Chambers v. School District of Philadelphia Board of Education , 537 F. App'x 90 ( 2013 )

NOT PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
_____________
No. 12-3574
_____________
RONALD E. CHAMBERS; LESLIE A. CHAMBERS,
As guardians of Ferren Chambers, an incapacitated person,
Appellants
v.
SCHOOL DISTRICT OF PHILADELPHIA BOARD OF EDUCATION
On Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
(District Court No. 2-05-cv-02535)
District Judge: Honorable Gene E. K. Pratter
Argued on May 23, 2013
Before: RENDELL and GREENAWAY, JR., Circuit Judges
and ROSENTHAL*, District Judge
(Opinion Filed: September 17, 2013)
Honorable Lee H. Rosenthal, Judge of the United States District Court for the
Southern District of Texas, sitting by designation.
Michael J. Torchia, Esquire (Argued)
Alfredo M. Sergio, Esquire
Semanoff, Ormsby, Greenberg & Torchia, LLC
2617 Huntingdon Pike
Huntingdon Valley, PA 19006
Counsel for Appellants
Jeffrey M. Scott, Esquire (Argued)
Richard G. Tuttle, Esquire
Archer & Greiner
1650 Market Street
One Liberty Place, 32nd Floor
Philadelphia, PA 19103
Counsel for Appellee
OPINION
RENDELL, Circuit Judge:
Ronald and Leslie Chambers, as guardians of their daughter, Ferren Chambers,
and in their own right, brought an action against the School District of Philadelphia,
arguing that the School District denied Ferren a free and appropriate public education
(“FAPE”) and seeking relief under the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act
(“IDEA”), the Rehabilitation Act (“RA”) and the Americans With Disabilities Act
(“ADA”). The present appeal concerns the District Court‟s denial of Appellants‟ motion
for summary judgment and grant of summary judgment in favor of the School District on
Appellants‟ RA and ADA claims. For the reasons stated below, we will affirm in part
and reverse in part the District Court‟s order.
2
I. Background1
Appellants filed this suit in May 2005. Their daughter Ferren, now 27 years old, is
severely developmentally disabled. She is autistic, suffers from seizures, and
communicates at the level of a young child.
In September 1990, Ferren entered a program for children with mental retardation
at the Farrell School, a public school, on the recommendation of a School District
psychologist. After three weeks, Mr. Chambers removed Ferren from Farrell because he
did not think that the program was appropriate given her condition. After a July 1991
hearing, a special education due process appeals panel established by the State‟s
Department of Education reclassified Ferren as an autistic person with pervasive
developmental delay and ordered the School District to place her in an autism-support
program and develop an individualized education plan (“IEP”) to address issues it
identified as: social relatedness, interaction, language, and activity level. In February
1992, the School District assigned Ferren to an autism-support program at its Greenfield
School. A year and a half later, against Appellants‟ wishes, the School District
transferred Ferren to another autism-support program at Loesche Elementary School.
After 11 and a half days of school there, Mr. Chambers removed Ferren from that school.
In November 1994, a school psychologist suggested that Ferren should be placed
in a more restrictive educational setting in a private school. Appellants agreed with this
suggestion, but the School District did not initially comply because it failed to locate a
1
The District Court had jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1331, and we have
jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291.
3
private school that had other autistic children and offered speech or occupational therapy.
In 1995, Appellants sent the School District a request for a due process hearing. After
some delay, the state appeals panel ordered the School District to implement the
psychologist‟s November 1994 recommendation to place Ferren in a private school. At
the beginning of the 1995-96 school year, when Ferren was 11 years old, the School
District placed her in the Wordsworth Academy.
In November 1996, Appellants again requested a due process hearing because they
thought that the School District was failing to provide Ferren with both speech therapy
and occupational therapy at Wordsworth, as Ferren‟s IEP required. The parties entered
into settlement agreements in both 1997 and 1998, in which the School District agreed to
provide Ferren with the speech and occupational therapy services she had not previously
received. In March 1999, in response to a complaint filed by Appellants, the
Pennsylvania Bureau of Special Education issued a report detailing the School District‟s
failure to provide the therapy services required by her IEP. After the report was issued,
the parties agreed that the School District would provide compensatory services at its
own expense. Those services were terminated, however, after the School District failed
to guarantee payments for the therapists that Appellants had identified.
In January 2001, the School District requested that Appellants permit a special
education consultant to evaluate Ferren‟s progress at Wordsworth. Appellants objected,
and another due process hearing ensued in September 2001. Ultimately, the evaluation
took place, and the consultant concluded that Ferren was the lowest functioning member
of her group at Wordsworth and suggested that she be placed in a school for severely
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mentally retarded students. Over the next two years, however, Ferren remained at
Wordsworth as Appellants and the School District engaged in a protracted disagreement
over the appropriate people to evaluate her. Meanwhile, in April 2002, Appellants filed
another complaint with the Bureau of Special Education, asserting that the School
District failed to provide speech and language services as well as occupational and
physical therapy to Ferren during the 2000-01 school year. The Bureau found that the
School District had not provided Ferren the therapy her IEP required.
