Opinion
00-Civ.-4169 (WGB)
July 9, 2001
Sharon Handrock Moore, Esq., GEBHARDT KIEFER, P.C., Clinton, N.J., for Plaintiff Chester Township Board of Education.
Rebecca K. Spar, Esq., COLE, SCHOTZ, MEISEL, FORMAN LEONARD, Hackensack, N.J., for Defendants J.R. and J.R. on behalf of E.R.
OPINION
This matter arises under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, 20 U.S.C. § 1400, et seq. ("IDEA"). Defendants J.R. and J.R. on behalf of E.R. ("Defendants" or "the Rs") seek attorneys' fees and costs as a prevailing party pursuant to 20 U.S.C. § 1415(i)(3)(B). For the reasons set forth below, the Court denies Defendants' fee application.
The Court has jurisdiction over this matter under 28 U.S.C. § 1331 .
I. BACKGROUND A. Facts
The facts are more fully set forth in the Court's Opinion filed October 4, 2000. In brief, the Rs are the parents of E.R., a minor child, age 13, who has been diagnosed with Down Syndrome and classified as educable mentally retarded. The Rs are residents of the Township of Chester.
The Individual Education Plan ("IEP") developed by Plaintiff Chester Township Board of Education ("Chester School District") Child Study Team for the 1997-98 school year provided for E.R.'s placement in some regular second grade classes, replacement instructions, and for some "pull out" services. For the 1998-99 school year, the Chester School District recommended that E.R. be placed out of district in a specialized school. Nevertheless, because of the Rs' insistence, E.R. was placed in third grade at Bragg School (in-district school containing grades three to five). During the 1998-99 school year, there were 53 incidents of aggressive behavior by E.R. documented by the staff.
For the 1999-2000 school year, the Chester School District proposed an IEP in which E.R. would have been removed from Chester Public Schools and placed in an out-of-district, self-contained program, effective September 1999. Based, however, on the Rs' continued insistence upon E.R.'s attendance in the Chester School District, E.R. remained at Bragg School. From September 7, 1999 to October 14, 1999, there were 37 documented incidents of aggressive, violent, or otherwise inappropriate behavior by E.R. The final incident on October 14, 1999, involved an incident that resulted in the School calling E.R.'s mother to take her home and suspending E.R. indefinitely pending a hearing.
By agreement of the parties, home instruction began on October 26, 1999. Pursuant to Orders of the Administrative Law Judge ("ALJ"), the School continued E.R.'s home instruction and permitted E.R. to attend sixth grade regular education class once per week at the Black River Middle School. The home instruction continued as the alternative interim placement during the pendency of the hearing before the ALJ.
B. Procedural History
On July 28, 1999, the Chester School District filed a request for a due process hearing. After hearings on the due process petition, on August 11, 2000, Administrative Law Judge Margaret Hayden issued a Final Decision ("ALJ's Decision"). In it, she denied the Chester School District's request for an Order approving its proposed IEP and instead, ordered the Chester School District essentially to develop an IEP and hire an expert and a consultant to effectively mainstream E.R. into the Black River Middle School.
On August 25, 2000, the Chester School District filed a complaint in this Court seeking an appeal of Judge Hayden's decision. The Chester School District contemporaneously filed an emergent application to stay the ALJ's Decision pending the outcome of the appeal. Relying on the stay put provision of the IDEA, 20 U.S.C. § 1415(j), the Rs cross moved to implement the ALJ's Decision during the pendency of the appeal. The stay put provision provides, in pertinent part:
[D]uring the pendency of any proceedings conducted pursuant to this section, unless the State or local educational agency and the parents otherwise agree, the child shall remain in the then current educational placement of such child. . . .20 U.S.C. § 1415(j). Section 1415(j) authorizes a statutory injunction that preserves the status quo of a child's current educational placement while due process or judicial proceedings pursuant to the IDEA take place and is in effect, an automatic preliminary injunction. Woods, on Behalf of T.W. v. New Jersey Department of Education, et al., 20 IDELR 439 (3d Cir. 1993); Zvi D. v. Ambach, 694 F.2d 904, 906 (2d Cir. 1982).
