Supreme Court Rules
on Education Lawsuits
By DAVID STOUT,
NYTimes on the Web, May 21, 2007
WASHINGTON, -- The Supreme
Court ruled today that parents of children with disabilities need not hire
lawyers if they want to sue public school districts over their children’s
special-education needs.
In a case of interest to parents and educators across the country, the justices
ruled in favor of a couple from the Cleveland suburb of Parma who were unhappy
with the school district’s proposal to meet the special needs of their autistic
son.
Jeff and Sandee Winkelman could not afford to continue paying a lawyer to sue
the Parma City School District over the program designed for the youngest of
their five children, Jacob, who was 6 when the lawsuit began about four years
ago.
In general, federal law allows people to represent themselves in court.
But most federal courts have barred parents of children with disabilities from
appearing without a lawyer in cases filed under the Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, which guarantees all children a “free
appropriate public education.”
A central question for the justices was whether the act confers rights only on
children, or whether parents, too, have rights under the act. Justice
Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for the court, said there was no doubt about the
rights of the parents.
“The parents enjoy enforceable rights at the administrative stage, and it would
be inconsistent with the statutory scheme to bar them from continuing to assert
these rights in federal court,” Justice Kennedy wrote. “It is not a novel
proposition to say that parents have a recognized legal interest in the
education and upbringing of their child.”
The justices reasoned that, because the parents have their own rights under IDEA
and can sue on their own behalf, the issue of whether they could sue on behalf
of their children need not be addressed. As a rule, courts require minor
children to be represented by lawyers in legal matters. So if the high
court had held today that the Winkelman boy, but not his parents, enjoyed rights
under IDEA, the parents would have needed a lawyer to pursue their case.
The Parma school district argued unsuccessfully that the parents’ rights were
simply “derivative,” or based on the rights that the act confers upon children.
Therefore, the district argued, the Winkelmans could not get around the rule
that only a lawyer can represent another person in court.
Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas wrote separately today to say they
agreed that the Winkelmans should be able to sue over violations of their
procedural rights or to recover private-school expenses, but not to seek a
finding that their child’s educational program is inadequate.
“I would prefer to give Jacob the best chance with an attorney,” Mrs. Winkelman
told The Associated Press after the ruling was announced. She said several
lawyers have offered to represent them for nothing, but if those arrangements do
not work out she and her husband will at least be able to pursue their suit on
their own.
The Winkelmans objected to the school district’s plan to educate Jacob at a
public school, and wanted the district to pay the $56,000 cost of enrolling the
boy in a private school that specializes in autistic children. The parents
spent about $30,000 on legal fees, The A.P. said. Mr. Winkelman took a
second job to pay for court costs, while his wife researched court rulings.
The justices ruled today that a Federal District Court in Cleveland and the
United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit had both erred in holding
that the Winkelmans could not sue without a lawyer, a position that most of the
federal circuits had embraced.
Solicitor General Paul D. Clement, representing the federal Department of
Education, had argued that the Sixth Circuit was wrong and should be reversed.
A lawyer from Mr. Clement’s office argued on the Winkelmans’ behalf.
So did a Los Angeles lawyer, Jean-Claude Andre, who handled the couple’s Supreme
Court appeal without charge. “What we’re advocating here is really access
to courts,” he said when the case was argued on Feb. 27.
|
