Opinion
CIVIL ACTION NO. 00-1233 SECTION "N".
November 16, 2000.
ORDER AND REASONS
Before the Court is Defendants Tangipahoa Parish School Board, et al.'s Motion to Dismiss. For the following reasons, the Motion is GRANTED.
A. BACKGROUND
The present motion requires the Court to determine whether the Plaintiffs, Mary and Wayne Pfeiffer, were required to exhaust their state administrative remedies under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act ("IDEA"), 20 U.S.C.A. § 1400 et. seq., before filing suit in federal court.
Heather Pfeiffer began attending D.C. Reeves Elementary School in November 1998 after her family moved from St. Tammany to Tangipahoa Parish. Heather's mother, Mary Pfeiffer, informed the Tangipahoa Parish School System's Director of Special Education that Heather had vision perception and auditory processing problems and provided the Special Education Department with documents regarding accommodations and modifications Heather had received from her old school system. After holding a conference, Tangipahoa administrators developed an Individualized Education Program ("LEP") for Heather, but her teacher failed to administer it. Plaintiffs' claim that this failure caused Heather great anxiety, which was exacerbated by the fact that Heather's teacher was cruel to her and harassed her because of her difficulties. Mary's request that Heather be assigned to another class was denied. The school's principal later excluded Heather from school for an unspecified period of time in order to develop a behavior management plan. "Ultimately, Heather Pfeiffer completed the 1998-1999 school year with Homebound Services . . . .," and "Mary and Wayne Pfeiffer were forced to move back to St. Tammany Parish so that Heather Pfeiffer would receive the necessary modifications and accommodations." Complaint ¶¶ XVIII-XIX. The Pfeiffers admit that they failed to request a due process hearing to address Heather's alleged mistreatment in the Tangipahoa school system.
The Pfeiffers brought suit against the Tangipahoa Parish School Board and several individuals in this Court on April 21, 2000. They allege that the Defendants violated the Fourteenth Amendment and 42 U.S.C. § 1983 when they denied Heather a Free Appropriate Public Education ("FAPE") as required by the IDEA and the Rehabilitation Act. The Pfeiffers seek punitive damages, "economic damages," and damages for humiliation, emotional distress and mental anguish, as well as costs and attorney's fees and "such other and further relief as this Court deems necessary and proper." Complaint ¶ XXVI.
The individual defendants are the Parish's Special Education Director, the school's principal and Heather's teacher.
229 U.S.C. § 701-794.
B. LAW AND ANALYSIS
In the present motion, the Defendants ask the Court to dismiss the Plaintiffs' Complaint for lack of jurisdiction because the Pfeiffers failed to first exhaust their state administrative remedies before bringing an action in federal court. See 20 U.S.C. § 1415(l) ("before the filing of a civil action under such laws seeking relief that is also available under this subchapter, the procedures under subsections (f) and (g) of this section shall be exhausted to the same extent as would be required had the action been brought under this subchapter"); Honig v. Doe, 484 U.S. 305, 326-27, 108 S.Ct. 592, 606, 98 L.Ed.2d 686 (1988) ("judicial review is normally not available under § 1415(e)(2) until all administrative proceedings are completed"). The Pfeiffers claim that they are not constrained by the exhaustion requirement for two reasons.
First, the Pfeiffers argue that they are not seeking relief available under 20 U.S.C. § 1415 and were therefore not required to exhaust their administrative remedies. This argument is wholly without merit. As the Fifth Circuit made clear in Gardner v. School Bd. of Caddo Parish, 958 F.2d 108, 111 (5th Cir. 1992), "it is beyond doubt that the [IDEA] provides that a plaintiff must first exhaust the state administrative remedies before bringing an action in federal court, if the complaint is one falling under [former] § 1415(b)(1)(E)", now § 1415(b)(6). 958 F.2d at 111. Because the Plaintiffs' complaint relates to "the identification, evaluation, or educational placement of the child, or the provision of a free appropriate public education" to their child, their claims clearly fall within the ambit of the IDEA. Id.
Second, the Pfeiffers argue that resort to the administrative process would have been futile and inadequate because they "moved out of Tangipahoa Parish so that Heather would not be enrolled in the Tangipahoa Parish School System." Opp'n Mem. p. 5. The Pfeiffers are correct that the Supreme Court has stated that, in some cases, "parents may bypass the administrative process where exhaustion would be futile or inadequate." Honig, 484 U.S. at 327, 108 S.Ct. at 606. Neither Plaintiffs nor Defendants, however, cite any case in which a court has decided whether the move to a new school district rendered an administrative hearing in the old school district futile or inadequate.
Defendants do bring to the Court's attention Thomas v. East Baton Rouge Parish School Board, 29 F. Supp.2d 337 (M.D. La. 1998), in which a federal district court in Louisiana found that the exhaustion of administrative remedies was not futile even though the student had graduated from high school because the hearing officer could make a post hoc determination of financial responsibility with respect to reimbursement. See id. at 339. In Defendants view, Thomas supports the proposition that "[t]he purposes behind the doctrine of exhaustion of administrative remedies . . . are still applicable to a situation where a student has left the school system . . ." Supporting Mem. p. 9. However, Defendants fail to cite Covington v. Knox County School District, 205 F.3d 912 (6th Cir. 2000), in which the Sixth Circuit held that exhaustion was futile where the student had already graduated, his injuries were wholly in the past, and money damages were the only remedy that could make him whole. See id. at 917.
