DL v. District of Columbia
85 Fed. R. Serv. 3d 150, 713 F.3d 120, 404 U.S. App. D.C. 316 (2013)
Rule of Law:
To satisfy the commonality requirement of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(a)(2), class members' claims must depend on a common contention capable of classwide resolution in one stroke; a general allegation of systemic statutory violations is insufficient if the plaintiffs suffer from disparate harms resulting from different policies or practices.
Facts:
- The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) conditions federal funding on states (including the District of Columbia) establishing policies to ensure all children with disabilities have access to a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE).
- The District of Columbia was obligated to implement a 'Child Find' program to identify, locate, and evaluate children with disabilities in need of special education.
- For years, the District failed to maintain an effective Child Find system for preschool-age children (ages 3 to 5).
- Specific failures included not identifying children potentially needing services, failing to locate those children, failing to provide timely initial evaluations, and failing to offer services once eligibility was determined.
- Additionally, the District failed to ensure a smooth transition for children moving from early intervention programs (Part C) to preschool programs (Part B).
- As a result of these varied failures, numerous disabled children in the District were denied the FAPE to which they were entitled under federal law.
Procedural Posture:
- Plaintiffs filed a complaint against the District of Columbia in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
- The District Court certified the class under Rule 23(b)(2).
- The District Court granted partial summary judgment for plaintiffs regarding liability.
- Following the Supreme Court's decision in Wal-Mart v. Dukes, the District moved to decertify the class.
- The District Court denied the motion to decertify and issued a structural injunction against the District.
- The District of Columbia appealed the injunction and certification orders to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
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Issue:
Does a certified class of disabled children satisfy the Rule 23(a)(2) commonality requirement when the class members allege systemic violations of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), but their specific injuries stem from different stages of the administrative process—such as failure to locate, failure to evaluate, or failure to transition—rather than a single uniform policy?
Opinions:
Majority - Judge Rogers
No, the class certification is improper because the plaintiffs failed to identify a single uniform policy or practice that bridges all their disparate claims. Relying on the Supreme Court's decision in Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, the Court explained that merely alleging that all class members suffered a violation of the same provision of law is insufficient to establish commonality. In this case, the harms alleged involved different policies and practices at different stages of the process: some children were not located, others were not evaluated, and others were not transitioned properly. There was no 'glue' holding these alleged reasons together, meaning a determination of the truth or falsity of one claim (e.g., failure to evaluate) would not resolve the validity of another claim (e.g., failure to locate) in 'one stroke.' Consequently, the broad class definition lacked the capacity to generate common answers apt to drive the resolution of the litigation.
Concurrence - Senior Judge Edwards
Yes, I agree that the current class definition is too broad under Wal-Mart, but I write separately to emphasize that class actions remain a viable tool for IDEA litigation. The District argued that Wal-Mart would bar any class action where individual decisions are involved, which is 'patently wrong.' If the District had a specific 'stopped at the door' policy that effectively blocked all disabled children from being considered for benefits, that would constitute a common contention solvable by a single injunction. On remand, the district court remains free to certify classes or subclasses if they are defined by a specific illegal policy or practice affecting all members of that group.
Analysis:
This decision is a significant application of Wal-Mart v. Dukes in the context of civil rights and administrative law. It clarifies that 'systemic failures' are not enough to certify a class if the system fails different people in different ways. The ruling forces plaintiffs to be much more precise in their class definitions, likely requiring the use of subclasses (e.g., a 'failure to evaluate' subclass separate from a 'failure to locate' subclass). While it makes certification harder for broad 'broken system' lawsuits, the concurrence ensures that Wal-Mart is not interpreted as a total bar to class actions in the IDEA context, preserving the mechanism for challenging specific, uniform illegal policies.
