Case: E.B. v. Department of Education

On September 20, 2002, four New York residents who had attended New York City public schools filed this putative class action complaint against the New York City Board of Education, the New York City Department of Education, and the New York City School District. A third and final amended complaint with six additional plaintiffs was filed on July 15, 2003. Plaintiffs sought declaratory and injunctive relief under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, the Fourteenth Amendment, the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) 20 U.S.C. § 1400, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 ("ADA") U.S.C. § 12132, and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. Plaintiffs alleged that children with disabilities were being excluded from New York public schools and denied educational services to which they were entitled without due process. The case was assigned to Judge Charles P. Sifton.

The plaintiffs sought injunctive, declaratory, and other relief, alleging numerous incidents of students with disabilities being removed from schools and deprived of educational opportunities. The complaint further alleged a general lack of oversight in the New York City school system and argued that, because the problems in the school system were systemic, it was not necessary that they show exhaustion of administrative remedies in each individual case in order for the court to have subject matter jurisdiction over the claim as would normally be required.

On July 25, 2003, defendants filed a motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The motion argued that plaintiffs either had not exhausted administrative remedies, as required by the IDEA, or that the claims of those plaintiffs who had properly sought relief through the administrative process had been rendered moot. Defendants further argued that because of the varying factual backgrounds of individual cases, solutions to problems must be sought on a case-by-case basis. In support of this, defendants argued that plaintiffs’ claims were exactly the sort that should be addressed through the administrative process, and further noted that, at the time the motion was filed, six of the ten named plaintiffs had resolved their claims by way of the administrative process.

On January 29, 2004, the court denied the defendants’ motion to dismiss. Citing precedent from the Second Circuit, the judge noted that the requirement in IDEA that parties exhaust administrative options prior to litigation had exceptions. Several plaintiffs claimed lack of appropriate notice in their being denied services. In keeping with precedent that held that lack of notice of procedural rights waived the exhaustion requirement, the judge exempted plaintiffs from the requirement.

On August 18, 2004 the judge granted plaintiffs’ motion to certify a class of “disabled New York City children age three through twenty-one who have been, will be, or are at risk of being excluded from school without adequate notice and deprived of a free and appropriate education through suspensions, expulsions, transfers, discharges, removals and denials of access.”

On July 24, 2015 the judge issued a stipulation approving a settlement agreement between the parties. 2015 WL 13707092. The settlement stipulation primarily covered suspensions and removals, transfers, and discharges. It also allowed for the plaintiffs to monitor compliance.

In the case of suspensions, the settlement required that suspensions of more than six days be given only upon approval from Department of Education’s Office of Safety and Youth Development or the Superintendent for the district. The settlement further allowed students to remain in school pending suspension hearings in some cases and required that plaintiffs' counsel be provided with data on suspensions every semester over the course of the stipulation period.

The settlement also called for “Manifestation Determination Reviews” for students receiving a high volume of suspensions in order to monitor whether students were receiving suspensions for conduct that was “caused by, or had a direct relationship to” the student’s disability. If it was determined that the student was suspended for conduct directly related to a disability, the school would not be allowed to suspend the student. The Department of Education was also required to institute special reviews and programs for tracking and helping students who received a certain number of suspensions. Students who received suspensions for a full year were provided with alternative instruction. Additional provisions of the settlement placed substantial restrictions on when students could be moved between schools and transferred to GED programs.

The settlement covered the first six full academic semesters beginning with the Fall Semester of the 2015-16 academic year. Plaintiffs also obtained counsel fees “as though they are prevailing parties” and the rights to monitor defendants to ensure their compliance with the terms of the settlement. The trial court retained exclusive jurisdiction to consider all further matters arising out of or connected with the settlement.

The settlement expired in October 2018.