Court Opinion

ID: 9380829
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-03-21 15:01:09.334329+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:17:27.987567
License: Public Domain

(Slip Opinion)              OCTOBER TERM, 2022                                       1

                                       Syllabus

         NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is
       being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.
       The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been
       prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader.
       See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

                                       Syllabus

   LUNA PEREZ v. STURGIS PUBLIC SCHOOLS ET AL.

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR
                  THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

    No. 21–887.      Argued January 18, 2023—Decided March 21, 2023
Petitioner Miguel Luna Perez, who is deaf, attended schools in Michi-
  gan’s Sturgis Public School District (Sturgis) from ages 9 through 20.
  When Sturgis announced that it would not permit Mr. Perez to gradu-
  ate, he and his family filed an administrative complaint with the Mich-
  igan Department of Education alleging (among other things) that Stur-
  gis failed to provide him a free and appropriate public education as
  required by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).
  See 20 U. S. C. §1415. They claimed that Sturgis supplied Mr. Perez
  with unqualified interpreters and misrepresented his educational pro-
  gress. The parties reached a settlement in which Sturgis promised to
  provide the forward-looking relief Mr. Perez sought, including addi-
  tional schooling. Mr. Perez then sued in federal district court under
  the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) seeking compensatory dam-
  ages. Sturgis moved to dismiss. It claimed that 20 U. S. C. §1415(l)
  barred Mr. Perez from bringing his ADA claim because it requires a
  plaintiff “seeking relief that is also available under” IDEA to first ex-
  haust IDEA’s administrative procedures. The district court agreed
  and dismissed the suit, and the Sixth Circuit affirmed.
Held: IDEA’s exhaustion requirement does not preclude Mr. Perez’s ADA
 lawsuit because the relief he seeks (i.e., compensatory damages) is not
 something IDEA can provide. Pp. 3–8.
    (a) Section §1415(l) contains two features. The first clause focuses
 on “remedies” and sets forth this general rule: “Nothing [in IDEA]
 shall be construed to restrict” the ability to seek “remedies” under
 “other Federal laws protecting the rights of children with disabilities.”
 The second clause carves out an exception: Before filing a civil action
 under other federal laws “seeking relief that is also available” under
 IDEA, “the procedures under [§1415](f) and (g) shall be exhausted.”
2             LUNA PEREZ v. STURGIS PUBLIC SCHOOLS