The Court's independent research reveals that courts have answered this question inconsistently. For example, in Padilla v. School District No. 1 in the City and County of Denver, Colorado, 35 F. Supp.2d 1260 (D. Colo. 1999), a federal district court in Colorado found that exhaustion was not required where the plaintiff had moved outside of the school district at the time of the due process hearing and where the hearing officer could not grant the plaintiffs request for monetary relief. See id. at 1265-66. In contrast, in Torrie v. Cwayna, 841 F. Supp. 1434 (W.D. Mich. 1994), a federal district court in Michigan found that exhaustion was required even though the plaintiffs no longer lived in the defendant school district. See id. at 1441-42. Similarly, in N.B. v. Alachua County School Board, 84 F.3d 1376 (11th Cir. 1996) (per curiam), in affirming the district court's decision that exhaustion was not futile even though the student had moved out of the district, the Eleventh Circuit adopted the district court's reasoning that permitting parents "to bypass the exhaustion requirement of the IDEA by merely moving their child out of the defendant school district . . . [would render] the whole administrative scheme established by the IDEA . . . nugatory." Id. at 1379.
In a per curiam order, the Eleventh Circuit panel affirmed the district court's judgment and appended the district court's order as its decision.
Although the cases cited above indicate that a categorical resolution of the issue now before the Court may not exist, the Court finds the reasoning in N.B. persuasive in light of the facts of this case. In particular, the N.B. court noted that one key reason for requiring the exhaustion of administrative remedies is "to prevent deliberate disregard and circumvention of agency procedures established by Congress." 84 F.3d at 1379. As courts have stated repeatedly, the IDEA "establishes a comprehensive system of procedural safeguards" designed to ensure that local school systems provide disabled students with free appropriate public educations. Honig, 484 U.S. at 308, 1085. Ct. at 596. See also Board of Educ. of Hendrick Hudson Central Sch. Dist. v. Rowley, 458 U.S. 176, 205, 102 S.Ct. 3034, 3050, 73 L.Ed.2d 690 (1982) ("When the elaborate and highly specific procedural safeguards embodied in 1415 are contrasted with the general and somewhat imprecise substantive admonitions contained in the Act, we think that the importance Congress attached to these procedural safeguards cannot be gainsaid."). Here, Plaintiffs expressly admit that, instead of working within the administrative system contemplated by the IDEA to address their concerns, they moved out of Tangipahoa Parish in pursuit of the education to which they felt their daughter was entitled. See Complaint ¶ XIX and Opp'n Mem. p. 5 (both quoted above). Thus, unlike a situation in which necessity forces a family to change school districts, the Pfeiffers' unilaterally decided to remove their child from the Tangipahoa school system, a decision which does not excuse exhaustion. Cf. Doe v. Smith, 879 F.2d 1340, 1343-44 (6th Cir. 1989) (parent's unilateral decision to enroll child in private school did not excuse exhaustion). "Permitting [the Pfeiffers] to avoid the requirements of the IDEA through such a `back door' would not be consistent with the legislative intent of the IDEA." N.B., 84 F.3d at 1379.
Moreover, other than an allegation that the school district refused to transfer Heather to another class and an allegation that the principal excluded Heather from school for an unspecified period of time in order to develop a behavior management plan, there is absolutely no evidence to support a finding that the Tangipahoa Parish school system would have been unreceptive to the Pfeiffer's concerns or that the Pfeiffers would have been unable to obtain an adequate administrative remedy. The Court therefore finds that the Pfeiffer's have failed to sustain their burden of demonstrating that exhaustion would be futile or inadequate. See Honig, 484 U.S. at 327, 108S.Ct. at 606 (burden of proof rests with party asserting futility or inadequacy of administrative review); Gardner, 958 F.2d at 112 (same).
The Court does not decide whether this finding implies that it is without jurisdiction to entertain the Pfeiffers' action. See Gardner, 958 F.2d at 112 ("We do not decide whether exhaustion is a jurisdictional requirement. Quite arguably, it is not because there is a judicial exception to exhaustion when exhaustion would be futile or inadequate."); N.B. 84 F.3d at 1379 ("The exhaustion requirement, however, is not jurisdictional and therefore is not to be applied inflexibly.") (internal quotation marks omitted). "At any rate, a complaint based on [§ 1415(b)(6)] is not a justiciable controversy until the plaintiff has exhausted his administrative remedies or proved that exhaustion would be futile or inadequate," Gardner, 958 F.2d at 112, and the Court will dismiss the Pfeiffer's claims.
C. CONCLUSION
The Court finds that the Pfeiffers have not excused their failure to exhaust their administrative remedies pursuant to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act ("IDEA"), 20 U.S.C.A. § 1400 et. seq. Accordingly,
IT IS ORDERED that Defendants Tangipahoa Parish School Board, et al.'s Motion to Dismiss is GRANTED.