Justia U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Plaintiffs, D.L. and his parents, appealed the district court's grant of summary judgment to the BCBSC and Baltimore City Public Schools, contending that Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 29 U.S.C. 794, compelled BCBSC to provide D.L. education services related to certain disorders even though D.L. was enrolled exclusively in a private religious school. Because plaintiffs retained full discretion over school enrollment and because BCBSC has taken reasonable measures to fulfill its mission, the court found that BCBSC's policies placed no undue burden on plaintiffs' constitutional rights. Because the court did not read Section 504 to apply an affirmative obligation on school districts to provide services to private school students and because plaintiffs retained full educational discretion, the court affirmed the district court's ruling. View "D. L. v. Baltimore City Bd. of Sch. Comm." on Justia Law

South Carolina’s Spartanburg County School District Seven adopted a policy allowing public school students to receive two academic credits for off-campus religious instruction offered by private educators. The parents of two students at Spartanburg High School filed suit against the School District, alleging that the policy impermissibly endorses religion and entangles church and State in violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The School District filed a motion for summary judgment, contending (1) that plaintiffs lacked standing because they were not injured by the policy, and (2) that the policy was constitutional in that it was neutrally stated and administered and that it had the secular purpose of accommodating students’ desire to receive religious instruction. Plaintiffs filed a cross-motion for summary judgment, arguing that that the purpose and primary effect of the School District’s policy was to promote Christianity. The district court rejected the school district’s standing argument but agreed with it on the merits and, accordingly, granted summary judgment to the School District. Upon review, the Fourth Circuit affirmed: "[the Court saw] no evidence that the program has had the effect of establishing religion or that it has entangled the School District in religion. As was the General Assembly and School District’s purpose, the program properly accommodates religion without establishing it, in accordance with the First Amendment." View "Moss v. Spartanburg Cty. Sch. Dist. 7" on Justia Law

Relator brought a qui tam action under the False Claims Act (FCA), 31 U.S.C. 3729 et seq., alleging that appellees defrauded the United States Department of Education by knowingly making fraudulent claims by engaging in various non-economic transactions to inflate their loan portfolios eligible for Special Allowance Payments (SAP), a federal student loan interest subsidy. The district court granted appellees' motions to dismiss on the ground that they were "state agencies" and therefore not subject to suit under the FCA as interpreted in Vermont Agency of Natural Resources v. United States ex rel. Stevens. Because the district court did not employ the arm-of-the-state analysis in determining whether each of the appellees was a state agency subject to suit under the FCA, the court vacated its judgment and remanded the case for the court to apply this analysis in the first instance. View "US ex rel. Jon H. Oberg v. Kentucky Higher Ed., et al." on Justia Law

In 2010, appellants unsuccessfully sought to enjoin the implementation of the 2011-2012 student assignment plan by the school board. On appeal, appellants argued that the district court committed legal error by failing to apply, and requiring the school board to rebut, a presumption that racial disparities in the 2011-2012 assignment plan resulted from the school board's prior unconstitutional conduct in operating a racially segregated school district. The court agreed and therefore vacated the district court's order and remanded for reconsideration. View "Everett v. Pitt Cty. Brd. of Educ." on Justia Law

Plaintiff initiated this proceeding in the district court alleging that the Board violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. 12101 et seq., by failing to reasonably accommodate her hearing disability. Plaintiff's complaint sought back pay, future pay, compensatory damages of $1,000,000, punitive damages of $1,000,000, plus attorney's fees and costs. The Board subsequently appealed the district court's partial rejection of the Board's assertion of immunity. The court held that the district court properly adhered to the Bd. of Educ. of Balt. Cnty. v. Zimmer-Rubert decision in ruling that the immunity provision effected a waiver of the Board's Eleventh Amendment immunity for claims of $100,000 or less. View "Lee-Thomas v. Prince George's County Public Sch." on Justia Law

Plaintiff sued defendants under 42 U.S.C. 1983, contending that in disciplining her for a MySpace.com webpage, which was largely dedicated to ridiculing a fellow student, defendants violated her free speech and due process rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Plaintiff alleged, among other things, that defendants were not justified in regulating her speech because it did not occur during a "school-related activity," but rather was "private out-of-school speech." The court held that defendants' imposition of sanctions was permissible where plaintiff used the Internet to orchestrate a targeted attack on a classmate and did so in a manner that was sufficiently connected to the school environment as to implicate defendants' recognized authority to discipline speech which "materially and substantially interfere[d] with the requirements of appropriate discipline in the operation of the school and collid[ed] with the rights of others." Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of defendants.

Appellees, the parents of a child with moderate-to-severe autism, filed due process proceedings against the Sumter County School District #17 ("District") seeking a determination that the District did not provide a free and appropriate public education ("FAPE") to the child as required by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act ("IDEA"), 20 U.S.C. 1412(a)(1)(A). At issue was whether the district court erred by concluding that the District failed to provide the child with a FAPE and that the program established by the child's parents to educate him at home was appropriate. The court held that that the district court did not err in concluding that the District failed to provide the child with FAPE for the 2005-2006 school year where the district court considered the evidence of the child's small improvements in a few tested areas against the District's conceded failure to provide the hours of therapy required for the child, the evidence that the lead teacher and aides did not understand or use proper techniques, and the evidence that it took one teacher months of working with the child to correct the problems caused by the improper techniques. The court also held that the district court did not err by finding that the District was not capable of providing FAPE to the child where the District's evidence was not compelling enough to establish it's improved capabilities at the time of the due process hearing. The court also held that the evidence was sufficient to support the district court's findings that the home placement was reasonably calculated to enable the child to receive educational benefits.