Date: 12-09-2014

Case Style: South Kingstown School Committee v. Joanna S.

Case Number: 14-1177

Judge: Barron

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit on appeal from the District of Rhode Island

Plaintiff's Attorney: Mary Ann Carroll, with whom Brennan, Recupero, Cascione, Scungio & McAllister, LLP was on brief, for appellee.

Defendant's Attorney: Christine H. Barrington, with whom ACCESS! Education Consulting was on brief, for appellant.

Description: The Individuals with Disabilities
Education Act, or IDEA, 20 U.S.C. § 1400 et seq., is a landmark
federal statute now twenty-five years old. It offers federal funds
to states that agree to provide protections to make sure disabled
children receive a "free appropriate public education." Id.
§ 1412(1). Rhode Island, where this case arose, accepted IDEA
funding and thus agreed to provide those protections. See 21-2-54
R.I. Code R. § 300.2(a). And that sets the stage for this appeal.
The appellee, South Kingstown School Committee, runs one
of Rhode Island's public school districts. The appellant is the
mother of a disabled child the School Committee is responsible for
educating. The mother contends the School Committee failed to meet
its IDEA obligations. She focuses in particular on the School
Committee's failure to protect her right to an evaluation to
determine her child's educational needs. See id. §§ 300.304,
300.502.
The outcome of this appeal turns in part on what the
record shows about how well the School Committee performed an
evaluation of the mother's child. But the outcome also turns on
the meaning of a Settlement Agreement between the mother and the
School Committee over which evaluations the School Committee would
perform.
We hold the District Court rightly concluded the
Settlement Agreement relieves the School Committee of any
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obligation to perform or fund one of the evaluations the mother
seeks. We also hold the District Court did not err in concluding
there was insufficient factual support for her other evaluation
request. Still, we remand for the District Court to consider
whether the mother deserves attorneys' fees for her success in
securing yet a third evaluation, which the School Committee did not
challenge in District Court and thus does not contest here.
I.
Joanna S. brings this appeal on behalf of her son, P.J.
–- we use only initials out of respect for their privacy. P.J. is
a disabled student. He used to attend a public school in the South
Kingstown public school district, which the South Kingstown School
Committee runs. P.J. now attends, with funding from the School
Committee, a private school in East Providence, Rhode Island.
Joanna S. contends the Rhode Island statute and
regulations that implement IDEA require the School Committee to pay
for two independent evaluations of P.J. The first is an
"occupational therapy" evaluation, which would evaluate P.J.'s
motor skills and sensory processing abilities. The second is a
"psychoeducational" evaluation, which would evaluate P.J.'s
educational progress and needs.
Evaluations are integral to the way IDEA works. They
determine whether a child "qualifies as a child with a disability"
and thus for IDEA protection. 21-2-54 R.I. Code R. § 300.300(a).
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For children who do qualify, like P.J., evaluations also perform
another important function. They "assist in determining . . .
[t]he content of the child's" Individualized Education Program, or
IEP. Id. § 300.304(b)(1)(ii).
The IEP sets forth the services a disabled child will
receive and the educational goals for that child. Id.
§ 300.320(a). The IEP thus gives practical substance to IDEA's
right to a free appropriate public education. And for that reason,
evaluations are a key means -- perhaps the key means -- for
deciding the content of the protections IDEA offers.
In the first instance, the school district must perform
IDEA evaluations. Id. §§ 300.301, 300.303, 300.304. But IDEA also
provides for "independent" evaluations. For that type of
evaluation, the parent selects the evaluator, id. § 300.502, and a
school district must pay for that evaluation. But that obligation
to pay kicks in only if a school district has first failed to
perform its own evaluation well enough for it to be deemed
"appropriate." Id. § 300.502(b)(2), (5). The right to have a
school district pay for an independent evaluation, therefore, is a
backstop. It offers a parent a remedy when a school district fails
to carry out its evaluative responsibilities properly.
The dispute between Joanna S. and the School Committee
that is at issue in this appeal does not directly concern an
evaluation the School Committee must perform. Or, at least, Joanna
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S. says it does not. Instead, Joanna S. wants us to give effect to
a favorable administrative ruling she characterizes as having
required the School Committee to fund two independent evaluations.
The administrative ruling is not entirely clear, however,
on that point. The part of the administrative ruling that concerns
the occupational therapy evaluation clearly does require an
independent evaluation. But the part that addresses the
psychoeducational evaluation is more ambiguous. It could be read
to require the School Committee to pay for an independent
psychoeducational evaluation or to require the School Committee to
perform the psychoeducational evaluation itself. As we will
explain, we need not resolve the ambiguity.