In June 2003, the School District reconvened its IEP team. Appellants were
unhappy with the proposed IEP and requested another due process hearing. The hearing
took place in March 2004 before Hearing Officer Rosemary Mullaly. In April 2004,
Mullaly issued her decision, finding that Ferren had been denied a FAPE from 2001 until
April 2004 and awarding Ferren 3,180 hours of compensatory education. She also
ordered the School District to place $209,000 in an educational trust for Ferren‟s benefit.
Neither party appealed this decision.
Appellants commenced the present action on May 27, 2005, seeking compensatory
damages under the IDEA, RA, and ADA. The District Court granted summary judgment
in favor of the School District in 2007. On appeal, another panel of the Third Circuit
affirmed the dismissal of Appellants‟ IDEA claim but reversed and remanded the case to
the District Court for further proceedings on the RA and ADA claims. Chambers ex rel.
Chambers v. Sch. Dist. of Phila. Bd. of Educ., 587 F.3d 176 (3d Cir. 2009). That panel
found that Appellants had not waived their right to pursue their RA and ADA claims on
Ferren‟s behalf, as the District Court had found, and that there may have been a factual
5
issue as to whether the School District had violated these statutes as alleged. Id. at 188-
90.
Upon remand, both parties filed motions for summary judgment. The District
Court once again granted the School District‟s motion. Specifically, the District Court
found that Hearing Officer Mullaly‟s administrative decision was inadmissible and her
conclusions should not be given preclusive effect. Chambers ex. rel. Chambers v. Sch.
Dist. of Phila. Bd. of Educ., 827 F. Supp. 2d 409, 417-20 (E.D. Pa. 2011). The District
Court also held that Appellants had to prove intentional discrimination to support their
request for compensatory damages under the RA and ADA. (Id. at 420-25.). Although
the District Court did not address whether intentional discrimination required evidence
showing deliberate indifference, or whether it required evidence showing actual
discriminatory animus, it held that under either standard, Appellants had presented no
dispute of material fact as to intentional discrimination. (Id. at 425-28.) In October
2011, the District Court granted the School District‟s motion for summary judgment in its
entirety, but noted that “in the event a bona fide, good faith argument can be made that
the Chambers Plaintiffs erred in their understanding as to the „record‟ on which they
could or should base their summary judgment motion . . ., the Court would permit an
application for leave to re-open and supplement these summary judgment papers.” (Id. at
430.)
The District Court thereafter vacated its October 2011 order to allow the motion to
reopen and additional submissions. From November 2011 to January 2012, Appellants
filed motions to supplement the record and the School District responded. After
6
Appellants filed a “motion to alter judgment,” attaching documents that had not been part
of the pre-existing record, the Court made clear that it had given Appellants an
opportunity to file a motion for reconsideration “if they could direct the Court to
appropriate citations in the pre-existing summary judgment record, . . . and second, if
they could argue why, if at all, that evidence compels the Court to reconsider its grant of
summary judgment.” (J.A. 31 (emphasis in original).) The Court clarified that the
opportunity was “not an invitation to the Plaintiffs to re-file an entirely new motion for
summary judgment or to review and assemble hundreds and hundreds of educational
records.” (Id. (alterations and internal quotation marks omitted).)
The District Court, construing the motion to reopen to alter judgment as a motion
for reconsideration, ultimately denied Appellants‟ motion to reopen, concluding that they
had not met the reconsideration standard because they had not demonstrated an
intervening change in controlling law, the availability of new evidence which was not
available when the Court issued its order, or the need to correct a clear error of law or
fact or to prevent manifest injustice. Accordingly, the District Court issued its final
judgment, granting the School District‟s motion for summary judgment in its entirety on
August 15, 2012.
On appeal, Appellants argue that the District Court erred by: (1) granting the
School District‟s motion for summary judgment because this Court had already
determined that there was a factual dispute as to whether Ferren was denied a FAPE; (2)
denying their motion for partial summary judgment because it should have given the
findings of two previous administrative hearings preclusive effect; (3) determining that
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damages were available under the RA and ADA only upon a showing of intentional
discrimination; (4) determining that Ferren was not subjected to intentional
discrimination; (5) refusing to consider certain evidence offered by Appellants in
connection with the cross-motions for summary judgment; and (6) refusing to reconsider
its October 24, 2011 opinion granting the School District‟s motion for summary
judgment and denying Appellants‟ motion.
II. Standard of Review
Appellate review of an entry of summary judgment pursuant to Rule 56 of the
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure is plenary, and we apply the same standard as the
district court. Disabled in Action of Pa. v. SEPTA, 635 F.3d 87, 92 (3d Cir. 2011).
