Prunty v. United States Department of Education et al

Filing 123

OPINION AND ORDER denying 107 Motion for reconsideration; denying 111 Omnibus Motion in Opposition; denying 119 Motion and Notice to Defendant; denying 121 Direct Opposition Motion; denying as moot 122 Motion to Strike. The Clerk shall enter judgment dismissing the case without prejudice pursuant to the Court's February 1, 2017 106 Order. Signed by Judge John E. Steele on 3/29/2017. (RKR)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
MIDDLE DISTRICT OF FLORIDA
FORT MYERS DIVISION
ROBERT R. PRUNTY, JR.,
Plaintiff,
v.

Case No: 2:16-cv-577-FtM-99CM

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF
EDUCATION, THE DESOTO COUNTY
SCHOOL DISTRICT, THE JACK
NICKLAUS MIAMI CHILDREN’S
HOSPITAL, INC., KARYN E.
GARY, FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF
EDUCATION,
THE
FLORIDA
AGENCY
FOR
HEALTH
CARE
ADMINISTRATION,
ELIZABETH
DUDEK, PAMELA STEWART, ALEX
SOTO, and JOHN KING,
Defendants.
OPINION AND ORDER
This matter comes before the Court on pro se plaintiff Robert
J. Prunty, Jr.’s (plaintiff or Prunty) Motion for Reconsideration
Pursuant to Federal Rules 56 and 60 due to Newly Discovered
Evidence, Fraud Upon the Court, and Need to Prevent Manifest
Injustice (Doc. #107) filed on February 13, 2017.

Defendant

DeSoto County School District filed a response in opposition (Doc.
#108) on February 17, 2017.

On February 23, 2017, this Court

granted other defendants an extension of time to respond and
requested that defendants address what implications, if any, Fry
v. Napoleon Community Schools, 137 S. Ct. 743 (2017) has on whether

reconsideration of the Court’s February 1, 2017 Opinion and Order
dismissing plaintiff’s First Amended Complaint for failure to
exhaust

administrative

Disabilities

Education

remedies
Act

(IDEA)

under
(Doc.

the

Individuals

#106),

is

with

warranted.

(Doc. #112.)

The Court also allowed plaintiff the opportunity

file a reply.

(Id.)

Having reviewed defendant Florida Medicaid’s response (Doc.
#113), and plaintiff’s motions, which the Court construes as
replies to defendants’ responses (Docs. ##111, 119, 121), the Court
denies the request for reconsideration.
I.
A non-final order may be revised at any time before the entry
of a final judgment.

Fed. R. Civ. P. 54(b).

The decision to

grant a motion for reconsideration is within the sound discretion
of the trial court and may be granted to correct an abuse of
discretion.

Region 8 Forest Serv. Timber Purchasers Council v.

Alcock, 993 F.2d 800, 806 (11th Cir. 1993). “The courts have
delineated three major grounds justifying reconsideration of such
a decision: (1) an intervening change in controlling law; (2) the
availability of new evidence; (3) the need to correct clear error
or

prevent

manifest

injustice.”

Sussman

v.

Salem,

Nielsen, P.A., 153 F.R.D. 689, 694 (M.D. Fla. 1994).

Saxon

&

Furthermore,

the Court has the inherent power to assess sanctions for a party’s
bad-faith conduct, including setting aside judgments for fraud on

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the court and imposing attorney fees and costs, independent of
statutory or rule provisions.
32, 44-50 (1991).

Chambers v. NASCO, Inc., 501 U.S.

According to plaintiff, reconsideration is

warranted because of newly discovered evidence, the need to prevent
manifest injustice due to defendants’ fraud on the court, and an
intervening change in the law.
II.
A. Fraud on the Court
Fraud on the court is defined as “embracing only that species
of fraud which does or attempts to, defile the court itself, or is
a fraud perpetrated by officers of the court so that the judicial
machinery cannot perform in the usual manner its impartial task of
adjudging cases that are presented for adjudication, and relief
should be denied in the absence of such conduct.”

