C.D.J. v. Bd. of Educ.

1

C.D.J., a minor child, by and through his friend, mother, and next of kin, Chrissy Kozlowski, Plaintiff, v. MONTGOMERY COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION, et al., Defendants.

No. 2:23-cv-00706-RAH [WO]

United States District Court, M.D. Alabama, Northern Division

June 28, 2024

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

R. AUSTIN HUFFAKER, JR. UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

I. INTRODUCTION

Minor Plaintiff CDJ, a disabled middle-school student, was bullied at school and bludgeoned in the head with a backpack by another student on the school bus. Blood flowing from his wound, the bus driver ignored CDJ and left him to fend for himself. CDJ sues the Montgomery County Board of Education and several administrators and school employees under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution for their inaction and failure to prevent the bodily injury he suffered from peer-on-peer bullying. He brings three other state law claims and seeks monetary damages. Defendants have moved to dismiss all claims. CDJ resists. The Second Amended Complaint will be dismissed.

II. JURISDICTION AND VENUE

The Court has subject matter jurisdiction over the federal claims pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1331. Personal jurisdiction and venue are uncontested, and venue properly lies in the Middle District of Alabama. See 28 U.S.C. § 1391.

III. STANDARD OF REVIEW

Defendants move to dismiss the Second Amended Complaint pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). In deciding a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, a court considers only the allegations contained in the complaint and any attached exhibits. Hoefling v. City of Miami, 811 F.3d 1271, 1277 (11th Cir. 2016). A Rule 12(b)(6) motion tests the sufficiency of the complaint against the legal standard set forth in Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8, which requires “a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 8(a)(2). The court must take “the factual allegations in the complaint as true and construe them in the light most favorable to the plaintiff.” Pielage v. McConnell, 516 F.3d 1282, 1284 (11th Cir. 2008). But “the tenet that a court must accept as true all of the allegations contained in a complaint is inapplicable to legal conclusions.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009).

“To survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.'” Id. (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)). “Determining whether a complaint states a plausible claim for relief . . . [is] a context-specific task that requires the reviewing court to draw on its judicial experience and common sense.” Id. at 679. But if the facts in the complaint “do not permit the court to infer more than the mere possibility of misconduct, the complaint has alleged-but it has not ‘shown'-‘that the pleader is entitled to relief,'” and the complaint must be dismissed. Id. (alteration adopted) (citing Fed.R.Civ.P. 8(a)(2)).

IV. BACKGROUND

On April 14, 2023, Plaintiff CDJ, a minor diagnosed with non-verbal autism and other learning disabilities who is subject to an Individualized Education Program, headed toward the bus after school at Goodwyn Middle School in Montgomery, Alabama. Earlier that day, and throughout much of his time in school, other students bullied CDJ, subjecting him “to beratement, physical touching, and verbal abuse[.]” (Doc. 60 at 8.) After he spotted an aggressive student who had “verbally assaulted and threatened” him walk toward the same bus he was about to board for the journey home, CDJ told Defendant Douglas Terrell-the assistant principal at Goodwyn-that “he was fearful of the student” and worried for his safety on the bus. (Id.) Terrell told CDJ to get on the bus anyway.

Aboard the bus, the aggressive student continued to “harass” CDJ. (Id. at 9.) The student “began to physically assault” CDJ by “punching, grabbing, and shoving” him. (Id.) The other children on board saw what was happening and loudly “began to narrate the aggressor's acts[.]” (Id.) According to the Second Amended Complaint (SAC), Defendant Frank Brooks-the bus driver-was within earshot of the events and had a line of sight to the children the entire time, but he did nothing. (Id.) At the peak of the assault, the aggressive student “bash[ed]” “a loaded bookbag . . . against [CDJ's] skull before fleeing” from the bus. (Id. at 10.) The impact caused CDJ “excruciating pain, extensive bleeding,” and led him to “fade in and out” of consciousness. (Id.) CDJ “screamed as loud as he could, ‘Help me[!] Help me, please!'” (Id.) Blood flowed “from his skull[] down onto his shirt” and began to puddle in his hands, eventually reaching the bus floor. (Id.) CDJ stumbled to the front seat of the bus, hoping Brooks would render some sort of aid. Brooks did nothing. He “continued driving his route, letting children off at their stops, and effectively ignor[ed]” CDJ. (Id.) When the bus reached CDJ's home (his mother's apartment) Brooks “simply unload[ed]” CDJ, “even after he audibly told [Brooks] he [was] ‘about to pass out[.]'” (Id. at 11.) Brooks left CDJ to “aimlessly wander from the bus stop to his apartment.” (Id. at 11-12.) His mother was home, and she rushed CDJ to the emergency room for care.

