Court Opinion

ID: 9494198
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:31:54.701647+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:16.630814
License: Public Domain

HANSEN, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I agree with the court’s analysis in this case which concludes that the expert testimony of record indicates that this is the very rare case where a school district is obligated to pay for a residential treatment setting as a related service in order to ensure that the child receives the educational benefit that Congress has declared she is entitled to receive. I write specially to emphasize that the district court’s task on remand of fashioning an appropriate remedy will be a difficult one. In my view, the student is entitled to compensatory education but not to compensation in the form of dollar damages.
The district court has broad discretionary authority to “grant such relief as the court determines is appropriate.” 20 U.S.C. § 1415(i)(2)(B)(iii) (1998 Supp. IV). The Supreme Court has stated that the remedy granted must be one that is “appropriate” in light of the purpose of the Act, which is to provide disabled “children with a free appropriate public education which emphasizes special education and related services designed to meet their unique needs.” Sch. Comm. of Burlington v. Dep’t of Educ. of Mass., 471 U.S. 359, 369, 105 S.Ct. 1996, 85 L.Ed.2d 385 (1985) (internal quotations omitted). The definition of related services “encompasses those supportive services that ‘may be required *780to assist a child with a disability to benefit from special education.’” Cedar Rapids Cmty. Sch. Dist. v. Garret F., 526 U.S. 66, 73, 119 S.Ct. 992, 143 L.Ed.2d 154 (1999) (quoting 20 U.S.C. § 1401(a)(17) (1994), renumbered as 20 U.S.C. § 1401(22) (Supp. IV 1998)). This language indicates that compensatory educational services are an appropriate remedy. The statutory language also permits the district court to authorize reimbursement to parents who have actually incurred expenses in funding an appropriate special education where the court determines that the school district’s IEP was inappropriate. Sch. Comm. of Burlington, 471 U.S. at 370, 105 S.Ct. 1996. The Supreme Court rejected an attempt to characterize this remedy as “damages,” noting that reimbursement merely requires the belated payment of expenses that the school district should have paid in the first instance. Id. at 370-71, 105 S.Ct. 1996. We have specifically noted that appropriate relief under the IDEA “includes compensatory education services but excludes general and punitive damages.” Birmingham v. Omaha Sch. Dist., 220 F.3d 850, 856 (8th Cir.2000) (internal citations omitted).
In my opinion, requiring the reimbursement of expenses already paid by the parents to ensure that a child’s education is at no cost to the parents is to be distinguished from the granting of a windfall monetary award where the parents never paid for the child’s education. Here, the District violated its obligation to provide a free appropriate education and must' provide an appropriate remedy. In this case, however, the District’s ability to provide compensatory education to fulfill its obligation to the child has been somewhat frustrated by the child’s removal of herself from the school district. On the other hand, because the record does not show that her parent spent any money to enroll her in a residential treatment setting in order to obtain an appropriate education for her, any monetary award cannot now be characterized as reimbursement and would do nothing to fulfill the purpose of the Act. In my view, the student is entitled to receive from the District at its expense the residential setting educational opportunity she was entitled to but did not receive, but only for the length of time she actually resided within the school district. That opportunity may only exist in a setting outside of the district. Neither her incorrigibility nor her parent’s inability to keep her in the school district or in the prior educational placements designed to meet her emotional and behavioral problems should be rewarded with money. Compensatory education is appropriate, but compensatory dollar damages that may or may not be used to fund the education necessary for her and that do not amount to reimbursement are not.