In determining E.R.'s "pendent" placement, that is, where E.R. was to be placed pending the outcome of the appeal, the Court was bound by the Third Circuit's interpretation of the "stay put" provision, as set forth in Susquenita School District v. Raelee S. by Heidi S. and Bryon S., 96 F.3d 78, 83 (3d Cir. 1996). In the typical case where the stay put provision is invoked by a child's parents because the parents disagree with a change in placement proposed by the school district, the terms of the IEP determines a student's "current educational placement." Susquenita, 96 F.3d at 83. Once, however, there is a final administrative decision in favor of the parents' position in an administrative hearing, that decision constitutes an "agreement" between the state and the parents to change the "then current educational placement" and create a new pendent placement in accordance with the plain language of the stay put provision. Id. at 78; 34 C.F.R. § 300.514(c) .
34 C.R.F. § 300.514(c) provides:
If the decision of a hearing officer in a due process hearing conducted by the SEA or a State review official in an administrative appeal agrees with the child's parents that a change of placement is appropriate, that placement must be treated as an agreement between the State or local agency and the parents for purposes of paragraph (a) of this section.Paragraph (a) provides in pertinent part:
during the pendency of any administrative or judicial proceeding regarding a complaint under § 300.507, unless the State or local agency and the parents of the child agree otherwise, the child involved in the complaint must remain in his or her current educational placement.
Guided by the Third Circuit's interpretation of the stay put provision, the Court, by Opinion and Order filed October 4, 2000, determined that Judge Hayden's ruling in favor of the Rs constituted an "agreement" between the state and the Rs to create a new pendent placement. Consequently, the Court denied the Chester School District's application for a stay of the final decision entered by the ALJ and granted the Rs' cross motion for immediate implementation of the ALJ's decision pending the outcome of the appeal.
Although there has yet to be a resolution of the merits of the appeal of Judge Hayden's decision, the Rs seek summary judgment on their application for attorneys' fees and costs, claiming that as a result of the favorable ruling they obtained on the stay put issue, they are the "prevailing" party. The Rs seek fees and costs totaling $18,927.33 incurred in connection with litigating the pendent placement issue. The Chester School District, however, disputes not only the reasonableness of those fees, but also disagrees that the Rs are even entitled to any fees at this stage of the litigation.
II. DISCUSSION A. Standard for Attorneys' Fees
The IDEA authorizes the Court to award attorneys' fees to the parents of a disabled child who is the prevailing party. Specifically, it states in pertinent part:
In any action or proceeding brought under this section, the court, in its discretion, may award reasonable attorneys' fees as part of the costs to the parents of a child with a disability who is the prevailing party.20 U.S.C. § 1415(i)(3)(B). A "prevailing" party entitled to a fee award is one who has succeeded on "any significant issue in litigation which achieves some of the benefit the part[y] sought in bringing the suit". Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 433 (1983) (quoting Nadeau v. Helgemoe, 581 F.2d 275, 278-79 (1st Cir. 1978)).
In the Third Circuit, a two-part test determines whether the parents are the prevailing party. Wheeler v. Towanda Area School Dist., 950 F.2d 128, 131 (3d. Cir. 1991). First, a court must consider whether the parents achieved relief on any of their claims.Id. That inquiry involves a "commonsense comparison between the relief sought and obtained." Id. This "liberal standard" requires that the parents must have achieved "some of the benefit sought in a lawsuit, even though the plaintiff does not ultimately succeed in securing a favorable judgment." Id. The second part of the two part test requires that there is a causal link between the litigation and the relief obtained by the parents. Id.