A motion for reconsideration is reviewed for an abuse of discretion. In re Cendant
Corp. Prides Litig., 311 F.3d 298, 300 (3d Cir. 2002) (reviewing a motion under Rule
60(b)); Koshatka v. Phila. Newspapers, Inc., 762 F.2d 329, 333 (3d Cir. 1985) (treating a
motion for reconsideration as a motion under Rule 59(e) and stating that such motions are
generally reviewed for abuse of discretion). However, “if the [district] court‟s denial was
based upon the interpretation and application of a legal precept, review is plenary.” Id.III. Discussion
A. Denial of a FAPE
Appellants first argue that the District Court erred by granting the School
District‟s motion for summary judgment because a panel of this Court had previously
posited that “the record contains enough of a genuine factual dispute about whether the
School District in fact provided Ferren with a FAPE.” Chambers, 587 F.3d at 189-90.
8
This argument misunderstands the basis of the School District‟s summary judgment
motion, however. In the appeal of the motion for summary judgment before us today, the
School District‟s argument is not that it had in fact provided Ferren with a FAPE. Rather,
its argument is that Appellants failed to put forth evidence that its denial of a FAPE was a
result of intentional discrimination, which they argue is needed to support a
compensatory damages award under the RA and ADA. Deciding whether Ferren was
denied a FAPE does not resolve this dispute. Thus, whether a previous panel thought that
there was a genuine issue of material fact with respect to whether Ferren was given a
FAPE is irrelevant.
B. Previous Administrative Hearings
Next, Appellants argue that the District Court‟s denial of its partial motion for
summary judgment was error because the District Court should have given preclusive
effect to the 1995 and 2004 administrative decisions finding that the School District
failed to provide Ferren with a FAPE. Under Appellants‟ theory, the School District has
already been determined to be liable under § 504 of the RA and § 202 of the ADA.
Although collateral estoppel, or issue preclusion, “forecloses re-litigation in a later action
of an issue of fact or law which was actually litigated and which was necessary to the
original judgment,” Dici v. Pennsylvania, 91 F.3d 542, 548 (3d Cir. 1996) (internal
alterations and quotation marks omitted), if there are different burdens of proof, that will
defeat the application of issue preclusion, In re Braen, 900 F.2d 621, 624 (3d Cir. 1990).
As the District Court noted, Appellants‟ argument fails to take into account the disparate
burdens of proof in the administrative proceedings vis-à-vis the present proceeding.
9
Because of that, issue preclusion does not apply in this case. We need not repeat the
District Court‟s thorough analysis on this point—Appellants‟ argument must fail.
C. Compensatory Damages
Appellants also urge that the District Court erred in concluding that intentional
discrimination is required for an award of compensatory damages under the RA and
ADA. Again, Appellants‟ argument fails. The District Court‟s thorough analysis with
respect to this issue is supported by our recent decision in S.H. v. Lower Merion School
District, No. 12-3264, 2013 WL 4752015 (3d Cir. Sept. 5, 2013); see also Chambers, 827
F. Supp. 2d at 421-25. In S.H., we held that “claims for compensatory damages under §
504 of the RA and § 202 of the ADA . . . require a finding of intentional discrimination.”
S.H., 2013 WL at *10. More specifically, we held that “a showing of deliberate
indifference may satisfy a claim for compensatory damages under § 504 of the RA and §
202 of the ADA.” Id. at *11. Thus, the District Court was correct in holding that
Appellants were required to prove intentional discrimination.
D. Intentional Discrimination
Alternatively, Appellants argue that, even if intentional discrimination is required
to award compensatory damages under the RA and ADA, evidence in the record creates a
factual dispute as to whether the School District was deliberately indifferent to providing
Ferren with a FAPE. Having reviewed the record, we agree with Appellants, and will
therefore reverse the District Court‟s grant of the School District‟s motion for summary
judgment.
10
As discussed above, in S.H. we held that a plaintiff must demonstrate intentional
discrimination by showing deliberate indifference in order to succeed on a claim for
compensatory damages under the RA and ADA. We then explained that the deliberate
indifference standard has two parts, “requiring both (1) „knowledge that a harm to a
federally protected right is substantially likely,‟ and (2) „a failure to act upon that
likelihood.‟” S.H., 2013 WL at *11 (quoting Duvall v. Cnty. of Kitsap, 260 F.3d 1124,
1139 (9th Cir. 2001)). We also noted that “deliberate indifference must be a deliberate
choice, rather than negligence or bureaucratic inaction.” S.H., 2013 WL at *11 (internal
quotation marks omitted).