Securities &

Exchange Commission v. ESM Group, Inc., 835 F.2d 270, 273 (11th
Cir. 1988) (citing Travelers Indemnity Co. v. Gore, 761 F.2d 1549,
1551 (11th Cir. 1985)).
Plaintiff first argues that defendants falsely claimed in
their motions to dismiss that plaintiff failed to exhaust his
administrative remedies under the IDEA when exhaustion is not
required.

This is not fraud on the court, this is advocacy, albeit

a position that plaintiff does not agree with.

The Court addressed

exhaustion in its Opinion and Order on defendants’ motions to
dismiss, and found that based on the allegations in plaintiff’s

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First

Amended

Complaint

(Doc.

#43)

exhaustion

administrative procedures is required.

of

the

IDEA’s

There is no basis for

reconsideration.
Second, as further support for fraud on the court, plaintiff
raises the statute of limitations for the first time.

Plaintiff

argues that when he re-filed this action on May 6, 2016 (Doc. #1),
he did it “with full knowledge that the IDEA statute of limitations
had expired on March 3, 2016.”

(Doc. #107, ¶¶ 7, 9.)

Plaintiff

states that defendants intentionally failed to mention the expired
statute of limitations to the Court because they knew that his
case did not seek relief under the IDEA.
¶ 13.)

(Id. at ¶ 11; Doc. #111,

Despite knowing that relief was not being sought under the

IDEA, defendants moved to dismiss on this basis anyway.

(Id.)

Defendants responds that this accusation is false and the newlyproclaimed argument was not apparent on the face of the Complaint.
(Doc. #1).

Defendants state that they could not have committed

fraud by not correcting plaintiff’s own error for him.
The Court finds no fraud on the court.

Rather, this is simply

another attempt by plaintiff to reargue his position that he does
not seek relief under the IDEA and is exempt from the exhaustion
requirement.

The

Court

has

found

that

plaintiff’s

Amended

Complaint clearly does seek such relief (Doc. #106 at n.1), and
that has not changed.

In fact, plaintiff continues to invoke the

IDEA in his motion for reconsideration, stating that “it is only

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plaintiff who claimed he himself never received IDEA procedural
safeguards.” 1

(Doc. #107, ¶ 14; Doc. #121, ¶¶ 6, 9.)

B. Intervening Change in Controlling Law
In support of his argument for an intervening change in
controlling law, plaintiff cites the Sixth Circuit’s decision in
Fry v. Napoleon Community Schools, 788 F.3d 622 (6th Cir. 2015),
and particularly its dissenting opinion, which states: “Non-IDEA
claims that do not seek relief available under the IDEA are not
subject to the exhaustion requirement.”
Doc. #107 at 16-17.

Fry, 788 F.3d at 635;

The Sixth Circuit’s opinion was issued prior

to the Court’s Opinion and Order dismissing the First Amended
Complaint (Doc. #106), and the Supreme Court had not yet issued
its opinion at that time. 2
In

Fry,

the

Supreme

Court

vacated

the

Sixth

Circuit’s

decision, finding that exhaustion under the IDEA is required when
a lawsuit challenges the denial of a Free Appropriate Public
Education (FAPE), and that a plaintiff cannot escape the exhaustion
requirement “merely by bringing her suit under a statute other
than the IDEA.”

137 S. Ct. at 754.

“[If] the remedy sought is

1

As noted by the Court in its Opinion and Order on dismissal,
parents of covered children are “entitled to prosecute IDEA claims
on their own behalf.” (Doc. #106, citing Winkelman v. Parma City
Sch. Dist., 550 U.S. 516, 535 (2007)).
2

The United States Supreme Court reversed and remanded the
Sixth Circuit’s decision on February 22, 2017.

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not for the denial of a FAPE, then exhaustion of the IDEA’s
procedures is not required.

After all, the plaintiff could not

get any relief from those procedures.”

