DOE v. REGIONAL SCHOOL UNIT 21
Filing
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DECISION AND ORDER ON PLAINTIFF'S MOTION TO DISMISS THE DEFENDANT'S COUNTERCLAIM denying 13 Motion to Dismiss - By JUDGE D. BROCK HORNBY. (mnw)
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF MAINE
JANE DOE,
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v.
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REGIONAL SCHOOL UNIT NO. 21, )
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DEFENDANT
PLAINTIFF
NO. 2:11-cv-025-DBH
DECISION AND ORDER ON PLAINTIFF’S
MOTION TO DISMISS THE DEFENDANT’S COUNTERCLAIM
The issue on this motion to dismiss a counterclaim is whether the
counterclaim is untimely or moot. I conclude that it is neither, and DENY the
motion to dismiss.
PROCEDURAL POSTURE
In August 2010, the plaintiff filed a hearing request challenging Regional
School Unit No. 21’s (the “School District”) proposed Individual Education Plan
(“Plan” or “IEP”) for her son under the Individuals with Disabilities Education
Act (“IDEA”).
Following an administrative hearing, a hearing officer vacated the School
District’s proposed Plan, and ordered the School District to conduct a
functional behavioral assessment, develop a behavior intervention plan, and
then incorporate this plan into a new IEP.
Hearing at 36-37 (Docket Item 5).
Special Education Due Process
The School District complied with these
elements of the Hearing Officer’s decision, Opp’n to Pl.’s Mot. to Dismiss
Counterclaim at 5 (Docket Item 16), but the plaintiff was not content with the
School District’s new IEP and proposed placement of her son thereafter.
On January 20, 2011, the plaintiff filed this federal lawsuit, in her words
“challenging only the portion of the [Hearing Officer’s] remedial order that
improperly delegated to the [School] District the hearing officer’s legal authority
to make the determination—without further review or opportunity for [the
plaintiff] to challenge—whether [her son] required placement in a segregated,
self-contained behavior classroom placement, based on the results of the
[functional behavioral assessment] and the new IEP.”
Mot. to Dismiss
Counterclaim at 3 (Docket Item 13).1 On March 8, 2011, the School District
filed an answer and asserted a counterclaim, challenging the rest of the
Hearing Officer’s decision. Answer and Counterclaim (Docket Item 10). The
plaintiff then filed this motion to dismiss the counterclaim on the grounds that
it is both moot and untimely. Mot. to Dismiss Counterclaim at 4-5.
ANALYSIS
Mootness
“When a case is moot -- that is, when the issues presented are no longer
live or when the parties lack a legally cognizable interest in the outcome -- a
case or controversy ceases to exist, and dismissal of the action is compulsory.”
Cruz v. Farquharson, 252 F.3d 530, 533 (1st Cir. 2001). The plaintiff says that
the counterclaim is moot because the School District has already complied with
the Hearing Officer’s order that it undertake a behavioral assessment, develop
1
The plaintiff’s complaint also seeks attorney’s fees. Compl. at 10-11 (Docket Item 1).
2
a new behavior plan, and review its school placement decision.
Mot. to
Dismiss Counterclaim at 5-7.2
Here, the underlying dispute over the appropriateness of the School
District’s IEP and school placement decision for the plaintiff’s son remains
unresolved. Although the School District defends what it has done in response
to the Hearing Officer’s decision, it also maintains that the plaintiff is not
entitled to the relief she seeks in this federal lawsuit because the Hearing
Officer erred in finding the School District’s original IEP inappropriate. Opp’n
to Pl.’s Mot. to Dismiss Counterclaim at 5 & n.3.
Since the plaintiff continues to challenge her son’s placement and seeks
various forms of relief, the School District is entitled to resist her claims both
by asserting the appropriateness of what it did in response to the Hearing
Officer’s decision and by arguing that nothing was wrong with the original
placement.3 “Compliance . . . does not moot an appeal if other issues remain
to be decided . . .” 13B C. Wright, A. Miller, and E. Cooper, Federal Practice
and Procedure § 3533.2.2, at 857 (3d ed. 2008). “To establish mootness, the
party raising it must show that the court cannot grant any ‘effectual relief
whatever’ to its opponent.” N.H. Motor Transp. Ass’n v. Rowe, 448 F.3d 66, 73
(1st Cir. 2006) (quoting Church of Scientology of Cal. v. United States, 506 U.S.
9, 12-13 (1992)). The School District’s counterclaim is not moot.
2 The School District concedes that it complied with these aspects of the Hearing Officer’s
decision. Opp’n to Pl.’s Mot. to Dismiss Counterclaim at 5 (Docket Item 16).
3 It did so in its Answer and Counterclaim at 15 (Docket Item 10) and in its Opposition to the
Plaintiff’s Motion to Dismiss the Counterclaim at 5-7.
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Statute of Limitations
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act authorizes any party
aggrieved by an administrative decision to bring a civil action in federal court.
20 U.S.C. § 1415(i)(2)(A).
It also states that “[t]he party bringing the action
shall have 90 days from the date of the decision of the hearing officer to bring
[the] action, or, if the State has an explicit time limitation for bringing [the]
action . . . , in such time as the State law allows.” 20 U.S.C. § 1415(i)(2)(B).