To see why, though, we need to provide some further
details about the history that underlies the dispute between Joanna
S. and the School Committee over these evaluations. Joanna S.
first made the evaluation request that gave rise to this appeal in
February of 2012. That was when she brought what is known as a
"due process complaint." IDEA and the Rhode Island laws
implementing IDEA allow both school districts and parents to file
a "due process complaint." Id. § 300.507(a)(1). Such a complaint
sets in motion a state administrative process for adjudicating a
dispute over the "identification, evaluation, or educational
placement of [a disabled] child or the provision of [free
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appropriate public education] to the child." Id. § 300.503(a); see
also id. § 300.507(a).
In her due process complaint, Joanna S. sought additional
educational services for P.J. from the School Committee. These
included a private school placement. She also sought eight new
evaluations of P.J.
Before any administrative proceeding began, however, the
School Committee agreed to a settlement with Joanna S. That
settlement resolved Joanna S.'s due process complaint. In the
Settlement Agreement, the School Committee promised to pay for P.J.
to attend the Wolf School, a private school. The School Committee
also agreed to perform four evaluations of P.J. before he began at
the Wolf School. The four evaluations are listed in the Settlement
Agreement as: "educational, cognitive, speech and language[,] and
occupational therapy." In return, Joanna S. relinquished her
request for the other evaluations she had demanded in her
complaint. As we will see, however, there is a dispute about just
how much she actually gave up.
Following the settlement, in late April of 2012, the
School Committee performed the four evaluations of P.J. the School
Committee had agreed to undertake. P.J. then enrolled in the Wolf
School in September of 2012. On October 9, 2012, however, at a
meeting with P.J.'s teachers and representatives of the School
Committee, Joanna S. demanded ten additional evaluations of P.J.
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These newly requested evaluations included independent versions of
each of the four evaluations the School Committee had performed in
April of 2012. Joanna S. reiterated this demand for ten additional
evaluations in a letter to the School Committee dated October 22,
2012.
The School Committee decided not to comply with Joanna
S.'s demands for more evaluations. The School Committee instead
chose to file a "due process complaint" of its own. See id.
§ 300.502(b)(2)(i). The School Committee filed that due process
complaint on October 30, 2012.1 In the complaint, the School
1 A school district has fifteen days to respond to a parent's
demand for an independent evaluation. 21-2-54 R.I. Code R.
§ 300.502(b)(2). Within that time, the school district must either
agree to provide the independent evaluation or "[f]ile a due
process complaint to request a hearing to show that its evaluation
is appropriate." Id. § 300.502(b)(2). Joanna S. contends the
School Committee failed to file this due process complaint on time.
She says the School Committee refused to respond to her oral demand
for independent evaluations and instead insisted she demand them in
writing. Joanna S. relies on regulatory guidance she says shows
school districts may not require parents to provide written notice
of their demand for an independent evaluation under a federal
regulation then codified at 34 C.F.R. § 300.503(b), which a
materially identical Rhode Island regulation that is codified at
21-2-54 R.I. Code R. § 300.502(b) goes on to implement as a matter
of Rhode Island law. See Letter to Imber, Office of Special Educ.
Programs (Aug. 18, 1992); Letter to Thorne, Office of Special Educ.
Programs (Feb. 5, 1990). In consequence, Joanna S. argues the
School Committee filed its due process complaint six days after the
expiration of the regulation's fifteen-day period for such a
filing, as she calculates that period from the time she made her
oral request rather than from the time she made her written
request. 21-2-54 R.I. Code R. § 300.502(b)(2). But even if the
clock started when Joanna S. says it did, the procedural deadline
at issue is not always a hard and fast one. Under Rhode Island's
regulations, a parent may not receive substantive relief based on
a procedural violation by a school district unless the violation
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Committee argued the evaluations it had performed were "appropriate
and that no further evaluations [were] needed at [that] time."
In the administrative proceeding that followed, the
Hearing Officer appointed by the State of Rhode Island ruled
against the School Committee. The Hearing Officer ruled some of
the School Committee's evaluations of P.J. in April had not been
"appropriate." The Hearing Officer thus ordered the School
Committee to pay for one of the two evaluations at issue in this
appeal (the occupational therapy evaluation), and to pay for, or
perhaps instead to perform, the other (the psychoeducational
evaluation).