Id.

The Supreme Court

noted that even if a complaint is not framed or phrased to
precisely allege a school’s failure to provide FAPE, the gravamen
of the complaint is what matters; otherwise, a plaintiff could
evade the IDEA’s restrictions through artful pleading.
755.

Id. at

Moreover, the Supreme Court stated: “A further sign that the

gravamen of a suit is the denial of a FAPE can emerge from the
history of the proceedings.
that

a

plaintiff

has

In particular, a court may consider

previously

invoked

the

IDEA’s

formal

procedures to handle the dispute — thus starting to exhaust the
Act’s remedies before switching midstream.”

Id. at 757.

Here, Fry is not an intervening change in the law that
warrants reconsideration.

Instead, it is an affirmation of the

approach taken in the Court’s prior Opinion and Order (Doc. #106).
Plaintiff argues that the dismissal should be vacated because
he is not seeking relief under the IDEA, citing Fry (Doc. #107, ¶¶
7, 16, 19, 22, 25-60), yet he clearly is.

As previously noted by

the Court, the gravamen of plaintiff’s Amended Complaint involves
the denial of a FAPE, and seeks relief under the IDEA as plaintiff
alleges that defendants denied him the benefits of federal programs
and the right to make and enforce Individualized Education Program
contracts (IEPs) for his five children who have been diagnosed

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with Autism.

Plaintiff states that the “action is based upon

damages to Plaintiff personally under Title VI, IDEA and 42 U.S.C.
§ 1983, respectively.”

(Doc. #43, ¶ 1; Doc. #106, n. 1 and p. 4,

citing Babicz v. Sch. Bd. of Broward Cnty., 135 F.3d 1420, 1422
n.10 (11th Cir. 1998) (“[A]ny student who wants relief that is
available under the IDEA must use the IDEA’s administrative system
Furthermore, the Court

even if he invokes a different statute.”))

noted in its Opinion and Order that plaintiff previously invoked
the IDEA’s administrative remedies, but abandoned them because
plaintiff believed that the Administrative Law Judge was biased
and had set his case in “legal limbo” to cause delay of the
proceedings.

(Doc. #43, ¶ 20.)

As the Supreme Court in Fry

stated, this is a sign that the gravamen of a complaint is the
denial of a FAPE, requiring exhaustion.

Fry, 136 S. Ct. at 757.

Therefore, reconsideration on the basis of an intervening change
in the law is denied.
C. Newly Discovered Evidence
Plaintiff has cited no newly discovered evidence that was not
before

the

Court

when

it

ruled

on

the

motions

Therefore, reconsideration on this basis is denied.
Accordingly, it is hereby
ORDERED AND ADJUDGED:

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to

dismiss.

1.

Plaintiff’s

Motion

for

Reconsideration

due

to

Newly

Discovered Evidence, Fraud Upon the Court, and Need to Prevent
Manifest Injustice (Doc. #107) is DENIED.
2.

Plaintiff’s Omnibus Motion in Opposition to the School

District of DeSoto County’s Constant Vexatious Filings (Doc. #111)
is DENIED.
3.
District

Plaintiff’s
of

DeSoto

Motion
County

and

Notice

Invoking

to

Contempt

Defendant
of

Court

School
due

to

Intentional Violation of Court Orders Regarding Fry v. Napoleon
(Doc. #119) is DENIED.
4.

Plaintiff’s Direct Opposition to the School District of

DeSoto County’s Further Cumulative and Vexatious Filings (Doc.
#121) is DENIED.
5.

AHCA’s Motion to Strike Plaintiff’s Unauthorized Reply

(Doc. #122) is DENIED as moot.
6.

The Clerk is directed to enter judgment dismissing this

case without prejudice in accordance with this Court’s February 1,
2017 Order (Doc. #106).
DONE and ORDERED at Fort Myers, Florida, this
of March, 2017.

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29th

day

Copies:
Plaintiff
Counsel of Record

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