J. et al v. Mansfield et al
Filing
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MEMORANDUM Opinion and Order. Signed by the Honorable Joan B. Gottschall on 11/26/2013. Mailed notice(meg, )
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
EASTERN DIVISION
B.J., and T.J. and J.J., Individually and as next
friends of B.J.,
Plaintiffs,
v.
HOMEWOOD FLOSSMOOR CHSD #233,
DR. VON MANSFIELD, in his Official
Capacity as Superintendent; ILLINOIS STATE
BOARD OF EDUCATION; CHRISTOPHER
KOCH, in his Official Capacity as State
Superintendent,
Defendants.
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Case No. 13 C 2585
Judge Joan B. Gottschall
MEMORANDUM OPINION & ORDER
Plaintiffs B.J., a student in Defendant Homewood Flossmoor Community High School
District #233 (“the District”), and T.J. and J.J., next friends of B.J., bring suit under the
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (“the IDEA”), 20 U.S.C. § 1400 et seq., which
requires states to provide a “free appropriate public education” to disabled children in exchange
for federal funding. In Count I of the complaint, the plaintiffs challenge the appropriateness of
the residential treatment placement that the District proposed to further B.J.’s individual
education plan (“IEP”).
In Count II, they bring a claim pursuant to Section 504 of the
Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. § 794(a), alleging discrimination by the Illinois State Board of
Education (“ISBE”) and State Superintendent Christopher Koch against students with severe
obsessive compulsive disorder (“OCD”).
They claim that ISBE regulations do not allow
reimbursement for placement of such students at any educational facility equipped to address
their disability.
Now before the court is the motion of the ISBE and Superintendent Koch to dismiss
Count II of the complaint pursuant to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) and (6). The
ISBE argues that the plaintiffs lack standing to bring their Rehabilitation Act claim, and that the
claims against Superintendent Koch and the ISBE are redundant. The plaintiffs do not object to
the dismissal of the claim against Superintendent Koch, and that claim is dismissed. For the
reasons explained below, the court denies the motion as to the ISBE.
I. BACKGROUND
The background of this case was summarized in the court’s August 30, 2013, opinion,
addressing the scope of the evidence the plaintiffs may present in support of their IDEA claim.
(See Mem. Op. & Order, Aug. 30, 2013, ECF No. 45.) In brief, after attempts to provide B.J.
with educational services at home failed, the plaintiffs and the District agreed that a residential
placement would be necessary to implement B.J.’s individual education plan (“IEP”). The
plaintiffs proposed that B.J. attend a short-term residential program at a hospital in Wisconsin
(“the OCD Center”), which the plaintiffs contend is the only facility they have located that can
treat students with OCD as severe as that from which B.J. suffers. The OCD Center provides
Exposure Response Prevention (“ERP”) therapy, a form of cognitive behavior therapy for OCD.
The parties agree that ERP therapy is necessary to implement B.J.’s IEP.
The District refused the plaintiffs’ proposed placement and proposed that B.J. be placed
at a residential facility in Montana. The plaintiffs objected to this placement and requested a due
process hearing before an impartial hearing officer (“IHO”).
After the hearing, the IHO
concluded that the OCD Center was not an appropriate placement for B.J. because it was not a
primarily educational facility. He further concluded that the Montana facility was an appropriate
placement for B.J. The plaintiffs challenge those conclusions in their IDEA claim in Count I of
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the complaint. They argue that the Montana facility is not an appropriate or safe placement for
B.J. because it lacks staff with sufficient training in ERP therapy and experience in working with
youth with severe OCD. They further argue that the OCD Center will provide instruction
appropriate to meet B.J.’s IEP goals and is the only placement that will enable B.J. to make
progress toward those goals.
With respect to the Rehabilitation Act claim in Count II of the complaint, the plaintiffs
allege that ISBE is the state agency which administers public education in the state of Illinois and
that, because ISBE receives federal financial assistance, it is subject to the requirements of
Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act.
Pursuant to the Illinois School Code, the ISBE
“promulgate[s] the rules and regulations for determining when placement in a private special
education facility is appropriate.” 105 Ill. Comp. Stat. 5/14-7.02. The ISBE’s rules bar school
districts from placing students in nonpublic programs which the ISBE has not approved. Under
the ISBE’s rules, a school district receives no reimbursement for students who are placed in a
program that is not approved by the ISBE.