The School Committee responded with a suit in federal
District Court in Rhode Island. The School Committee's suit rested
on a provision of IDEA that allows "any party aggrieved by the
findings and decision" of an IDEA hearing officer to "bring a civil
action . . . in a district court of the United States." 20 U.S.C.
"[i]mpeded the child's right" to a free and appropriate public
education, "[s]ignificantly impaired the parent's opportunity to
participate in the decisionmaking process regarding" the child's
education, or "[c]aused a deprivation of educational benefit." Id.
§ 300.513(a)(2). Despite conceding the applicability of that rule,
Joanna S. does not explain how the very slight delay involved here
-- six days at the most -- had the required prejudicial effect. In
fact, much of the responsibility for the delay seems to lie with
Joanna S.: the School Committee sent her a letter requesting
clarification the day after her purported oral demand, and Joanna
S. did not respond until twelve days later . The School Committee
then filed its due process complaint just a few days after it
received Joanna S.'s responsive letter. We thus conclude the
administrative decision was properly decided on "substantive
grounds." Id. § 300.513(a).
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§ 1415(i)(2)(A); D.R. ex rel. M.R. v. E. Brunswick Bd. of Educ.,
109 F.3d 896, 898 (3d Cir. 1997) (citing the prior version of
§ 1415(i)(2)(A), then codified at 20 U.S.C. § 1415(e) (1996)).
Acting on cross motions for summary judgment, the
District Court found the administrative record did not support the
Hearing Officer's order that the School Committee fund an
independent occupational therapy evaluation of P.J. The District
Court also found the Settlement Agreement released any claim to a
psychoeducational evaluation of P.J. that Joanna S. might have had.
The District Court thus granted the School Committee's motion for
summary judgment and denied Joanna S.'s. Joanna S. now appeals the
District Court's decision.
II.
The two evaluations at issue -- occupational therapy and
psychoeducational -- present distinct issues. Like the District
Court and the Hearing Officer, we consider them separately,
although our standard of review is the same for both.
We decide legal issues de novo, and we review the
District Court's factual findings only for clear error. González
v. P.R. Dep't of Educ., 254 F.3d 350, 352 (1st Cir. 2001). For
mixed questions of law and fact, we apply a "degree-of-deference
continuum" depending on "to what extent a particular determination
is law– or fact– dominated." Lessard v. Wilton-Lyndeborough Coop.
Sch. Dist., 518 F.3d 18, 24 (1st Cir. 2008). Unlike the way we
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review agency decisions under the Administrative Procedure Act,
see, e.g., Puerto Rico v. United States, 490 F.3d 50, 60-61 (1st
Cir. 2007), we defer to the District Court's factual findings, not
to the state-appointed administrative officer's. Lessard, 518 F.3d
at 24.
Still, we must ensure the District Court gave "due
deference" to that officer's superior educational expertise. Id.;
Hampton Sch. Dist. v. Dobrowolski, 976 F.2d 48, 52-53 (1st Cir.
1992). We have characterized the appropriate level of review by
District Courts as "involved oversight," a standard which "falls
somewhere between the highly deferential clear-error standard and
the non-deferential de novo standard." Sebastian M. v. King
Phillip Reg'l Sch. Dist., 685 F.3d 79, 84 (1st Cir. 2012)(quoting
D.B. ex rel. Elizabeth B. v. Esposito, 675 F.3d 26, 35-36 (1st Cir.
2012)). Moreover, we have said before that, in cases of this sort,
summary judgment motions are "simply a vehicle" for providing
review of the underlying administrative ruling, and that is the
case here.2 See Sebastian M., 685 F.3d at 85.
2 No party disputes that the parties' cross-motions for
summary judgement "essentially" asked the District Court to
"conduct[] a bench trial based on a stipulated record." Sebastian
M., 685 F.3d at 85 (quoting Ojai Unified Sch. Dist. v. Jackson, 4
F.3d 1467, 1472 (9th Cir. 1993)).
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III.
We start with the occupational therapy evaluation. The
Settlement Agreement identified this evaluation as one of the four
the School Committee would perform. The School Committee then
performed it. We thus set the Agreement to one side and focus on
the only point that is in dispute about this evaluation -- whether
the record at the administrative hearing shows the occupational
therapy evaluation the School Committee did perform was
"appropriate" and thus that the School Committee did not need to
pay for an independent one. 21-2-54 R.I. Code R. § 300.502(b)(2).