                                   Syllabus

    Those provisions provide children and families the right to a “due pro-
    cess hearing” before local or state administrators, §1415(f)(1)(A), fol-
    lowed by an “appeal” to the state education agency, §1415(g)(1). Mr.
    Perez reads §1415(l)’s “seeking relief” clause as applying only if he pur-
    sues remedies that are also available under IDEA. And because IDEA
    does not provide compensatory damages, §1415(l) does not foreclose
    his ADA claim. Sturgis reads the provision as requiring exhaustion of
    §1415(f) and (g) so long as a plaintiff seeks some form of redress for the
    underlying harm addressed by IDEA. And because Mr. Perez com-
    plains about Sturgis’s education-related shortcomings, his failure to
    exhaust is fatal. Pp. 3–4.
       (b) Mr. Perez’s reading better comports with the statute’s terms. Be-
    cause §1415(l)’s exhaustion requirement applies only to suits that
    “see[k] relief . . . also available under” IDEA, it poses no bar where a
    non-IDEA plaintiff sues for a remedy that is unavailable under IDEA.
    This interpretation admittedly treats “remedies” as synonymous with
    the “relief” a plaintiff “seek[s].” But that is how an ordinary reader
    would interpret the provision, based on a number of contextual clues.
    Section 1415(l) begins by directing a reader to the subject of “reme-
    dies,” offering first a general rule then a qualifying exception. IDEA
    treats “remedies” and “relief” as synonyms elsewhere, see
    §1415(i)(2)(C)(iii), (3)(D)(i)(III), as do other provisions in the U. S.
    Code, see 18 U. S. C. §3626(d); 28 U. S. C. §3306(a)(2)–(3). The second
    clause in §1415(l), moreover, refers to claims “seeking relief” available
    under IDEA. In law that phrase (or some variant) often refers to the
    remedies a plaintiff requests. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a)(3),
    for example, says a plaintiff’s complaint must include a list of re-
    quested remedies—i.e., “a demand for the relief sought.” Likewise, this
    Court often speaks of the “relief” a plaintiff “seeks” as the remedies he
    requests. See, e.g., South Carolina v. North Carolina, 558 U. S. 256,
    260. Pp. 4–6.
       (c) Sturgis suggests this interpretation is foreclosed by Fry v. Napo-
    leon Community Schools, 580 U. S. 154. But the Court in Fry went out
    of its way to reserve rather than decide this question. What the Court
    did say in Fry about the question presented there does not advance the
    school district’s cause here. Finally, Sturgis says the Court’s interpre-
    tation will frustrate Congress’s wish to route claims about educational
    services to administrative experts. It is unclear what this proves, as
    either party’s interpretation of §1415(l) would preclude some unex-
    hausted claims. In any event, it is the not the job of this Court to “ ‘re-
    place the actual text with speculation as to Congress’s intent.’ ” Hen-
    son v. Santander Consumer USA Inc., 582 U. S. 79, 89. Pp. 6–7.
3 F. 4th 236, reversed and remanded.

    GORSUCH, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.
                        Cite as: 598 U. S. ____ (2023)                                 1

                              Opinion of the Court

     NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the
     preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to
     notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Wash-
     ington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order that
     corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
                                    _________________

                                     No. 21–887
                                    _________________

   MIGUEL LUNA PEREZ, PETITIONER v. STURGIS
            PUBLIC SCHOOLS, ET AL.
 ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF
            APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT
                                 [March 21, 2023]

  JUSTICE GORSUCH delivered the opinion of the Court.
  The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA),
84 Stat. 175, as amended, 20 U. S. C. §1400 et seq., seeks to
ensure children with disabilities receive a free and appro-
priate public education. Toward that end, the law sets forth
a number of administrative procedures for children, their
parents, teachers, and school districts to follow when dis-
putes arise. The question we face in this case concerns the
extent to which children with disabilities must exhaust
these administrative procedures under IDEA before seek-
ing relief under other federal antidiscrimination statutes,
such as the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA),
104 Stat. 327, 42 U. S. C. §12101 et seq.
                              *
  From ages 9 through 20, Miguel Luna Perez attended
schools in Michigan’s Sturgis Public School District (Stur-
gis). Because Mr. Perez is deaf, Sturgis provided him with
aides to translate classroom instruction into sign language.
For years, Mr. Perez and his parents allege, Sturgis as-
signed aides who were either unqualified (including one
who attempted to teach herself sign language) or absent
2         LUNA PEREZ v. STURGIS PUBLIC SCHOOLS