According to the complaint, the list of nonpublic special education programs approved by
the ISBE contains no programs that provide ERP therapy. The plaintiffs allege that without such
therapy, students with severe OCD are unable to access educational services and are denied the
benefits of a free and appropriate public education, in violation of the Rehabilitation Act.
Plaintiffs ask the court to “[o]rder that ISBE develop and implement a procedure to make
reimbursable education placements not on its list of approved facilities, when they are necessary
for students with severe disabilities to access a free appropriate public education.” (Compl. at
17, ECF No. 1.) The ISBE has moved to dismiss the Rehabilitation Act claim for lack of
standing.
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II. LEGAL STANDARD
Whether a plaintiff has standing to bring a lawsuit is a jurisdictional requirement that may
be challenged through a motion made pursuant to Rule 12(b)(1). When deciding a motion to
dismiss for lack of standing, the court accepts as true all material allegations in the complaint and
draws all reasonable inferences in the plaintiff’s favor. Lee v. City of Chi., 330 F.3d 456, 468
(7th Cir. 2003). The plaintiff bears the burden of establishing the required elements of Article III
standing. Id. (citing Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 561 (1992)). “Those elements
are (i) an injury in fact, which is an invasion of a legally protected interest that is concrete and
particularized and, thus, actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical; (ii) a causal
relationship between the injury and the challenged conduct, such that the injury can be fairly
traced to the challenged action of the defendant; and (iii) a likelihood that the injury will be
redressed by a favorable decision.” Id. (citing Lujan, 504 U.S. at 560-61)).
II. ANALYSIS
The Rehabilitation Act provides, “No otherwise qualified individual with a disability in
the United States . . . shall, solely by reason of her or his disability, be excluded from the
participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or
activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” 29 U.S.C. § 794(a). A plaintiff may bring
claims under both the IDEA and the Rehabilitation Act, provided that the administrative
remedies required by the IDEA are exhausted when the relief sought is also available under the
IDEA. 20 U.S.C. § 1415.
The ISBE argues that the plaintiffs lack standing to bring a Rehabilitation Act claim
against the ISBE because they cannot satisfy the second and third requirements for Article III
standing: a causal relationship between their injury and the ISBE’s conduct, and redressability
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of that injury by a favorable decision. Lee, 330 F.3d at 468. According to the ISBE, the
plaintiffs’ alleged injury—the District’s failure to place B.J. at the OCD Center—is not fairly
traceable to the conduct of the ISBE. The ISBE regulations did not cause B.J. to be denied
placement at the facility because those regulations played no role in the IHO’s decisions that the
OCD was not an appropriate placement for B.J., and that the Montana facility was appropriate.
In support of its argument, the ISBE cites two district court decisions from New York:
Yamen v. Board of Education of Arlington Central School District, 909 F. Supp. 207, 209
(S.D.N.Y. 1996), and M.M. v. Board of Education of the Waterville Central School District, 963
F. Supp. 185, 189 (N.D.N.Y. 1997). Although these cases are neither recent nor from this
circuit, they do present facts similar to those at issue here. In Yamen, the court concluded that
parents of a disabled student lacked standing to challenge the state’s denial of tuition
reimbursement for the non-approved private school they preferred for their child. After a due
process hearing, an impartial hearing officer had concluded that the private school was not an
appropriate placement and denied the parents’ request for tuition reimbursement. 909 F. Supp. at
210. In M.M., the court granted summary judgment for the New York State Department of
Education, holding that a hearing officer’s decision that a private placement was inappropriate
for a student prevented the plaintiffs from demonstrating a nexus between their alleged injury
and the state’s refusal to reimburse placements at non-approved private schools. 963 F. Supp. at
190.
In both cases, the courts concluded that the decision of the hearing officer, not the state
regulations, was the actual cause of the plaintiffs’ alleged injuries, and that the plaintiffs
therefore lacked standing to challenge the regulations. The ISBE argues that similarly, here, the
plaintiffs’ inability to secure their preferred placement at the OCD Center was caused not by the
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ISBE regulations allowing reimbursement only for approved residential programs, but by the
IHO’s decision that the OCD Center was not an appropriate placement for B.J.