Joanna S. argues the April 2012 occupational therapy
evaluation was not "appropriate." See id. § 300.304(b), (c). She
contends the School Committee did not consider "information
provided by the parent," id. § 300.304(b)(1), did not use "a
variety of assessment tools and strategies," id., did not ensure
the tests that comprised the evaluation were administered by
"trained and knowledgeable personnel," id. § 300.304(c)(1)(iv), and
did not tailor those component tests "to assess specific areas of
educational need," id. § 300.304(c)(2). She also contends the
School Committee did not ensure its overall assessment "accurately
reflect[ed] the child's aptitude or achievement level . . . rather
than reflecting the child's impaired sensory . . . skills." Id.
§ 300.304(c)(3).
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The Hearing Officer agreed with Joanna S. that the
occupational therapy evaluation was not "sufficiently comprehensive
to identify all of the Student's needs in this area." She found
several flaws in the School Committee's evaluation. The Hearing
Officer thus ordered the School Committee to fund the independent
occupational therapy evaluation Joanna S. now seeks.
In reversing the Hearing Officer's order, the District
Court rejected three key factual findings the Hearing Officer had
made. Those three findings addressed alleged problems with the
School Committee's occupational therapy evaluation. We find
nothing in the record to indicate the District Court clearly erred
in rejecting those three findings. See Lessard, 518 F.3d at 24.
We also see nothing in the record to suggest the District Court
erred in ruling that, without those three challenged findings, the
School Committee's occupational therapy evaluation of P.J. was
"appropriate." For that reason, we affirm the District Court's
decision.
The first of the disputed Hearing Officer findings
concerned whether the evaluator considered information about the
child that the parent had provided. See 21-2-54 R.I. Code R.
§ 300.304(b)(1). The Hearing Officer found the evaluator failed to
provide such consideration, because the evaluator was not aware of
Joanna S.'s concerns about her son's sensory processing abilities.
But the administrative record well supports the District Court's
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conclusion that the evaluator was aware of Joanna S.'s concerns
about her son's sensory processing abilities. The District Court
noted the evaluator testified she was told, in advance of the
evaluation, about Joanna S.'s sensory processing concerns, and
there was no contrary testimony. Moreover, the District Court
correctly noted the evaluator's report recited "sensory processing
concerns" as a reason for the performance of the occupational
therapy evaluation.
The record similarly supports the District Court's
rejection of the second of the Hearing Officer's disputed findings
-- namely, the Hearing Officer's determination that P.J.'s "lack of
effort" on some of the tasks undermined the evaluation as a whole.
The Hearing Officer relied on the evaluator's statement that "the
results should be viewed with caution" because of P.J.'s lack of
effort during the test. But the evaluator raised that concern with
respect to two sub-tests -- handwriting and drawing geometric
shapes. The evaluator did not, as the District Court observed,
call the evaluation as a whole into question.
In addition, the record shows the evaluator also
testified, without contradiction, that a subsequent evaluation
performed by the Wolf School allayed any concerns about the
student's handwriting. What's more, the educators at the Wolf
School, including the Wolf School's occupational therapist,
testified the School Committee's tests, combined with their own
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formal and informal assessments, were adequate. And, as the
District Court noted, the Hearing Officer made no adverse
credibility finding with respect to the Wolf School's occupational
therapist.
We recognize Joanna S. argues the District Court erred in
relying on the Wolf School evaluations. She contends the Wolf
School evaluations were impermissible "supplement[al]" evaluations.
She cites regulatory guidance from the U.S. Department of Education
to support her position. See Letter to Gray, Office of Special
Educ. Programs (Oct. 5, 1988).
But the guidance addresses a different issue. The
guidance responds to the concern that a school district, when faced
with a parental request to pay for independent evaluations, will
resort to "supplemental" evaluations as a delaying tactic. The
worry is that school districts will put off paying for a test
performed independently by adding on new tests to correct the
claimed flaws in the initial one they performed.
But there is no evidence that is what happened here. The
record does not show the Wolf School performed its evaluations in
response to Joanna S.'s complaint for an independent evaluation,
let alone that it performed them to delay payment for an
independent one. Instead, it appears from the record that the Wolf
School performed the evaluations in the course of educating P.J.
and long before Joanna S. requested an independent evaluation. The
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record thus provides no support for concluding these evaluations
were "supplemental" in the potentially problematic sense the
guidance addresses. And the District Court did nothing improper to
the extent it treated the Wolf School evaluations as if they were
part of the occupational therapy evaluation the School Committee
performed. The regulations make clear school districts may use "a
variety of assessment tools and strategies" to make up an
"evaluation"; they need not rely on just one test. 21-2-54 R.I.