                     Opinion of the Court

from the classroom for hours on end. Along the way, Stur-
gis allegedly misrepresented Mr. Perez’s educational pro-
gress too, awarding him inflated grades and advancing him
from grade to grade regardless of his progress. Based on
Sturgis’s misrepresentations, Mr. Perez and his parents
say, they believed he was on track to graduate from high
school with his class. But then, months before graduation,
Sturgis revealed that it would not award him a diploma.
   In response to these developments, Mr. Perez and his
family filed a complaint with the Michigan Department of
Education. They alleged that Sturgis had failed its duties
under IDEA and other laws. App. 16–45. Shortly before an
administrative hearing, the parties reached a settlement.
Under its terms, Sturgis promised to provide Mr. Perez all
the forward-looking equitable relief he sought, including
additional schooling at the Michigan School for the Deaf.
   After settling his administrative complaint, Mr. Perez
filed a lawsuit in federal district court under the ADA seek-
ing backward-looking relief in the form of compensatory
damages. Id., at 56–57. That complaint drew a motion to
dismiss from Sturgis. The school district argued that a pro-
vision in IDEA, 20 U. S. C. §1415(l), barred Mr. Perez from
bringing an ADA claim without first exhausting all of
IDEA’s administrative dispute resolution procedures. Ulti-
mately, the district court agreed with Sturgis and dis-
missed the suit. Perez ex rel. Perez v. Sturgis Public
Schools, 2019 WL 6907138, *3–*4 (WD Mich. Dec. 19,
2019). Bound by circuit precedent already addressing the
question, the Sixth Circuit affirmed. Perez v. Sturgis Public
Schools, 3 F. 4th 236, 241 (2021) (citing Covington v. Knox
Cty. School System, 205 F. 3d 912, 916–917 (CA6 2000)).
   Whether §1415(l) bars lawsuits like ours holds conse-
quences not just for Mr. Perez but for a great many children
with disabilities and their parents. Because our colleagues
on the courts of appeals have disagreed about how best to
                  Cite as: 598 U. S. ____ (2023)            3

                      Opinion of the Court

read the statute, we agreed to take up the question. Com-
pare Perez, 3 F. 4th, at 241–242; McMillen v. New Caney
Independent School Dist., 939 F. 3d 640, 647–648 (CA5
2019), with D. D. ex rel. Ingram v. Los Angeles Unified
School Dist., 18 F. 4th 1043, 1059–1061 (CA9 2021) (Buma-
tay, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part); Doucette
v. Georgetown Public Schools, 936 F. 3d 16, 31 (CA1 2019).
                               *
   Section 1415(l) contains two salient features. First, the
statute sets forth this general rule: “Nothing in [IDEA]
shall be construed to restrict” the ability of individuals to
seek “remedies” under the ADA or “other Federal laws pro-
tecting the rights of children with disabilities.” Second, the
statute offers a qualification, prohibiting certain suits with
this language: “[E]xcept that before the filing of a civil ac-
tion under such [other federal] laws seeking relief that is
also available under this subchapter, the procedures under
subsections (f) and (g) shall be exhausted.” In turn, subsec-
tions (f) and (g) provide affected children and their parents
with the right to a “due process hearing” before a local or
state administrative official, §1415(f)(1)(A), followed by an
“appeal” to the state education agency, §1415(g)(1).
   The parties offer very different interpretations of
§1415(l). Mr. Perez reads the statute to require a plaintiff
to exhaust the administrative processes found in subsec-
tions (f) and (g) only to the extent he pursues a suit under
another federal law for remedies IDEA also provides. None
of this, Mr. Perez contends, forecloses his current claim be-
cause his ADA complaint seeks only compensatory dam-
ages, a remedy everyone before us agrees IDEA cannot sup-
ply. By contrast, Sturgis reads §1415(l) as requiring a
plaintiff to exhaust subsections (f) and (g) before he may
pursue a suit under another federal law if that suit seeks
relief for the same underlying harm IDEA exists to address.
On this view, the law bars Mr. Perez’s ADA suit because it
4         LUNA PEREZ v. STURGIS PUBLIC SCHOOLS

