L. A. Unified Sch. Dist. v. Garcia

58 Cal.4th 175

314 P.3d 767

165 Cal.Rptr.3d 460

LOS ANGELES UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT, Plaintiff and Appellant,

v.Michael GARCIA, Defendant and Respondent.

No. S199639.

Supreme Court of California

Dec. 12, 2013.

Diane H. Pappas, Agoura Hills, Donald A. Erwin, Mampre R. Pomakian ; Littler Mendelson, Los Angeles, Barrett K. Green and Daniel Gonzalez for Plaintiff and Appellant.

Keith Bray, Elaine Yama–Garcia; Vu Vaccaro, Van T. Vu and Kourtney Vaccaro for California School Boards Association and its Education Legal Alliance as Amici Curiae on behalf of Plaintiff and Appellant.

Kamala D. Harris, Attorney General, Manuel M. Medeiros, State Solicitor General, Alicia Fowler, Acting Chief Assistant Attorney General, Julie Weng-Gutierrez, Assistant Attorney General, Susan M. Carson, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Niromi W. Pfeiffer, Glenda N. Reager and Ismael A. Castro, Deputy Attorneys General, for the California Department of Education as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Plaintiff and Appellant.

Disability Rights Legal Center, Los Angeles, Paula D. Pearlman, Michelle Uzeta, Anna Rivera ; Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy, Los Angeles, Linda Dakin–Grimm, Daniel M. Perry, Delilah Vinzon and Hannah L. Cannom for Defendant and Respondent.

Youth & Education Law Project, William S. Koski and Carly J. Munson for Children's Rights Clinic at Southwestern Law School, Disability Rights Advocates, Disability Rights California, Learning Rights Law Center, Law Foundation of Silicon Valley, Loyola Law School, Center for Juvenile Law and Policy and Public Counsel Law Center as Amici Curiae on behalf of Defendant and Respondent.

CANTIL–SAKAUYE, C.J.

In California, an individual with a disability who is between 18 and 22 years of age and has not yet earned a regular high school diploma is entitled to continue to receive special education and related services, even while incarcerated in a county jail, so long as certain prerequisites have been satisfied. ( Ed.Code, § 56040, subd. (b) ; see id., §§ 56000, 56026, subd. (c)(4); all unlabeled statutory references are to the Education Code.) Like the other states that receive substantial federal funds for special education and related services, California's policies and procedures governing special education programs must conform to the requirements of the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (hereafter IDEA) and the federal regulations that implement and clarify its provisions. ( 20 U.S.C. § 1400 et seq. ; 34 C.F.R. §§ 300.100 – 300.176 (2013).) But Congress has left it to each state to determine which public entity within the state is responsible for providing special education and related services to its eligible pupils, including those incarcerated in county jail.

One of the provisions in California's special education scheme that designates the entity responsible for providing a special education program is section 56041. We granted the request of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to answer the following question of California law, as reformulated by this court: Does California Education Code section 56041, which provides generally that for qualifying pupils between the ages of 18 and 22 years, the school district where the pupil's parent resides is responsible for providing special education and related services, affix responsibility for providing special education to a qualifying individual who is incarcerated in a county jail? ( Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.548(f)(5).)

We answer that question "Yes." As we shall explain, although section 56041 does not by its terms specifically address county jail inmates, the statutory language is broad enough to encompass special education programs for eligible county jail inmates between the ages of 18 and 22 years, and no other statute explicitly assigns responsibility for the provision of special education to such individuals. Applying the terms of section 56041 to assign responsibility in this setting is consistent with the purposes of the statute and the special education scheme as a whole, and does not create absurd or unworkable results.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Michael Garcia was born in June 1990. His mother has resided in the City of Bell, in Los Angeles County, from before Garcia's birth until the present time. Garcia first became eligible for special education services in the second grade, when he was identified as having specific learning deficiencies as well as speech and language impairment. His "district of residence," the Los Angeles Unified School District (L.A. Unified), provided the special education program in his early years. (See § 48200; Union School District v. Smith (9th Cir.1994) 15 F.3d 1519, 1525, fn. 1 [the compulsory education residency rule for children ages six through 18 also determines the local educational agency responsible for providing a special education program].) When Garcia was 15 years old, he left L.A. Unified and enrolled in the Soledad Enrichment Action Charter School, chartered by the Los Angeles County Office of Education, which provided him with a special education program. (See §§ 47640, 47641.)

