Some Aspects Affirmed But Remanded, Some Reversed Outright, And Appellate Fee Issue Remanded To Commissioner To Allocate.
C.W. v. Capistrano Unified School Dist., No. 12-57315 (9th Cir. Mar. 2, 2015) (published) is an interesting case involving a school district prevailing defendant in a disabled child lawsuit, involving claims under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), the American with Disabilities Act (ADA), § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act (RA), and 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act). What happened was that the district judge seemed to evince “frustration” with mother (who sued on behalf of her disabled child) and her counsel, finding that all of the claims were frivolous and brought for an improper purpose—under IDEA, this meant that the fees and costs were assessed against both parent and her attorneys. (IDEA fee-shifting originally only operated in favor of a prevailing plaintiff, but broadened in 2004 to include a prevailing defendant after that date.) Circuit Judge Reinhardt concurred and dissented in the decision.
Parent and her attorneys did well to appeal.
With respect to the ADA and Civil Rights Act claims, the majority (over a dissent by Circuit Judge Reinhardt) sustained the district judge’s ruling that two of the three claims were frivolous, but disagreed (with the dissent also agreeing, so 3-0) with the conclusion that they were brought for an improper purpose. The majority found that plaintiff’s attempts to exercise rights granted or protected by IDEA did not qualify as ADA protected rights and also found that a school district could not be sued for § 1983 damages under Ninth Circuit precedent (which has not been uniformly followed) in tandem with the determination that plaintiff did not specify the conduct to be enjoined. So, frivolity was established, but not improper purpose—all circuit judges agreed that mother was only trying to vindicate her disabled child’s interests, with the district court’s “frustration” with mother and her counsel during the course of the litigation not satisfying the improper purpose prong. On remand, that meant that the district judge would have to assess fees and costs to be awarded against mother’s counsel, not mother, given no improper purpose was shown.
However, all three circuit judges reversed the district court’s determinations that the IDEA and RA claims were frivolous and improper. The IDEA analysis could not survive under Christiansburg/Rule 11 analogous reasoning which should be applied in this area. The RA claim was dismissed but only after a district court decision indicating it was a “close call” and observing some allegations were presented showing there was a potential good case on this claim.
So, the matter was remanded to determine the district level fees/costs to be assessed against mother’s counsel on the ADA and Civil Rights claims. Also, the Appellate Commissioner was to allocate fees and costs between frivolous and nonfrivolous claims for purposes of awarding school district costs on appeal as prevailing defendant/appellee.
In dissent, Circuit Judge Reinhardt found that counsel was sound to advance novel interpretations of the ADA statute and to argue that the Ninth Circuit Eleventh Amendment immunity decision as to school districts in the civil rights area should be revisited. He also thought that federal courts should be sensitive to sanctioning under IDEA, because parents and their counsel would be dissuaded from redressing disabled children rights if they were exposed to substantial fees and costs (whether at the district, circuit or other levels of the judiciary). Circuit Judge Reinhardt also expressed the view that any fees and costs, on remand, should be minimal given that the work on the nonfrivolous claims was interrelated with work on the so-called frivolous claims (the latter being a majority conclusion with which he disagreed).