Justia U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Plaintiff filed suit under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), 20 U.S.C. 1400 et seq., seeking attorneys' fees after she proved in an administrative hearing that a school district had violated her child’s right to a free appropriate public education by repeatedly placing him in isolation during school hours. The court concluded that the district court erred in applying section 1415(i)(2)(B)’s limitations period to this action for attorneys’ fees under the IDEA by a party that prevailed at the administrative level. Because the statute contains no limitations period for such actions, the district court should have borrowed one from state law. The court held that the limitations period for such an action does not begin to run until the time for seeking judicial review of the underlying administrative decision passes, and that plaintiff’s action was timely under any limitations period that could be borrowed. Accordingly, the court reversed the district court's grant of summary judgment and remanded for further proceedings. View "D.G. v. New Caney Indep. Sch. Dist." on Justia Law

The DOJ filed a motion for further relief in this 40-year-old case in order to gain oversight and some level of control over Louisiana’s school voucher program. The district court granted the DOJ’s motion for further relief and thus mandated annual reporting requirements for Louisiana’s school voucher program. Appellants moved to vacate the district court's order under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 59(e), 60(b)(4), and 60(b)(5). The district court denied the motion. The court held that the order concerning the voucher program is beyond the scope of the district court’s continuing jurisdiction in this case and is therefore void for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The district court should have granted the Rule 60(b)(4) motion. The order is reversed and the injunction is therefore dissolved. View "Brumfield v. Louisiana State Bd. of Edu." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit against the school district and its employees, alleging claims related to the sexual molestation of A.W. by her teacher. The district court dismissed the claims under Rule 12(b)(6) as time-barred. At issue is the Texas statute of limitations that applies to Title IX of the Education Act of 1972, 20 U.S.C. 1681 et seq., and 42 U.S.C. 1983 claims involving sexual abuse. The court concluded that the district court did not err in finding that plaintiffs’ Title IX and section 1983 claims are time-barred because plaintiffs' claims accrued more than two years prior to their filing suit and the equitable tolling principles they have identified do not apply. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment and did not reach the remaining issues raised on appeal. View "King-White v. Humble Indep. Sch. Dist." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, a high school student and his mother, filed suit against defendants for violation of the student's freedom of speech under the First Amendment and the mother's substantive due process right to parental authority under the Fourteenth Amendment. Plaintiffs' complaint stemmed from the student's suspension and transfer to an alternative school for his posting of a rap song on his Facebook page and on YouTube that criticized and named two male athletic coaches at his school for sexually harassing female students. The court concluded that, even assuming arguendo the School Board could invoke Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District in this case, it would not afford the School Board a defense for its violation of the student's First Amendment rights because the evidence does not support a finding, as would be required by Tinker, that the student's song either substantially disrupted the school's work or discipline or that the school officials reasonably could have forecasted such a disruption. In the alternative, the court concluded that the student's song did not gravely and uniquely threaten violence to the school population such to justify discipline pursuant to the court's narrow holding in Ponce v. Socorro Independent School District that student speech that threatened a Columbine-style attack on a school was not protected by the First Amendment. In this case, the student's speech did not constitute a true threat as evidenced by, inter alia, its public broadcast as a rap song, its conditional nature, and the reactions of its listeners. The district court reversed in part and rendered in favor of the student against the School Board on the First Amendment claim; remanded and directed the district court to award the student nominal damages, court costs, appropriate attorneys' fees, and an injunction ordering the School Board to expunge all references to the incident at issue from the student's school records. The court affirmed in all other respects. View "Bell v. Itawamba Cty. Sch. Bd." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against UT alleging that UT's race-conscious admissions program violated the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court vacated the court's affirmance of the district court's grant of summary judgment to UT, holding that this court and the district court reviewed UT's means to the end of a diverse student body with undue deference. The Supreme Court ordered that this court must give a more exacting scrutiny to UT's efforts to achieve diversity. Any UT college applicant not offered admission either through the Top Ten Percent Law or through an exceptionally high Academic Index (AI) score is evaluated through the holistic review process. The court concluded that plaintiff had standing to challenge the injury she alleged, the use of race in UT's admissions program for the entering freshman class of Fall 2008; there is no clear benefit to remanding this case to the district court; on the merits, the holistic review is a necessary complement to the Top Ten Percent Plan, enabling it to operate without reducing itself to a cover for a quota system; and, in doing so, its limited use of race is narrowly tailored to this role - as small a part as possible for the Plan to succeed. The court was satisfied that UT had demonstrated that race-conscious holistic review is necessary to make the Top Ten Percent Plan workable by patching the holes that a mechanical admissions program leaves in its ability to achieve the rich diversity that contributes to its academic mission - as described by California v. Bakke and Grutter v. Bollinger. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment.View "Fisher, et al. v. State of Texas, et al." on Justia Law