Thereafter, sometime before Garcia's 16th birthday, he was arrested on felony charges and held at the Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall in Los Angeles County. While Garcia was being detained in the juvenile facility, he was provided a special education program by the Los Angeles County Office of Education, which, by statute, is the entity responsible for providing general and special education in the county's juvenile court schools. (See §§ 48645.2, 56150.) Like L.A. Unified, the Los Angeles County Office of Education determined that Garcia was eligible for special education and related services due to his specific learning disability and speech and language impairment. In June 2008, when Garcia turned 18 years old, he was transferred from the juvenile facility to the Los Angeles County jail to await trial.

In December 2008, counsel from the Disability Rights Legal Center filed on behalf of Garcia and other similarly situated individuals a request for a due process hearing before the Department of General Services, Office of Administrative Hearings, Special Education Division (OAH), alleging that Garcia and others like him were being denied a free appropriate public education (hereafter sometimes FAPE), as required by the IDEA, because there was no system for delivering special education services for eligible inmates in the Los Angeles County jail. (See 20 U.S.C. § 1415(f) ; 34 C.F.R. § 300.151 – 300.153 ; Cal.Code Regs., tit. 5, §§ 3080, 3082, 4610.) The request named as defendants the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, the County of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles County Office of Education, the State Department of Education, and other educational and public entities and officials. Because the OAH is not authorized to consider class actions, the OAH refiled the complaint as one by Garcia individually. The OAH also removed three of the named defendants from the complaint because they were not proper parties to a special education due process hearing. Notably, the initial complaint filed with the OAH did not name L.A. Unified as a defendant.

Most of the claims in Garcia's complaint were dismissed in January 2009, either because they alleged injuries to a class or because the legal basis of the claim, for example, the federal Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 ( 42 U.S.C. § 12101 et seq. ), fell outside the OAH's jurisdiction. Of the remaining claims, which alleged that the defendants had failed to provide Garcia with the FAPE to which he was entitled, the administrative law judge (ALJ) granted each defendant's motion to be dismissed as a party and dismissed the complaint in its entirety. The ALJ noted there was no statute specifically allocating responsibility for providing a FAPE to an eligible individual who was incarcerated in a county jail. Accordingly, the ALJ looked to what it characterized as the "more general" rule set forth in section 56041, which the ALJ understood to assign responsibility to the school district in which the parent of a qualified pupil between the ages of 18 and 22 years resides. (See post, 165 Cal.Rptr.3d at pp. 467–468, 314 P.3d at p. 773.) In concluding that section 56041 applied, the ALJ noted that "it is not uncommon for a responsible district to administer a distant placement," and expressed the view that any "difficulties in applying section 56041 in adult correctional facilities is a proper subject for the Legislature." (Student v. Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department (OAH, Feb. 9, 2009, No. 2009010064).)

One month after the ALJ's decision, Garcia and others filed a class action in federal district court, alleging the same claims against the same parties named in the due process complaint. (Garcia v. Los Angeles County Sheriff's Dept., case No. 09–1513 VBF (CTx); see 20 U.S.C. § 1415(i)(2)(A) [any party aggrieved by the findings or outcome of the due process hearing can bring a civil action in state or federal court].) Three months later, in late May 2009, the district court dismissed the action without prejudice. The district court concluded that the plaintiffs had failed to exhaust their administrative remedies under the IDEA because they did not file an amended complaint at the administrative level "naming proper parties against whom relief could be sought." (See 20 U.S.C. § 1415(f), (g), (i) ; Christopher S. ex rel. Rita S. v. Stanislaus County Office of Education (9th Cir.2004) 384 F.3d 1205, 1209 [a plaintiff generally must exhaust his or her administrative remedies before seeking relief in federal or state court under the IDEA].) Dismissal also was warranted, the district court ruled, because the plaintiffs failed to join L.A. Unified as a party to the class action.

In June 2009, within days of the dismissal of the class action in federal court, Garcia filed a second due process complaint with the OAH, this time naming...