable, but correct. For me this is an altogether too gamy form of judicial process. I must dissent.

. Defendants’ voluntary payment of the Hurrys' out-of-pocket transportation expenses is not a concession of liability, nor does it moot the issue I address. This payment, which represented, in fact, although not pro tanto, a saving in not having to provide bus service, was part of many efforts on their part to ameliorate the situation, but when push came to shove it was not a recognition of further liability. Indeed, legal liability is what this case is about.

. A second possible "exceptional circumstance” allowing reimbursement under Anrig was when the alternative services secured by the parents were necessary "to protect the physical health of the child....’’ Doe v. Anrig, ante, 692 F.2d at 811. The district court also found this exception applicable. 560 F.Supp. at 505-07. On appeal, defendants also challenged the application of this exception on its merits, a matter now moot.