Code R. § 300.304(b)(1).
Finally, we conclude the record supports the District
Court's rejection of the Hearing Officer's third disputed finding:
that although the School Committee's evaluation found P.J.'s
sensory processing abilities "typical," the evaluation report never
defined the word "typical." As the District Court observed, the
evaluator's occupational therapy report does define "Typical
Performance."
The report explains that scores marked as "Typical
Performance" "indicate typical sensory processing abilities." And
the record supports the conclusion that such an explanation, in
context, is meaningful. The report contrasts "Typical
Performance," the highest score, with both "Probable Difference,"
which "indicate[s] questionable areas of sensory processing
abilities," and "Definite Difference," which "indicate[s] definite
sensory processing problems." "Typical," then, means something
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quite intelligible: abilities that, for the child's age, are
neither questionable nor definitely problematic. Cf. Am. Heritage
Dictionary 1310 (2d Coll. Ed. 1991) (defining "typical" to mean
"[e]xhibiting the traits or characteristics peculiar to its kind,
class, or group; representative of a whole group").
Without those rejected findings, we are left only with
the Hearing Officer's otherwise unchallenged finding that a
"qualified, licensed and experienced" evaluator conducted the
occupational therapy evaluation using "widely used standardized
test[s]," which, the record goes on to show, produced results
P.J.'s educators found adequate (together with their own
assessments) to determine his occupational therapy needs. We thus
affirm the District Court's order finding the occupational therapy
evaluation the School Committee performed to have been
"appropriate."
IV.
That brings us to the dispute over the psychoeducational
evaluation. This evaluation, unlike the occupational therapy
evaluation, was not one of the four evaluations the School
Committee agreed to perform in the April 2012 Settlement Agreement.
For that reason, the School Committee contends, and the District
Court held, the Settlement Agreement relieves the School Committee
from having to perform or pay for any such evaluation. That is so,
the School Committee argues, because Joanna S. gave up her right to
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seek evaluations beyond the four specified in that Agreement when
she signed it. We agree, but the route to that conclusion is a
somewhat winding one.
A.
We first have to consider our power to take account of
the Settlement Agreement at all. Joanna S. argues we may not. Her
contention focuses on two subsections of IDEA that set up a
"mediation process" and a "resolution process" to resolve
disagreements between parents and school districts. 20 U.S.C.
§ 1415(e), (f). Courts have interpreted these subsections to
include a grant of subject-matter jurisdiction for federal courts
to decide suits to enforce settlement agreements reached during
those processes. See, e.g., El Paso Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Richard
R. ex rel. R.R., 591 F.3d 417, 427 (5th Cir. 2009) (citing 20
U.S.C. § 1415(f)). Joanna S. notes that nothing in the record
conclusively shows the Settlement Agreement resulted from these
statutory processes. And so, she argues, we cannot rely on the
grant of jurisdiction in those subsections to consider the
Settlement Agreement, which she characterizes as merely a state-law
contract.
But our authority to hear this case does not depend on 20
U.S.C. § 1415(e) or (f). This is not an independent action to
enforce an IDEA settlement agreement. Rather, the District Court's
authority in this case came from a separate provision,
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§ 1415(i)(2)(A). That provision authorizes a school district, when
it is the "party aggrieved," to challenge an IDEA hearing officer
decision in a federal district court. We have appellate
jurisdiction over that same suit under the general grant of
jurisdiction to the circuit courts to review the decisions of
federal district courts. See 28 U.S.C. § 1291. And Joanna S.'s
underlying assertion of a federal right to evaluations under IDEA
supplies the "federal ingredient" making those statutory grants
constitutional in this case. See Merrell Dow Pharms. Inc. v.
Thompson, 478 U.S. 804, 807 (1986); Osborn v. Bank of United
States, 22 U.S. (9 Wheat.) 738, 823 (1824).
Nor is there any bar to our considering the Settlement
Agreement in the course of our review. Federal courts regularly
give effect to state-law settlement agreements in federal-question
cases. See, e.g., Great Clips, Inc. v. Hair Cuttery of Greater
Bos., L.L.C., 591 F.3d 32, 35 (1st Cir. 2010) (relying on a statelaw
contract settling a trademark dispute); D.R. ex rel. M.R. v. E.