Moreover, for purposes of a fee award, a party prevails when "actual relief on the merits of his claim materially alters the legal relationship between the parties by modifying the [non-prevailing party's] behavior in a way that directly benefits the [prevailing party]." Farrar v. Hobby, 506 U.S. 103, 111-12 (1992); see also Texas State Teachers Ass'n v. Garland Indep. Sch. Dist., 489 U.S. 782, 792 (1989) (prevailing party must be able to identify "a resolution of the dispute which changes the legal relationship" between the parties).
While a prevailing party "can be awarded fees before the conclusion of protracted litigation," NAACP v. Wilmington Med. Ctr., Inc., 689 F.2d 1161, 1165 (3d Cir. 1982), "courts have limited the recovery of attorneys' fees to situations in which a party has prevailed in some way on the substantive merits of its claim." J.C. v. Mendham Township Bd. of Educ., 29 F. Supp.2d 214, 219 (D.N.J. 1998); see also Farrar v. Hobby, 506 U.S. 103, 111 (1992); cf. Hanrahan v. Hampton, 446 U.S. 754, 757 (1980) (noting that in § 1988 claims, Congressional intent seems to permit "interlocutory award [of attorneys' fees] only to a party who has established his entitlement to some relief on the merits of his claims.")
B. Analysis
While there is no dispute that there is a causal link between the litigation and the interim relief obtained by the Rs, the Rs do not qualify as prevailing under the first element of the Wheeler two-part test. As pointed out by the Chester School District, many of the courts that have addressed this issue have held that parents are not the prevailing party and therefore may not recover attorneys' fees under § 1415(i)(3)(B) when the "only ultimate victory under the IDEA is the invocation of the stay-put provision," see Bd. of Educ. of Downers Grove Grade School District No. 58 v. Steven L., 89 F.3d 464, 469 (7th Cir. 1996), cert. denied, 520 U.S. 1198 (1997), or when parents succeed only in maintaining the status quo and no other relief. Christopher P. v. Marcus, 915 F.2d 794 (2nd Cir. 1990), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 1123 (1991); see also Scanlon v. San Francisco Unified Sch. Dist., 1995 WL 638275 (9th Cir. October 30, 1995); J.C., 29 F. Supp.2d 214.
Here, although the Rs have successfully won interim relief regarding E.R.'s pendent placement, they have not prevailed on the substantive claim regarding E.R.'s permanent educational placement. Indeed, in its October 4, 2000 Opinion, the Court did not engage in a likelihood of success analysis, issue any rulings, or enter judgment on the merits of the ultimate relief sought. Clearly, the Rs' only ultimate victory under the IDEA thus far has been the invocation of the stay put provision.
Moreover, contrary to the Rs' assertions, this Court's October 4, 2000 decision did not change E.R.'s placement or the legal relationship of the parties. According to the Third Circuit's interpretation of the stay put provision, the Chester School District and the Rs agreed to alter E.R.'s pendent placement; a new status quo became effective as soon as the ALJ rendered her decision in favor of the Rs. See Susquenita, 96 F.3d at 83. Therefore, by the time this Court granted the Rs' cross motion to implement the ALJ's Decision, the legal relationship of the parties had already been altered by the ALJ Decision; this Court's ruling merely clarified the Chester School District's obligations under the stay put provision and required it to comply with those obligations.
Further, the Court is unpersuaded by the Rs' strained efforts to distinguish the cases relied on by the Chester School District. InSteven L., by invoking the IDEA's stay put provision, the parents of a disabled child kept the school's modified IEP from taking effect while the dispute over the child's placement wound its way through the administrative system and the federal courts. Eventually, the Seventh Circuit dismissed the case as moot and declined to award attorneys' fees under the IDEA, finding that the parents had not substantially prevailed. In so holding, the Circuit noted that "[t]he outcome of th[e] suit resulted in no enforceable obligations for the school district. Any relief that [the parents and disabled child] received was not in the form of a judgment or settlement." Steven L., 89 F.3d at 469. Instead, the court observed that the parents had only received "interim relief." Id.; see also Hunger v. Leininger, 15 F.3d 664 (7th Cir. 1993) (finding that attorneys' fees may not be awarded for interim relief).
