The U.S. Supreme Court recently issued a 9-0 decision in the case of Miguel Luna Perez v. Sturgis Public Schools, holding that exhaustion under the administrative procedures outlined in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is not always a prerequisite for seeking relief under other federal anti-discrimination laws. Specifically, the Court held that IDEA’s exhaustion requirement did not preclude a student from separately bringing action under the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) for monetary damages – a remedy that is not available under IDEA.
This holding establishes that a party can file a federal action for remedies without going through the IDEA administrative process as long as those remedies are not remedies the IDEA provides.
Former student Miguel Luna Perez, who is deaf, attended Sturgis Public Schools. He was on an IEP that provided him classroom aides who translated his instruction into sign language. The District advanced him from grade to grade and noted that he was passing his courses. Yet several months before his graduation, the District notified his parents that he was not on track to graduate with a regular diploma. It was ultimately determined that Perez’s classroom aides were either unqualified or absent from the classroom for periods of several hours. It was alleged that the District misrepresented Perez’s educational progress by inflating his grades and promoting him each year, despite his lack of progress. Perez’s parents filed a complaint with the Michigan Department of Education, under the IDEA’s complaint process, alleging that the District had failed to provide Perez with a free appropriate public education (FAPE) under the IDEA. Prior to the case going to an administrative hearing, the parties reached a settlement.
After settling his complaint under the IDEA, Perez filed suit against the District in federal district court under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), seeking compensatory damages for emotional distress. However, the District Court dismissed Perez’s suit, since Perez had not exhausted all the IDEA’s dispute resolution procedures because he had settled his case. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, which governs Ohio, affirmed the dismissal based on prior precedent in the Circuit that required exhaustion of administrative remedies.
The U.S. Supreme Court took the case, since there was a split among federal circuits in interpreting the IDEA’s exhaustion requirement. The Court explained that “relief” in the exhaustion requirement is synonymous with “remedy,” so that the exhaustion requirement does not apply “if the remedy a plaintiff seeks is not one IDEA provides.” The Court concluded that the exhaustion requirement does not apply because compensatory damages are not available under the IDEA.
This decision departs from prior case law and now allows a student and the student’s parents to proceed directly to court for monetary damages in cases which previously would have needed to go through the IDEA hearing process first. We may very well see more parents choose to start their case in court, where they may obtain monetary damages, but then also proceed with the IDEA administrative process, where they can seek compensatory education, reimbursement for enrollment in private schools, reimbursement for private evaluations, or other IDEA-based remedies.