                      Opinion of the Court

seeks relief for harms flowing from Sturgis’s alleged past
shortcomings in providing a free and appropriate public ed-
ucation—a harm IDEA exists to address—and Mr. Perez
chose to settle his administrative complaint rather than ex-
haust §1415(f) and (g)’s remedial processes.
   If both views are plausible ones, we believe Mr. Perez’s
better comports with the statute’s terms. Start with
§1415(l)’s first clause. It focuses our attention on “reme-
dies.” A “remedy” denotes “the means of enforcing a right,”
and may come in the form of, say, money damages, an in-
junction, or a declaratory judgment. Black’s Law Diction-
ary 1320 (8th ed. 2004); see also 13 Oxford English Diction-
ary 584–585 (2d ed. 1991) (defining “remedy” as “[l]egal
redress”). The statute then proceeds to instruct that
“[n]othing” in IDEA shall be construed as “restrict[ing] or
limit[ing]” the availability of any of these things “under”
other federal statutes like the ADA.
   Of course, §1415(l) carves out an exception to this rule.
The second clause bars individuals from “seeking relief” un-
der other federal laws unless they first exhaust “the proce-
dures under subsections (f) and (g).” But, by its terms, this
limiting language does not apply to all suits seeking relief
that other federal laws provide. The statute’s administra-
tive exhaustion requirement applies only to suits that
“see[k] relief . . . also available under” IDEA. And that con-
dition simply is not met in situations like ours, where a
plaintiff brings a suit under another federal law for com-
pensatory damages—a form of relief everyone agrees IDEA
does not provide.
   Admittedly, our interpretation treats “remedies” (the key
term in the first clause) as synonymous with the “relief” a
plaintiff “seek[s]” (the critical phrase found in the second
clause). But a number of contextual clues persuade us that
is exactly how an ordinary reader would understand this
particular provision. Not only does §1415(l) begin by direct-
                  Cite as: 598 U. S. ____ (2023)              5

                      Opinion of the Court

ing a reader to the subject of remedies, offering first a gen-
eral and then a qualifying rule on the subject. In at least
two other places, IDEA treats “remedies” and “relief” as
synonyms, and we cannot conceive a persuasive reason why
the statute would operate differently only here. Section
1415(i)(2)(C)(iii) directs courts in IDEA cases to “grant such
relief as the court determines is appropriate.” (Emphasis
added.) That statutory instruction, we have said, author-
izes courts to grant “as an available remedy” the “reim-
bursement” of past educational expenses. School Comm. of
Burlington v. Department of Ed. of Mass., 471 U. S. 359,
369–370 (1985) (emphasis added). Elsewhere, IDEA some-
times bars those who reject a school district’s settlement of-
fer from recovering attorney’s fees for later work if “the re-
lief finally obtained . . . is not more favorable . . . than the
offer.” §1415(i)(3)(D)(i)(III) (emphasis added). Once more,
relief means remedy.
   Nor is IDEA particularly unusual in treating remedies
and relief as synonyms. Other provisions in the U. S. Code
do too. By way of example, 18 U. S. C. §3626(d) provides
that “[t]he limitations on remedies in this section shall not
apply to relief entered by a State court based solely upon
claims arising under State law.” (Emphases added.) Like-
wise, 28 U. S. C. §3306(a)(2)–(3) indicate that “the United
States . . . may obtain . . . a remedy under this chapter . . .
or . . . any other relief the circumstances may require.” (Em-
phases added.)
   Influencing our thinking as well is the fact that the sec-
ond clause in §1415(l) refers to claims “seeking relief” avail-
able under IDEA. To “seek” is “[t]o ask for” or “request.” 14
Oxford English Dictionary, at 877. And often enough the
phrase “seeking relief” or some variant of it is used in the
law to refer to the remedies a plaintiff requests. Under the
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, for example, a plaintiff’s
complaint must include a list of requested remedies, or
what the law calls “a demand for the relief sought.” Fed.
6         LUNA PEREZ v. STURGIS PUBLIC SCHOOLS