Brunswick Bd. of Educ., 109 F.3d 896, 898 (3d Cir. 1997) (relying
on a state-law contract settling an IDEA claim); see also Osborn,
22 U.S. (9 Wheat.) at 822 (explaining there is no constitutional
rule in federal-question cases that "the judicial power . . .
extend[s] . . . to those parts of cases only which present the
particular question involving" federal law). And, as IDEA plainly
permits settlements of disputes within its scope, we see no reason
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to read IDEA to require a different result here. Cf. Mayhew v.
Burwell, ___ F.3d ____, No. 14-1300, 2014 WL 6224938, at *3 n.4
(1st Cir. Nov. 17, 2014) (exercising jurisdiction over
constitutional arguments presented for the first time on appeal
from an agency decision, to avoid the "nonsensical" result of
"requir[ing] a bifurcated challenge" to administrative action).3
B.
That we may consider the effect of the Settlement
Agreement does not mean it bars Joanna S.'s request regarding the
psychoeducational evaluation. The parties, following the District
Court, frame the issue of the Agreement's effect as one within the
domain of "res judicata." But we have previously remarked that
"[r]es judicata is a doubtful label" to use in the context of a
settlement of an administrative proceeding. Martinez-Vélez v. Rey-
3 We need not address the separate issue whether the Hearing
Officer in the course of performing her statutory duties had the
authority to consider the Settlement Agreement as a defense, a
question that seems to have divided lower courts. Compare J.K. v.
Council Rock Sch. Dist., 833 F. Supp. 2d 436, 450 (E.D. Pa. 2011)
(no such authority) with, e.g., D.B.A. ex rel. Snerlling v. Special
Sch. Dist. No. 1, No. 10-1045, 2010 WL 5300946, at *4 (D. Minn.
Dec. 20, 2010) (authority under at least some circumstances). Even
if the Hearing Officer lacked such authority, it would not affect
the authority of a federal court to conduct the review Congress
authorized. Cf. Mayhew, 2014 WL 6224938, at *3 n.4; Elgin v. Dep't
of Treasury, 132 S. Ct. 2126, 2137 (2012) (explaining that courts
reviewing administrative decisions have jurisdiction to consider
even issues the administrative body "professed [a] lack of
authority" to consider).
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Hernández, 506 F.3d 32, 45 (1st Cir. 2007).4 In this case as in
that one, however, "the label does not matter; the question is the
scope" of the Settlement Agreement. Id. To answer that question,
we must look at the Agreement more closely.
1.
Joanna S. contends the Settlement Agreement, by its plain
terms, applies to her claims under IDEA only "through the date of
[that] Agreement." And since her request for the additional
evaluation at issue (the psychoeducational one) post-dates the
Agreement, Joanna S. contends the settlement gives the School
Committee no defense against the Hearing Officer's order.
But Joanna S. consented in that Agreement to only four
evaluations -- and thus to the release of her claims for other
evaluations, including even her claims for the additional four she
had previously demanded in the due process complaint the Settlement
Agreement resolved. That consent would be meaningless if she could
4 Our cases have recognized and differentiated between two
possible defenses arising from a settlement agreement: "res
judicata" and "release." See Davignon v. Clemmey, 322 F.3d 1, 17
(1st Cir 2003). The defenses are "separate and distinct," id.
(quoting Nottingham Partners v. Trans-Lux Corp., 925 F.2d 29, 31-32
(1st Cir. 1991)), and "res judicata," unlike "release," requires
entry of judgment. See Reppert v. Marvin Lumber & Cedar Co., 359
F.3d 53, 56 (1st Cir. 2004). "Whether and when res judicata
operates in administrative proceedings is complicated; so, too, the
question when a settlement of administrative proceeding[s] has res
judicata effect." Martinez-Vélez, 506 F.3d at 45 n.9. As in
Martinez-Vélez, there is no need for us to address those
"complicated" questions here, because whether under res judicata or
release, the effect of the Settlement Agreement turns on its
language's "scope." Id. at 45.
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nonetheless turn around the next day and demand the foregone
evaluations anew. We thus cannot accept her preferred reading of
the Agreement, as we find it difficult to suppose the parties
intended such a meaningless outcome of their negotiations. See
AccuSoft Corp. v. Palo, 237 F.3d 31, 40 (1st Cir. 2001) (explaining
that intent of the parties is one factor in interpreting a
settlement agreement).
In its brief, the School Committee took the categorical
position that the Agreement resolved Joanna S.'s demands for
evaluations at least through the end of the 2012-2013 school year.
But the School Committee abandoned that position at oral argument.
It instead favored a narrower focus on changed circumstances. We
agree with the School Committee's revised approach. The Agreement
is best read to release any right to additional evaluations that
Joanna S. may have had, except when her request for one arises from
a change in the conditions that prevailed at the time she signed
the Agreement.