Here, the Maine Unified Special Education Regulation provides the same
limitations period. 10-05 Code of Maine Rules, ch. 101, § XVI.19(B) (“The party
bringing the action shall have 90 days from the date of the decision of the
hearing officer . . . to file a civil action”).
The plaintiff filed this lawsuit on January 20, 2011, within 90 days of the
hearing officer’s November 17, 2010 decision.
process on February 15, 2011.
It then completed service of
The defendant filed its answer and
counterclaim on March 8, 2011, within the applicable response deadline to the
complaint, but more than 90 days after the hearing officer’s decision.
The
plaintiff contends that I must dismiss the counterclaim as untimely. Mot. to
Dismiss Counterclaim at 7. I disagree for the following reasons.
This court previously rejected such an argument in Mr. and Mrs. R. v.
Maine School Administrative District No. 35, also an action brought under the
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. See Mr. and Mrs. R., No. 00-367,
2001 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 25080, at *6-8 (D. Me. Feb. 20, 2001), aff’d, 2001 U.S.
Dist. LEXIS 25079 (D. Me. Apr. 2, 2001). At the time of that decision, the IDEA
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did not have the specific limitations period I have quoted.
Mr. and Mrs. R.
nevertheless adopted the majority view that “the institution of [a] plaintiff’s suit
tolls or suspends the running of the statute of limitations governing a
compulsory counterclaim.”
6 C. Wright, A. Miller, and M. Kane, Federal
Practice and Procedure § 1419, at 179-80 (3d ed. 2010); see also, e.g.,
Kirkpatrick v. Lenoir Cnty. Bd. of Educ., 216 F.3d 380, 388 (4th Cir. 2000) (“a
compulsory counterclaim relates back to the time of the filing of the plaintiff's
complaint”); Giordano v. Claudio, 714 F. Supp. 2d 508, 522-23 (E.D. Pa. 2010)
(same); N. Cnty. Commc’ns. Corp. v. Verizon Global Networks, Inc., 685 F.
Supp. 2d 1112, 1119 (S.D. Cal. 2010) (same).4
(Here, the School District’s
counterclaim is compulsory because it arises from the same administrative
hearing and decision, involves the same child and school district, and relies on
the same law. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 13(a)(1)(A) (a counterclaim is compulsory if it
“arises out of the transaction or occurrence that is the subject matter of the
opposing party's claim.”).)
Moreover, the language of the explicit limitations provision later added to
the IDEA requires that conclusion.5
Both the Third and Fifth Circuits have
held that this new “plain language . . . allows for a compulsory counterclaim to
The plaintiff attempts to distinguish Mr. and Mrs. R. by arguing that the statute of limitations
period is tolled for “defensive counterclaims” such as claims for recoupment, but not for
“affirmative counterclaims” that state independent causes of action.
Mot. to Dismiss
Counterclaim at 8-9. Mr. and Mrs. R. did not make this distinction. Furthermore, the Fifth
Circuit has recently rejected that argument. Ruben A. v. El Paso Indep. Sch. Dist., No. 0950966, 2011 U.S. App. LEXIS 3906, at *5-8 (5th Cir. Mar. 1, 2011) (reversing district court
decision relying on this distinction).
5 Congress amended the IDEA to provide this statute of limitations provision in 2004, effective
July 1, 2005. See Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004, Pub. L.
No. 108-446, sec. 101, § 615(i)(2)(B), 118 Stat. 2647, 2724 (2004).
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be filed beyond the 90-day window for bringing a civil action.” Johnson H. v.
The Souderton Area Sch. Dist., 562 F.3d 527, 530 (3d Cir. 2009); Ruben A. v.
El Paso Independent Sch. Dist., No. 09-50966, 2011 U.S. App. LEXIS 3906, at
*5-8 (5th Cir. Mar. 1, 2011). The Third Circuit explained that in the language
of the new limitations provision, “a defendant does not ‘bring an action’ by
asserting a counterclaim” because “a counterclaim is reactive” and “filed only
after the plaintiff has initiated the case by a bringing a civil action.” Johnson
H., 562 F.3d at 529-30. The 90-day limit applies only to a plaintiff, the party
who “may ‘bring an action.’” Id. at 530; see also Ruben A., 2011 U.S. App.
LEXIS 3906, at *8 (statute of limitations provision “specifically applies to ‘[t]he
party bringing the action’ and neither expressly nor impliedly limits the filing of
counterclaims in response to civil actions brought in federal court”); D.B. v.
Sutton Sch. Dist., No. 10-10897, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11033, at *11 (D.
Mass. Feb. 3, 2011) (adopting the reasoning of the Third Circuit).
This
reasoning is persuasive.
In the absence of a First Circuit ruling, I follow the Third and Fifth
Circuits. Accordingly, the School District’s compulsory counterclaim is timely.
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CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, I DENY the plaintiff’s motion to dismiss the
defendant’s counterclaim.
SO ORDERED.
DATED THIS 1ST DAY OF JUNE, 2011
/S/D. BROCK HORNBY
D. BROCK HORNBY
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
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