                      Opinion of the Court

Rule Civ. Proc. 8(a)(3) (emphasis added); see also Fed. Rule
Civ. Proc. 54(c) (similar). Many of our opinions as well sim-
ilarly speak of the “relief” a plaintiff “seeks” as the remedies
he requests. See, e.g., South Carolina v. North Carolina,
558 U. S. 256, 260 (2010) (describing the “relief” South Car-
olina “seeks” as the remedies demanded in its “Prayer for
Relief”); New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc. v. City of
New York, 590 U. S. ___, ___ (2020) (per curiam) (slip op.,
at 1) (describing “the precise relief that petitioners re-
quested in the prayer” as two remedies, a declaration and
an injunction); Bowen v. Massachusetts, 487 U. S. 879, 893
(1988) (discussing 5 U. S. C. §702’s reference to an “action
. . . seeking relief other than money damages”).
    Faced with all this, Sturgis replies that, whatever the
merits of our interpretation, precedent forecloses it. Brief
for Respondents 19–20, 26–27. Specifically, the school dis-
trict points to Fry v. Napoleon Community Schools, 580
U. S. 154 (2017). But the Court in Fry went out of its way
to reserve rather than decide the question we now face. See
id., at 165, n. 4; id., at 168, n. 8. And what the Court did
say in Fry about the question presented there hardly ad-
vances the school district’s cause here. In Fry, the Court
held that §1415(l)’s exhaustion requirement does not apply
unless the plaintiff “seeks relief for the denial of” a free and
appropriate public education “because that is the only ‘re-
lief’ ” IDEA’s administrative processes can supply. Id., at
165, 168. This case presents an analogous but different
question—whether a suit admittedly premised on the past
denial of a free and appropriate education may nonetheless
proceed without exhausting IDEA’s administrative pro-
cesses if the remedy a plaintiff seeks is not one IDEA pro-
vides. In both cases, the question is whether a plaintiff
must exhaust administrative processes under IDEA that
cannot supply what he seeks. And here, as in Fry, we an-
swer in the negative.
                   Cite as: 598 U. S. ____ (2023)                7

                       Opinion of the Court

    Failing all else, Sturgis closes with an appeal to congres-
sional purpose. Brief for Respondents 22–24. The school
district worries that our understanding of §1415(l) would
frustrate Congress’s wish to route claims about educational
services to administrative agencies with “ ‘special exper-
tise’ ” in such matters. Id., at 22. But “it is . . . our job to
apply faithfully the law Congress has written,” and “ ‘[w]e
cannot replace the actual text with speculation as to Con-
gress’ intent.’ ” Henson v. Santander Consumer USA Inc.,
582 U. S. 79, 89 (2017) (quoting Magwood v. Patterson, 561
U. S. 320, 334 (2010)). Even on its own terms, it is unclear
what the school district’s argument proves. Either inter-
pretation of §1415(l) operates to preclude some unex-
hausted claims. Under our view, for example, a plaintiff
who files an ADA action seeking both damages and the sort
of equitable relief IDEA provides may find his request for
equitable relief barred or deferred if he has yet to exhaust
§1415(f) and (g). Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae
22. It is “quite mistaken to assume,” too, that any interpre-
tation of a law that does more to advance a statute’s puta-
tive goal “must be the law.” Henson, 582 U. S., at 89. Laws
are the product of “compromise,” and no law “ ‘pursues its
. . . purpose[s] at all costs.’ ” Ibid. And it isn’t exactly diffi-
cult to imagine that a rational Congress might have sought
to temper a demand for administrative exhaustion when a
plaintiff seeks a remedy IDEA can supply with a rule ex-
cusing exhaustion when a plaintiff seeks a remedy IDEA
cannot provide.
                            *
  The parties pose a number of additional questions they
would like us to answer—including whether IDEA’s ex-
haustion requirement is susceptible to a judge-made futility
exception and whether the compensatory damages Mr. Pe-
rez seeks in his ADA suit are in fact available under that
statute. But today, we have no occasion to address any of
8        LUNA PEREZ v. STURGIS PUBLIC SCHOOLS

                    Opinion of the Court

those things. In proceedings below, the courts held that
§1415(l) precluded Mr. Perez’s ADA lawsuit. We clarify
that nothing in that provision bars his way. The judgment
of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is re-
manded for further proceedings consistent with this opin-
ion.
                                               So ordered.