Education: District sues to stop repeated IDEA due process requests

Where parents and their special education advocate filed or attempted to file at least 10 due process hearing requests based on the same fact pattern and situation, costing the school district at least $330,544.48, the school board sought a prefiling injunction in federal court.

Background

The Halvorsens are the parents of a 13-year-old, A.H., who is eligible to receive special education and related services as a student with a disability under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA. Disputes have arisen between the Halvorsens and their special education advocate, Kandise Lucas, on one hand, and the Powhatan County School Board, or PCSB, on the other, about the implementation of A.H.’s Individualized Education Program under the IDEA.

The PCSB filed a four-count complaint against the Halvorsens and Lucas. The Halvorsens have filed a motion to dismiss.

Count One

The allegations in Count One are not sufficient to survive a motion to dismiss under the Iqbal/Twombly standard because the complaint does not present factual allegations by which the court can measure the plausibility of Count One. Instead, Count One merely makes a claim based on a legal conclusion that the hearing officer made errors without explaining what those errors were. They are thus “threadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of action” that do not pass muster under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6).

Count Three

In Count Three, PCSB seeks a permanent, prefiling injunction against the filing of any more due process hearing requests without leave of court. The complaint does not limit the requested relief to additional hearings arising out of the same set of facts as on the previous 10 requests, but, in its brief, PCSB does confine the request for prefiling injunction to due process hearings arising out of the same facts that frame the basis for the previously decided hearings.

The Halvorsens argue that Count Three does not state a claim upon which relief can be granted because PCSB has not pled the factors enumerated in Winter v. Nat. Res. Def. Couns., Inc., 55 U.S. 7 (2008). But that is the standard for a preliminary injunction, which only applied to now-dismissed Count Two.

Count Three alleges that the defendants have a long history of repetitive and duplicative litigation in this matter. To date, they have filed or attempted to file at least 10 due process hearing requests based on the same fact pattern and situation. The hearing officers assigned to these have, after the first dismissal on the merits, dismissed the majority of them on res judicata/collateral estoppel grounds. Second, Kandise Lucas, who is a special advocate for, and thus is an agent of, the Halvorsens, has previously been found by this court to have publicly stated an intent to harass a school board, by filing multiple due process hearing requests against that school board as a strategy to help her succeed in similar proceedings.

Third, the burden these have placed on PCSB is substantial. PCSB reports having spent at least $330,544.48 defending these due process requests alone. Fourth, Count Three alleges that no other sanctions are reasonably available to prevent this specific type of burden on the plaintiff. The prefiling injunction factors are therefore all plausibly alleged, and the plaintiff has presented a claim for relief that survives a motion to dismiss.

Count Four

In Count Four, PCSB seeks reasonable attorney’s fees. It is settled that “[t]he IDEA allows [prevailing parties] in state administrative proceedings challenging … individualized education programs to recover attorney’s fees in federal court.” PCSB is a prevailing party on multiple, if not all, of the grievance hearing requests.

The Halvorsens’ arguments, that PCSB is not a prevailing party and that the fee calculations are too high, are misplaced. This is not, as the Halvorsens put it, an “appeal” of the due process hearing decision, but a separate claim seeking attorney’s fees incurred defending those due process hearing requests.

And, as PCSB acknowledges, the fee calculation in the complaint may be wrong. But that is a merits issue for trial, not a ground for dismissal of the entire portion of the case that seeks attorney’s fees.

Halvorsens’ motion to dismiss granted in part, denied in part.

Powhatan County School Board v. Halvorsen, Case No. 3:24-cv-216, Aug. 15, 2024. EDVA at Richmond (Payne). VLW 024-3-427. 18 pp.