On December 7, 2023, Chrissy Kozlowski, CDJ's mother, filed suit on CDJ's behalf, seeking monetary damages. (Doc. 1.) CDJ alleges the incident on the bus, together with the history of bullying and abuse he experienced at school, harmed him and deprived him of the “ability to partake in the full educational benefits of his public schooling[.]” (Doc. 60 at 12.) Along with Terrell and Brooks, CDJ sues the Montgomery County Board of Education (MCBOE), Montgomery Public School Superintendent Melvin J. Brown, Goodwyn Principal Keisha Howard, Montgomery Public Schools Transportation Director Brian Thornton, and Montgomery Public Schools Bus Safety Investigator Linda VanDiver.

CDJ brings six claims: violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. §§ 12132-34, against the MCBOE (Count II); violations of the Fourteenth Amendment against all Defendants (Count III); violations of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), 20 U.S.C. §§ 1400, 1411-19, against the MCBOE, Terrell, and Brooks (Count IV); state-law claims for recklessness/wantonness (Count I) and for the Tort of Outrage (Count V) against all Defendants; and, a state-law claim for negligence against Brown, Howard, Terrell, Brooks, Thornton, and VanDiver (Count VI).

V. DISCUSSION

Defendants seek dismissal of the SAC. The federal claims will be resolved first, then the state-law claims.

A. The IDEA Claim

The IDEA was enacted “to promote the education of children with disabilities.” Dubrow v. Cobb Cnty. Sch. Dist., 887 F.3d 1182, 1189 (11th Cir. 2018) (citing Bd. of Educ. of Hendrick Hudson Cent. Sch. Dist. v. Rowley, 458 U.S. 176, 179 (1982)).

It “offers the States federal funds in exchange for a commitment to provide all ‘children with disabilities' individually tailored special edu cation, also known as ‘free appropriate public education' or ‘FAPE.'” Id. (quoting 20 U.S.C. §§ 1400(d)(1)(A), 1412(a)(1)(A)). To achieve IDEA's goal, a child's “parents, teachers, and school officials” usually develop an individualized education program (IEP) that is “reasonably calculated to enable a child to make progress appropriate in light of the child's circumstances.” Id. (quoting Endrew F. ex rel. Joseph F. v. Douglas Cty. Sch. Dist. RE-1, 580 U.S. 386, 403 (2017)).

CDJ seeks only monetary damages against the MCBOE, Terrell, and Brooks under the IDEA because of the incident on the school bus and other generalized school-bullying allegations. CDJ says the acts of his peers together with the Defendants' inaction “create[ed] a hostile environment and depriv[ed] him of educational opportunities, further preventing him from progress through his IEP.” (Doc. 60 at 21.)

For starters, “the only remedy available under the IDEA is injunctive relief for the wrongful denial of a FAPE[.]” Id. at 1190 (citing Fry v. Napoleon Cmty. Schs., 580 U.S. 154, 165-67 (2017)); Powellv. Sch. Bd. of Volusia Cnty., Fla., 86 F.4th 881, 884 (11th Cir. 2023) (per curiam) (“[Plaintiffs] seek compensatory and punitive damages. The IDEA provides neither.”). Defendants do not argue Count IV fails because its gravamen is something other than the denial of a FAPE, or that CDJ seeks a remedy the IDEA does not provide. Even though one or both issues may resolve this claim, the Court is tasked with considering the parties' arguments. So, on then to the Defendants' positions.

The MCBOE argues that Count IV must be dismissed because CDJ failed to exhaust administrative remedies before filing this suit; the administrative process constituting a necessary jurisdictional threshold here because, in MCBOE's view, CDJ alleged he “was deprived of educational opportunities preventing him from progress through his IEP” and that “demonstrates a disagreement with the provision of a” FAPE. (Doc. 73 at 11.) Terrell and Brooks argue the claim should be dismissed against them because IDEA does not allow individual liability.

“In order to properly exhaust a claim that seeks relief for the denial of a free appropriate public education, the claim must proceed through an administrative hearing and receive a final decision from an administrative judge before review may be sought from a federal district court.” Dubrow v Cobb Cnty. Sch. Dist., 887 F.3d 1182, 1191 (11th Cir. 2018) (citing 20 U.S.C. § 1415(i)(2)(A),(g)(2)). The SAC says nothing of a completed administrative proceeding or a final decision...