The Rs claim that Steven L. is distinguishable because there, the school district continued to pay for the child's pendent placement without objection while in this case, they were forced to litigate the application of the stay put provision. The Seventh Circuit, however, did not rule on the fee issue as it did because the pendent placement issue was not litigated; to the contrary, the Circuit characterized the invocation of the stay put provision as the parents' "only ultimate victory." Id. at 469.
Next, in Christopher P., 915 F.2d 794, the parents sought and obtained from the district court a temporary restraining order continuing their child's educational placement pending the court's decision on the merits of the parents' claims. Having been granted a temporary restraining order, the parents argued that they were prevailing parties under the IDEA and therefore entitled to attorneys' fees under the IDEA. The district court agreed and awarded the parents attorneys' fees. The Second Circuit reversed that decision.
Christopher is inapplicable, the Rs argue, because in that case, the plaintiffs succeeded in preserving the status quo by obtaining a TRO rather than by procuring a favorable ruling under the IDEA's stay put provision. The Second Circuit's decision, however, did not turn on that distinction. Rather, the Circuit focused on the fact that the trial court had not reached the merits of the case and had merely maintained the status quo; it reasoned:
the procurement of a TRO in which the court does not address the merits of the case but simply preserves the status quo to avoid irreparable harm to the plaintiff is not by itself sufficient to give a plaintiff prevailing party status. [Citations omitted]. . . . the plaintiffs here have received no judicial relief other than a favorable statement of the law en route to a judgment against them . . .Id. at 805.
Similarly, in Scanlon, 69 F.3d 544, the Ninth Circuit upheld the district court's denial of attorneys' fees. The court of appeals concluded that the trial court, in issuing its order concerning the child's placement during the pendency of the lawsuit, had not addressed the merits of the suit and done nothing more than preserve the status quo; therefore, the Circuit found that the plaintiffs were not the prevailing party.
Agreeing with the rationale and holdings of Steven L., Christopher P., and Scanlon, the court in J.C., 29 F. Supp.2d 214, also denied an IDEA attorneys' fee application. In that case, although the question of the disabled child's permanent placement was still unresolved, the parents had filed suit seeking reimbursement of attorneys' fees, arguing that they were "prevailing parties" under 20 U.S.C. § 1415(i)(3)(B) based on the fact that the school had agreed to the parents' demand for continued interim placement at a private facility pending final resolution of the placement issue. The court found that although there was a causal link between the "pressure of the lawsuit" and the relief obtained by the parents, the parents did not qualify as "prevailing" because the underlying dispute had not yet been resolved; "the parties [had] made no further progress on the substantive claim at issue — that is, J.C.'s permanent educational placement." Id. at 221. In so holding, the court noted that in initiating legal proceedings, the plaintiffs had merely "spurred defendant into acknowledging the applicability" of the stay put provision rather than altering the legal relationship between the parties. Id. In short, the court found that the plaintiffs' success on J.C.'s temporary placement could not, standing alone, qualify the plaintiffs as a prevailing party without "some additional concession" by the defendant, and absent any findings by a court or another adjudicating body as to the merits of the case. Id.
The Rs claim that the Chester School District's reliance on J.C., 29 F. Supp.2d 214 is misplaced because there, the parties did not engage in any continuing dispute over the applicability of the stay put provision. In holding that the plaintiffs were not the prevailing party, however, the court gave no indication that the lack of a continuing dispute over the stay put provision was relevant to its decision.