This interpretation tracks the Agreement's text. The
Agreement waived "any and all causes of action . . . [of] which
[Joanna S.] kn[ew] or should have known" when she signed the
Agreement. Because unforeseeable events may give rise to
unforeseeable grounds for complaint, the Agreement may comfortably
be read to preserve requests premised on new circumstances that may
arise. But allowing for that possibility still gives content to
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the Agreement in a way Joanna S.'s proposed reading would not. On
this reading, Joanna S. still faces a hurdle when she makes post-
Agreement requests for evaluations not among those agreed to in the
settlement. Such requests, to survive the settlement, must rest on
conditions that arose after she entered into that Agreement.
This reading of the Agreement also accords with the
approach the Third Circuit took in construing a similar settlement
agreement. See E. Brunswick Bd. of Educ., 109 F.3d at 900-01.
There, the court held an IDEA settlement could preclude a parent
from bringing future IDEA claims -- unless, that is, those claims
were based on changed circumstances. That conclusion reflects both
the role settlements may play in resolving IDEA disputes and the
legitimate concern with allowing IDEA settlements to bargain away
-- potentially for all time and without regard to the change in
conditions that may arise in the course of a child's development --
the statutory right to a free appropriate public education.
2.
So understood, the effect of the Agreement is clear. It
bars the Hearing Officer's order regarding the psychoeducational
evaluation unless that order may be said to rest on conditions that
changed since the time of settlement in April of 2012. For reasons
we will explain, the record does not reveal any sufficient change
in circumstances. As a result, the order cannot overcome the bar
posed by the Settlement Agreement, whether we characterize it in
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the way Joanna S. does (as requiring the School Committee to fund
an independent psychoeducational evaluation) or as the District
Court did (as requiring the School Committee to perform a
psychoeducational evaluation itself).
We reach this conclusion aware the District Court did not
focus on changed circumstances, as neither party framed the issue
that way below. But we may affirm that court's summary-judgment
decision on any basis apparent from the record. See CMI Capital
Mkt. Inv., LLC v. González-Toro, 520 F.3d 58, 65 (1st Cir. 2008).
And nothing in the Hearing Officer's decision suggests the order
rests on a new, post-settlement development. Rather, the Hearing
Officer offered only pre–April 2012 justifications for her order.
She explained that "[t]he Parent has been requesting independent
evaluations for some time, requests that have been considered, but
with no agreement to do them," and she noted in particular "a
discussion about obtaining a psychoneurological evaluation
apparently, which was rejected in the Settlement Agreement."
Nor does Joanna S. identify sufficient changed conditions
in her brief. Joanna S. argues the order may be supported because
of P.J.'s "past and present behavior presentations," but she does
not identify any changes in P.J.'s behavioral presentations that
occurred after the settlement. Joanna S. also refers in her brief
to the need to identify whether P.J. has dyslexia, but she claims
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she was already concerned about dyslexia in April of 2012 when she
signed the Settlement Agreement.5
At oral argument, Joanna S.'s counsel did assert for the
first time that P.J.'s extended absence before he began attending
the Wolf School constituted a changed circumstance -- as he stayed
out of school after the settlement until the start of the next
school year. But Joanna S.'s counsel did not explain how P.J.'s
continued absence from school -- the start of which predated the
Settlement Agreement by at least a month -- supports that
conclusory contention. Nor did Joanna S. argue in her brief that
this absence established a changed circumstance. Such a bare
assertion of changed conditions, raised for the first time at oral
argument, does not suffice to warrant reversal of the District
Court's judgment, given Joanna S.'s failure to identify -- to the
District Court or to us -- any facts in the administrative record
showing a material change in conditions.
Thus, like the District Court, but for a slightly
different reason, we conclude the Settlement Agreement relieves the
School Committee from having to pay for, or conduct, the
5 Those arguments were not ones offered by the Hearing
Officer. The parties do not brief whether Security & Exchange
Commission v. Chenery Corp., 318 U.S. 80 (1943), or possibly
doctrines of waiver or forfeiture, would preclude us from
reinstating the state Hearing Officer's order on an alternate
ground from the one she gave, and we need not address them here.
Cf. Christopher S. ex rel. Rita S. v. Stanislaus Cnty. Office of
Educ., 384 F.3d 1205, 1212 n.5 (9th Cir. 2004) (invoking Chenery in
the IDEA context).
