On April 14, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit decided Jonathan H. v. Souderton Area School District. This case sets the standard for special education appeals procedures in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and the U.S. Virgin Islands. I’ll dissect what happened and what it means. For purposes of this blog, I’m going to ignore the fact that Pennsylvania used a “two tier” hearing system at the time of this case. PA’s shift to a “one tier” system makes no difference.
Feeling that his needs were not being met, Jonathan’s parents placed him in a private school. Jonathan then sued his school district, Souderton, alleging that Souderton failed to offer him an appropriate special education as required by the IDEA (the primary, federal special education law). Jonathan demanded both compensatory education (i.e. hours of services to remedy educational failures) and tuition reimbursement.
Although there is significant variation from state to state, the first step of a special education lawsuit is called a Due Process Hearing. In Pennsylvania, where this case arose, Due Process Hearings are conducted by Hearing Officers. In this case, the Hearing Officer gave Jonathan half of what he demanded. Jonathan won compensatory education but lost tuition reimbursement.
Under the IDEA, if you go through a state’s entire administrative system and lose, you have 90 days to bring your case to state or federal court. Although the court case looks like an appeal of the Hearing Officer’s decision, technically, the court case is a brand new lawsuit. This case hinges on that distinction.
On the 90th day, right at the deadline, Jonathan started a lawsuit in federal court against Souderton in an attempt to get the tuition reimbursement that the Hearing Officer would not give him. Jonathan officially initiated this lawsuit by filing a document called a Complaint. 70 days after Jonathan filed his Complaint – 160 days after the Hearing Officer’s decision – Souderton responded by way of a document called (uncreatively) an Answer. Souderton’s Answer stated its defenses, but it also included something called a Counterclaim. Without dicussing the finer points of the federal rules of civil procedure, Souderton’s Counterclaim attacked the Hearing Officer’s prior compensatory education award.
Jonathan had no problem with the District’s Answer, but took issue with its Counterclaim. Jonathan argued that the Counterclaim was – in reality – an appeal of the Hearing Officer’s award. As such, Souderton was over the 90 day deadline. The counterclaim, according to Jonathan, was made on the 160th day and must be dismissed. In short, Jonathan argued that Souderton should not be allowed to challenge the compensatory education award because it waited longer than 90 days to do so.
After some initial success, the Third Circuit ultimately disagreed with Jonathan. Technically, Jonathan’s attempt to get tuition reimbursement through the federal courts was a new case. Therefore, Souderton’s timeline to respond and to file counterclaims runs from the day that Jonathan moved the lawsuit into federal court.
Under the standard set by this case, school districts and parents must proceed with caution when bringing special education matters before federal judges. Here, Jonathan thought he had compensatory education all locked up. He had the Hearing Officer’s award, which was affirmed by the appeals panel. Moreover, 90 days had gone by and Souderton had not challenged the compensatory education award. Jonathan must have been shocked when the court decided that Souderton was allowed to challenge that award on the 160th day.
The shoe could easily be on the other foot. The precedent set by this case may prove to be just as harmful to schools as it is to students and parents. Unfortunately, I fear that this case will be used as a vehicle for both sides to punish each other for moving cases into the courts after the conclusion of administrative proceedings. So much for finality.
Related posts:
I think education is going down, because especially in bad neighbourhoods teachers don't even have the courage to correct the student because he might hurt him, and that is wrong.
_________________
Counterclaim