This case presents a close call. It has been clear since 1991 that Ferren needs both
speech and occupational therapy. (See J.A. 115 (Special Education Appeals Panel report
classifying Ferren “as a child with autism/pervasive developmental delay”).) It has also
been clear that placements at private schools have not sufficiently addressed Ferren‟s
needs. (See Appellee Br. at 12 (noting that Ferren was the “lowest functioning member
in the class of autistic students at Wordsworth”).) The School District was informed of
this at various junctures, and was ordered to provide those services. (See id. at 10-11
(recounting various instances in which the School District was ordered to provide
services because they had failed to do so).) Appellants‟ requests were often ignored.
Requested hearings often occurred only after extended delays. (See J.A. at 802-03
(detailing the School District‟s delays in scheduling hearings); id. at 377-78 (describing a
speech therapist arrangement falling through because the School District refused to
guarantee payment).) This situation has persisted. Indeed, at oral argument, the School
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District could not confirm that Ferren received any compensatory hours of education to
which she was entitled. Furthermore, several experts have noted these failures and have
surmised as to how, over time, they have impacted Ferren. (See, e.g., J.A. 895 (expert
report noting that Ferren was placed in classes where instructors were not familiar with
her specific disabilities and received inadequate educational services).)
Given this record, there is a genuine dispute of material fact as to whether the
School District was deliberately indifferent. Indeed, it seems to us that a reasonable jury
could infer that (1) the School District knew that Ferren was not being provided a FAPE,
and (2) failed to act appropriately in a way that rose above mere negligence. The record
suggests that the School District was made aware numerous times that Ferren was not
being provided with the various therapies to which she was entitled. The record also
suggests that the School District repeatedly failed to schedule hearings after they were
requested, and did not place Ferren in an appropriate program for students with her type
of disability.
Of course, reasonable minds could disagree, but that is not the test on summary
judgment. While the record does demonstrate that the School District made attempts to
provide Ferren with services and participated in developing her IEPs, we cannot ignore
the evidence that reflects serious and repeated failures by the School District at several
key junctures to ensure that Ferren was receiving the services that were required, and
were clearly known to be required. Accordingly, summary judgment was not properly
granted because there is a genuine dispute as to whether the School District was
deliberately indifferent. Accordingly, we will reverse the order of the District Court.
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E. Motion for Reconsideration and Supplemental Evidence
Appellants also argue that the District Court erred in refusing to reconsider its
October 24, 2011, order and in refusing to consider supplemental evidence outside the
previously submitted record. Given that we will remand this case to the District Court on
the issue of whether the School District‟s actions could constitute deliberate indifference,
our analysis of the District Court‟s order denying Appellants‟ motion for reconsideration
is moot.2
We note, however, that the District Court did not err in refusing to consider
supplemental evidence. A party opposing summary judgment is responsible for pointing
to evidence to show disputes of material fact. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c); see also Pavlik v.
Lane Ltd./Tobacco Exps. Int’l, 135 F.3d 876, 882 n.2 (3d Cir. 1998) (affirming a district
court that refused to consider newly presented evidence on a motion for reconsideration
that was available prior to the filing of summary judgment); Harsco Corp. v. Zlotnicki,
779 F.2d 906, 909 (3d Cir. 1985) (“Where evidence is not newly discovered, a party may
not submit that evidence in support of a motion for reconsideration.”). To the extent that
Appellants argue that the District Court “invited” them to submit post-summary judgment
motions and then did not consider the evidence, Appellants misconstrue the District
Court‟s invitation. The District Court afforded Appellants the opportunity to revisit
2
Appellants also contend that the District Court erred by treating their post-summary
judgment submissions as motions for reconsideration under Rule 59(e) rather than
motions to alter the judgment under Rule 60. We disagree. As the District Court
properly noted, “the function of the motion, not the caption [should] dictate which Rule
applies.” J.A. 33 (internal quotation marks omitted).) Because we will reverse the grant
of summary judgment, we need not address this issue further.
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summary judgment “with more appropriate briefing and/or record references” and
repeatedly warned Appellants that it would not consider evidence outside the previous
summary judgment record. (J.A. 31.) Thus, the District Court was not wrong in refusing
to consider Appellants‟ supplemental evidence, which was previously available to them.3
IV. Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons, we will affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand this
case to the District Court for further proceedings consistent with this Opinion.
3
Although neither the RA nor the ADA has a statute of limitations, the School District
argues that the District Court may not consider evidence outside the IDEA‟s two-year
statute of limitations. The District Court did not address this argument, as it was
unnecessary to the District Court‟s holding. Although we believe that Appellants‟ claims
were filed before the statute of limitations took effect, see Lawrence Twp. Bd. of Educ. v.
New Jersey, 417 F.3d 368, 370 (3d Cir. 2005) (“[A]mendments to the IDEA have
prospective application only . . .. Therefore, the provisions in effect at the time the
complaint was filed in 2003 will be applied here.”), this issue is more appropriately left to
the District Court on remand.
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