Court Opinion

ID: 9470048
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:56:01.147255+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:42.381601
License: Public Domain

JERRE S. WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge,
specially concurring:
I am in full agreement with Judge Tate’s opinion and with the disposition of this case by the majority of the Court. I add these few words of a precautionary nature in view of the action which we take in remanding this case.
The Congress created a far reaching and compassionate program in the Education For All Handicapped Children Act of 1975. We find in this case that under this Act, and the Texas program pursuant to it, there was no statutory obligation on the part of the Pasadena Independent School District to pay for the education of Stacey G. in a private school where she had been placed by her parents contrary to the official placement. This holding is clearly correct under the law as thoroughly developed by Judge Tate in his opinion.
I also recognize that there is an inherent power in equity in the federal courts to remedy irreparable harm in proper circumstances in cases where the harm is related to the relief which the plaintiff is requesting. In this case the court has now issued a final order which both parties find acceptable. It is fair today to say, then, that the plaintiffs prevailed at least to some extent in this case.
But I feel it essential to insert a few words of caution at this point. Congress created a new, far reaching, enlightened program to insure education for our handicapped children. I urge that the federal courts must guard against taking it upon themselves to enlarge this program and other similar programs, through claimed equitable powers. This program is not the courts’ program, it is the program of Congress. Our equitable powers are not designed to take a congressional program and remake it in our image. Federal courts should be reluctant and feel firmly restricted in exercising their authority to go beyond the scope of a program such as this to enforce additional governmental obligations simply because they honestly and very properly feel sorry for the claimants.
In cases such as this, in considering the possible use of their equity powers the courts should assure themselves that they are not pushing the program beyond what was the clear intent of Congress. Our guide should be a conclusion that we fill in those interstices which Congress would have intended we fill in. Congress is bound by the necessity to engage only in general legislation. It cannot possibly conceive of all individual instances of hardship. This is properly the only justifiable foundation for the exercise of our equity power beyond the legal requirements of the statutory scheme. But that should be the limit. Restrictions based upon a showing of irreparable harm and of a likelihood of success must be carefully balanced with the concern for public interest to avoid unjustifiable expansion of the program which Congress has created.
In no sense by these observations do I here intend to prejudge this case upon remand. The circumstances involving Stacey G., and the possibility of serious retrogression of her condition without continuing education may be found to justify equitable relief in this case. All I am suggesting is that upon remand this district court must, in making the difficult evaluations necessary to decide whether equitable relief should be granted, take into account the fact that Congress has defined and enacted a program, and we have no authority to broaden it through redefinition. In the reconsideration of this case in accordance with our remand I recognize the serious responsibility of the district court to consider the circumstances involving Stacey G., *957but also to consider the interests of the public in not having its legislative programs remade by judicial action when constitutional requirements necessitating revision are not present.