The plaintiffs respond that they have alleged an injury—the denial of an appropriate
educational placement for B.J.—that is fairly traceable to the ISBE’s conduct. They point out
that the Supreme Court held in Bennett v. Spear that the actions or policies of a defendant need
not be the “last step in the chain of causation,” but may have had a “determinative or coercive
effect upon the action of someone else.” 520 U.S. 154, 169 (1997). They argue that the ISBE’s
regulations, which allegedly discriminated against students with severe OCD by disallowing
reimbursement of any facility equipped to provide ERP therapy to such students, had “coercive”
and “determinative” effects that lead to their injury.
According to the plaintiffs, the District refused to place B.J. at the OCD Center because it
was not on the ISBE’s list of approved nonpublic placements. Had the OCD Center been on the
list, the District would have placed B.J. there, as it was the only available facility that could
provide treatment and instruction for a student with B.J.’s condition. The ISBE refused to
approve the OCD Center as a residential facility because it did not provide sufficient daily
classroom time, even though, according to the complaint, B.J.’s condition prevents him from
participating in a classroom setting for more than short periods of time. Thus, the ISBE’s failure
to approve any facility equipped to treat B.J.’s condition prevented him from accessing
educational benefits.
The court acknowledges that the traceability and redressability prongs of the standing
analysis are problematic when a third party must act in order for an injury to arise or be
redressed, or when an independent decision precludes relief to a plaintiff. The facts alleged in
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this case, however, are sufficient to make the plaintiffs’ injury fairly traceable to the ISBE’s
failure to approve any program that can treat students with severe OCD.
Accepting the allegations in the complaint as true and drawing all inferences in favor of
the plaintiffs, no residential program can simultaneously meet the requirements of the ISBE,
which include a minimum of five hours of classroom instruction a day, and also provide an
appropriate education for a student with severe OCD who cannot participate in a classroom
setting for such a long period of time. Because a school district receives no reimbursement for
students who are placed in a program that is not approved by ISBE, no district will place a
student with severe OCD in a residential program that can meet his needs.
It was these
regulations that caused the District to object to the plaintiffs’ proposed placement for B.J.
The court acknowledges the factual similarities between this case and Yamen and M.M.,
but it finds those cases distinguishable for two reasons.
First, drawing inferences in the
plaintiffs’ favor, the court finds that the District’s refusal to place B.J. at the OCD Center was a
direct result of the ISBE’s failure to approve it as a residential placement. In other words, had
the ISBE approved the OCD Center, the District would have agreed to place B.J. there, and the
due process hearing before the impartial hearing officer would not have been required. Second,
in the New York cases, the state failed to approve the specific private placement preferred by the
plaintiffs, but other placements had been approved by the state that could have provided the
students in question with an appropriate education. In this case, however, the complaint alleges
that the OCD Center is the only facility that can provide B.J. with an appropriate education. The
ISBE has not approved any program that is appropriate for students with severe OCD. As a
result, any student with B.J.’s condition will be required to seek the intervention of an IHO and
possibly a district court in order to secure the educational benefits guaranteed by the
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Rehabilitation Act. The student will be denied the benefits of an education during the oftenlengthy time required to engage in that process. The court concludes that the allegations in the
complaint are sufficient to make the plaintiffs’ injury fairly traceable to the ISBE’s failure to
approve a residential placement appropriate for students with severe OCD.
Finally, the court concludes that the plaintiffs have also satisfied the redressability
requirement for Article III standing. The plaintiffs have asked the court to order the ISBE to
implement a procedure to make non-approved facilities reimburseable when necessary to allow
students with severe disabilities such as B.J.’s to access a free appropriate public education.
Were this request granted and reimbursement for the placement at the OCD Center ensured, the
District would likely agree to place B.J. there. The plaintiff’s injury would be redressed. The
ISBE’s motion to dismiss Count II of the complaint is therefore denied.
III. CONCLUSION
For the reasons explained above, Count II of the complaint is dismissed against
Superintendent Koch, but the ISBE’s motion to dismiss Count II for lack of standing is denied.
ENTER:
/s/
JOAN B. GOTTSCHALL
United States District Judge
DATED: November 26, 2013
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