UT filed suit against the United States, seeking refund of the Social Security component of FICA taxes it paid with respect to the service of medical residents in 2005. The court affirmed the district court's denial of UT's motion for summary judgment and grant of the United States' motion for summary judgment, concluding that UT's residents are not "students" within the meaning of the student exclusion in Texas's 42 U.S.C. 418 agreement. Section 418 allows states to voluntarily opt-in to the Social Security system by entering into an agreement with the Commissioner of Social Security.View "University of Texas System, et al. v. United States" on Justia Law

The Louisiana legislature established the Scholarship Program in 2012 to provide funding to low-income parents with children in failing schools so that they may have the option of sending them to better schools, including private schools, of their own choosing. Parents seek to intervene in this litigation between Louisiana and the federal government over the state's voucher program. The court concluded that the parents met the requirements for intervention as of right and reversed the district court's denial of their motion to intervene. View "Brumfield, et al. v. Dodd, et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against an elementary school principal who did not allow him to distribute religious material to other adults at his son's in-class winter party. On appeal, plaintiff challenged the district court's dismissal of his constitutional claim based on qualified immunity. The court found that plaintiff failed to establish that a right to distribute religious gifts was clearly established for the purpose of qualified immunity analysis. Accordingly, plaintiff's allegations were not sufficient to overcome the principal's qualified immunity defense. The district court did not address the actual constitutionality of the principal's conduct and the court concluded that it need not reach the question. The court affirmed the district court's judgment. View "Morgan, et al. v. Plano Indep. Sch. Dist., et al." on Justia Law

In this nearly fifty-year-old desegregation case, the United States appealed the district court's order implementing a freedom of choice plan intended to desegregate the formerly de jure African-American middle school and high school in the Cleveland School District. At issue was the district court's adoption of a plan that abolished attendance zones and a majority-to-minority transfer program and implemented a freedom of choice plan that allowed each student in the district to choose to attend any junior high or high school. The court concluded that, given the available statistics that not a single white student chose to enroll at the schools after the district court's order, and that historically, over the course of multiple decades, no white student has ever chosen to enroll in the school, the district court's conclusion that a freedom of choice plan was the most appropriate desegregation remedy at those schools certainly needed to be expressed with sufficient particularity to enable the court to review it. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded for a more explicit explanation of the reasons for adopting the freedom of choice plan, and/or consideration of the alternative desegregation plans proposed by the parties. View "Cowan v. Bolivar County Bd. of Educ." on Justia Law

Montana Lance locked himself inside the school nurse's bathroom when he was in the fourth grade and took his own life. Montana's parents filed suit against the school district alleging, among other claims, that the school district violated Montana's constitutional rights under 42 U.S.C. 1983 and discriminated against him because of his disabilities under section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 29 U.S.C. 794. The court concluded that plaintiffs failed to allege genuine issues of fact regarding their discrimination claims under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), 20 U.S.C. 1400 et seq., the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. 12101 et seq., and section 504. The court also concluded that plaintiffs failed to allege genuine issues of fact under three theories of section 1983 liability: a "special relationship" theory; a "state-created danger" theory; and a "caused-to-be subjected" theory. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment for the school district. View "Estate of Montana Lance, et al. v. Lewisville Indep. Sch. Dist." on Justia Law