Finally, not only are the Rs incorrect in claiming that the cases relied on by the Chester School District are distinguishable, their reliance on Bayonne Bd. of Educ. v. R.S., 954 F. Supp. 933 (D.N.J. 1997), Jarczynski v. St. Mary's County Public Schools, 30 IDELR 38 (D.Md. 1999), and Capiello v. District of Columbia, 779 F. Supp. 1 (D.D.C. 1991), is misplaced. In the first case, R.S., 954 F. Supp. 933, the parents filed a due process petition requesting that the school reimburse them for the cost of their child's education at an out-of-district school where the parents had unilaterally placed the disabled child. After two days of hearings, the parties reached a settlement agreement which provided for the eventual transition of the child from the out-of-district school to an in-district school. Subsequently, a dispute arose over the implementation of the transition plan and the parents moved for emergent relief under the stay put provision asking that the school board be compelled to pay for tuition and transportation to the out-of-district school. The ALJ ruled in favor of the parents on the stay put motion.
The school board then filed an appeal of that decision in federal district court. The district court upheld the ALJ's decision on the stay put motion. The court also found that the parents were the prevailing party, reasoning that the ultimate determination of the appropriate placement for the child was "immaterial" to the application for attorney fees because the case before the court was limited to an appeal of the ALJ's decision on the stay put motion.Id. at 943. In other words, because the complaint was solely an appeal of the administrative law judge's decision on the stay put application, the court did not have to ultimately decide any other issue, i.e. the appropriate placement for R.S. Accordingly, the district court's decision on the stay put issue was a ruling on the merits of the ultimate issue before the court.
In contrast, this case is an appeal of the ALJ's decision regarding the appropriate permanent educational placement for E.R. and is therefore not limited to the issue of placement under the stay put provision. As a result, the Court's decision regarding E.R.'s pendent placement was not in any way a ruling on the merits of this lawsuit.R.S. is not applicable.
As in R.S., in the second case that the Rs rely on, Jarczynski, 30 IDELR 38, the preliminary injunction sought by the parents was limited to requiring the school to pay for the costs of a private placement while the parents contested the school's proposed IEP. The district court ruled in favor of the parents and ordered that under the stay put provision, the school was responsible for all tuition and costs during the pendency of the proceedings between the parties.
The school subsequently moved for relief from the district court's order after the ALJ ruled in favor of the school by finding that the child's placement at the in-district school was appropriate to meet the child's educational needs. The court denied that motion because the time in which the parents could appeal the ALJ's decision had not yet run. The court also granted the parents' motion for attorneys' fees.
Unlike this case, in Jarczynski, the parents' motion for fees was unopposed. Moreover, as in R.S., the parents prevailed on the merits of the ultimate issue before the court, i.e. the child's "current educational placement" under the stay put provision.
In the third case that the Rs rely on, Capiello, 779 F. Supp. 1, the plaintiffs obtained a favorable administrative ruling on the merits regarding the child's permanent educational placement. When the defendants failed to abide by the administrative decision, the plaintiffs sought and obtained a temporary restraining order compelling the defendants to comply with the administrative decision. Subsequently, the plaintiffs moved for an award of attorneys' fees pursuant to the IDEA. The court held that the plaintiffs were prevailing parties whether they won at the administrative level or in district court. Id. at 2. Capiello is entirely inapplicable because at no time in that case was there a dispute between the parties or a ruling by the court regarding interim placement pending a decision on the appropriate permanent placement.
Therefore, the Rs are clearly not the prevailing party and as a result, are not entitled to attorneys' fees at this juncture. In light of the Court's ruling, the Court need not address whether the fees sought by Defendants are reasonable.
III. CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, Defendants' application for attorneys' fees and costs is denied.
An appropriate Order follows.
ORDER
This matter having come before the Court on the motion of Defendants for summary judgment on its application for attorneys' fees and costs pursuant to 20 U.S.C. § 1415(i)(3)(B); and
The Court having considered the submissions of the parties; and The Court having decided this matter without oral argument pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 78; and
For the reasons set forth in the Court's Opinion issued this day; and
For good cause shown;
It is on this ___ day of July, 2001 ORDERED that Defendants' motion for summary judgment on its application for attorneys' fees and costs is denied.