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psychoeducational evaluation the Hearing Officer ordered. The
extent to which conditions must change, as they often do as
children grow and develop, before a release no longer bars a
requested evaluation is an issue we do not address in this appeal.
3.
In an apparent effort to avoid this result, Joanna S.
argues the Hearing Officer ordered the psychoeducational evaluation
"sua sponte," rather than at Joanna S.'s request. She suggests
this understanding of the Hearing Officer's action should protect
it from being overturned, presumably because she believes the
order's sua sponte nature removes it from the scope of the
settlement.
But even if the Settlement Agreement would for some
reason not bar a sua sponte order, nothing in the record suggests
this order was in fact issued sua sponte. A "sua sponte" order is
one issued "[w]ithout prompting or suggestion." Black's Law
Dictionary 1650 (10th Ed. 2014). The Hearing Officer did not
characterize the order in that way. Rather, she based her order on
Joanna S.'s past "requests" and "concerns." Moreover, the content
of the psychoeducational evaluation the Hearing Officer ordered --
"reading, writing, math, sensory difficulty, written language,
executive function, behavior, independent functioning, difficulty
with balance and gross motor skills, and assistive technology if
deemed necessary" -- appears directly responsive to the kind of
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evaluation Joanna S. sought in the letter that gave rise to the
School Committee's due process complaint.6 In addition, the
Hearing Officer never mentioned the sole provision Joanna S. claims
authorized the Hearing Officer to order the psychoeducational
evaluation sua sponte: 21-2-54 R.I. Code R. § 300.502(d).7 We
therefore cannot accept Joanna S.'s argument that the Hearing
Officer intended to order relief Joanna S. did not request. And,
because we conclude the order was not issued sua sponte, we need
not address what the effect of the Settlement Agreement on a sua
sponte order would have been.
V.
One issue remains -- Joanna S.'s request for attorneys'
fees. IDEA provides that "the court, in its discretion, may award
reasonable attorneys' fees" to a prevailing party. 20 U.S.C.
§ 1415(i)(3)(B)(i). Even though we have affirmed the District
6 In her letter, Joanna S. had demanded an "achievement
evaluation," a "psychological evaluation," a "speech and language
evaluation," an "OT [occupational therapy] evaluation," a
"comprehensive neuropsychological evaluation," a "comprehensive
psychiatric evaluation," a "comprehensive reading evaluation," a
"comprehensive math evaluation," a "comprehensive assistive
technology evaluation," and a "comprehensive PT [physical therapy]
evaluation."
7 That section provides: "If a hearing officer requests an
independent educational evaluation as part of a hearing on a due
process complaint, the cost of the evaluation must be at public
expense." 21-2-54 R.I. Code R. § 300.502(d). It is not at all
clear that this section authorizes a hearing officer to order an
evaluation -- by its terms it seems to address only cost, not
authority -- but we need not address this section's scope here
because the Hearing Officer did not rely on it.
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Court, the School Committee left one aspect of the Hearing
Officer's decision unchallenged. In addition to ordering the
School Committee to act with respect to an occupational therapy
evaluation and a psychoeducational evaluation, the Hearing Officer
also found the School Committee's "educational" evaluation was not
appropriate. Because the School Committee chose not to challenge
that finding, Joanna S. is a prevailing party with respect to that
one portion of her claim and is thus eligible for fees. See A.R.
ex. rel. R.V. v. N.Y. City Dep't of Educ., 407 F.3d 65, 75 (2d Cir.
2005) ("[A] plaintiff who receives [hearing officer]-ordered relief
on the merits in an IDEA administrative proceeding is a 'prevailing
party.' He or she may therefore be entitled to payment of
attorneys' fees under IDEA's fee-shifting provisions."). We remand
so the District Court may consider in the first instance whether
and to what extent attorneys' fees should be ordered.
VI.
As we have explained, evaluations are crucial to IDEA.
They help ensure children receive the free appropriate public
education Congress envisioned. It is thus not surprising that
disputes arise over IDEA evaluations. But in addition to providing
an administrative process for addressing such disputes, Congress
also expressly allowed parties to resolve them through settlements.
And when parties do so, the settlements must be given appropriate
effect. For the reasons given above, we affirm the District
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Court's reversal of the Hearing Officer's orders regarding the
occupational therapy and psychoeducational evaluations. We also
remand for the District Court to consider whether Joanna S. is
entitled to attorneys' fees based on her success in securing the
Hearing Officer's order for an independent educational evaluation.
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Outcome: Affirmed

Plaintiff's Experts:

Defendant's Experts:

Comments: