Luna Perez v. Sturgis Public Schools

                   PRELIMINARY PRINT

             Volume 598 U. S. Part 1
                             Pages 142–151




       OFFICIAL REPORTS
                                    OF


   THE SUPREME COURT
                              March 21, 2023


Page Proof Pending Publication


                   REBECCA A. WOMELDORF
                           reporter of decisions




    NOTICE: This preliminary print is subject to formal revision before
  the bound volume is published. Users are requested to notify the Reporter
  of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D.C. 20543,
  [email protected], of any typographical or other formal errors.
142                     OCTOBER TERM, 2022

                                Syllabus


LUNA PEREZ v. STURGIS PUBLIC SCHOOLS et al.

certiorari to the united states court of appeals for
                  the sixth circuit
      No. 21–887. Argued January 18, 2023—Decided March 21, 2023
Petitioner Miguel Luna Perez, who is deaf, attended schools in Michigan's
  Sturgis Public School District (Sturgis) from ages 9 through 20. When
  Sturgis announced that it would not permit Mr. Perez to graduate, he
  and his family fled an administrative complaint with the Michigan De-
  partment of Education alleging (among other things) that Sturgis failed
  to provide him a free and appropriate public education as required by
  the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). See 

. They claimed that Sturgis supplied Mr. Perez with unqualifed
  interpreters and misrepresented his educational progress. The parties
  reached a settlement in which Sturgis promised to provide the forward-
  looking relief Mr. Perez sought, including additional schooling.
  Mr. Perez then sued in federal district court under the Americans with
  Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) seeking compensatory damages. Stur-
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  gis moved to dismiss. It claimed that 

(l) barred
  Mr. Perez from bringing his ADA claim because it requires a plaintiff
  “seeking relief that is also available under” IDEA to frst exhaust
  IDEA's administrative procedures. The district court agreed and dis-
  missed the suit, and the Sixth Circuit affrmed.
Held: IDEA's exhaustion requirement does not preclude Mr. Perez's ADA
 lawsuit because the relief he seeks (i. e., compensatory damages) is not
 something IDEA can provide. Pp. 146–151.
    (a) Section 1415(l) contains two features. The frst clause focuses on
 “remedies” and sets forth this general rule: “Nothing [in IDEA] shall
 be construed to restrict” the ability to seek “remedies” under “other
 Federal laws protecting the rights of children with disabilities.” The
 second clause carves out an exception: Before fling a civil action under
 other federal laws “seeking relief that is also available” under IDEA,
 “the procedures under [§ 1415](f) and (g) shall be exhausted.” Those
 provisions provide children and families the right to a “due process
 hearing” before local or state administrators, § 1415(f)(1)(A), followed
 by an “appeal” to the state education agency, § 1415(g)(1). Mr. Perez
 reads § 1415(l)'s “seeking relief ” clause as applying only if he pursues
 remedies that are also available under IDEA. And because IDEA does
 not provide compensatory damages, § 1415(l) does not foreclose his ADA
 claim. Sturgis reads the provision as requiring exhaustion of § 1415(f)
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                                 Syllabus

  and (g) so long as a plaintiff seeks some form of redress for the underly-
  ing harm addressed by IDEA. And because Mr. Perez complains about
  Sturgis's education-related shortcomings, his failure to exhaust is fatal.
  Pp. 146–147.
     (b) Mr. Perez's reading better comports with the statute's terms.
  Because § 1415(l)'s exhaustion requirement applies only to suits that
  “see[k] relief . . . also available under” IDEA, it poses no bar where a
  non-IDEA plaintiff sues for a remedy that is unavailable under IDEA.
  This interpretation admittedly treats “remedies” as synonymous with
  the “relief ” a plaintiff “seek[s].” But that is how an ordinary reader
  would interpret the provision, based on a number of contextual clues.
  Section 1415(l) begins by directing a reader to the subject of “reme-
  dies,” offering frst a general rule then a qualifying exception. IDEA
  treats “remedies” and “relief ” as synonyms elsewhere, see § 1415(i)
  (2)(C)(iii), (3)(D)(i)(III), as do other provisions in the U. S. Code, see
  

(d); 

(a)(2)–(3). The second clause in
  § 1415(l), moreover, refers to claims “seeking relief ” available under
  IDEA. In law that phrase (or some variant) often refers to the reme-
  dies a plaintiff requests. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a)(3), for
  example, says a plaintiff's complaint must include a list of requested
  remedies—i. e., “a demand for the relief sought.” Likewise, this Court
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  often speaks of the “relief ” a plaintiff “seeks” as the remedies he re-
  quests. See, e. g., South Carolina v. North Carolina, 

, 260.
  Pp. 147–149.
     (c) Sturgis suggests this interpretation is foreclosed by Fry v. Napo-
  leon Community Schools, 

. But the Court in Fry went
  out of its way to reserve rather than decide this question. What the
  Court did say in Fry about the question presented there does not ad-
  vance the school district's cause here. Finally, Sturgis says the Court's
  interpretation will frustrate Congress's wish to route claims about edu-
  cational services to administrative experts. It is unclear what this
  proves, as either party's interpretation of § 1415(l) would preclude some
  unexhausted claims. In any event, it is the not the job of this Court
  to “ `replace the actual text with speculation as to Congress's intent.' ”
  Henson v. Santander Consumer USA Inc., 

, 89. Pp. 149–150.

, reversed and remanded.

  Gorsuch, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.

  Roman Martinez argued the cause for petitioner. With
him on the briefs were Nicholas Rosellini, Ellen Marjorie
Saideman, Marc Charmatz, and Mitchell Sickon.
144        LUNA PEREZ v. STURGIS PUBLIC SCHOOLS

                          Opinion of the Court

  Anthony A. Yang argued the cause for the United States
as amicus curiae urging reversal. With him on the brief
were Solicitor General Prelogar, Assistant Attorney Gen-
eral Clarke, Deputy Solicitor General Fletcher, Bonnie I.
Robin-Vergeer, Teresa Kwong, Francisco Lopez, and Eric
Moll.
  Shay Dvoretzky argued the cause for respondents. With
him on the brief were Parker Rider-Longmaid, Kyser
Blakely, Jeremy Patashnik, Timothy J. Mullins, and Ken-
neth B. Chapie.*

  Justice Gorsuch delivered the opinion of the Court.
  The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA),

, as amended, 

 et seq., seeks to
ensure children with disabilities receive a free and appro-
priate public education. Toward that end, the law sets forth
a number of administrative procedures for children, their
parents, teachers, and school districts to follow when dis-
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putes arise. The question we face in this case concerns the
extent to which children with disabilities must exhaust these
administrative procedures under IDEA before seeking relief
under other federal antidiscrimination statutes, such as the
Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), 

,

 et seq.

  *Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were fled for Advocates for
Children of New York et al. by Jeffrey S. Ginsberg and Kathleen E. Gard-
ner; for The Arc of the United States et al. by Selene A. Almazan-
Altobelli, Catherine Merino Reisman, and Alexis Casillas; for Former
U. S. Dept. of Education Offcials by Aaron M. Panner; for Professors by
Leslie Salzman, Rebekah Diller, Brian Wolfman, and Brigid F. Cech Sa-
mole; and for Sen. Tom Harkin et al. by David A. Strauss, Sarah M.
Konsky, Matthew S. Hellman, and Claudia Center.
  Briefs of amici curiae urging affrmance were fled for AASA|The
School Superintendents Association et al. by Christopher B. Gilbert; and
for the National School Boards Association et al. by Francisco M. Negrón,
Jr., Sonja H. Trainor, and Roy Henley.
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                      Opinion of the Court

                         *      *      *
   From ages 9 through 20, Miguel Luna Perez attended
schools in Michigan's Sturgis Public School District (Sturgis).
Because Mr. Perez is deaf, Sturgis provided him with aides
to translate classroom instruction into sign language. For
years, Mr. Perez and his parents allege, Sturgis assigned
aides who were either unqualifed (including one who at-
tempted to teach herself sign language) or absent from the
classroom for hours on end. Along the way, Sturgis alleg-
edly misrepresented Mr. Perez's educational progress too,
awarding him infated grades and advancing him from grade
to grade regardless of his progress. Based on Sturgis's mis-
representations, Mr. Perez and his parents say, they believed
he was on track to graduate from high school with his class.
But then, months before graduation, Sturgis revealed that it
would not award him a diploma.
   In response to these developments, Mr. Perez and his fam-
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ily fled a complaint with the Michigan Department of Educa-
tion. They alleged that Sturgis had failed its duties under
IDEA and other laws. App. 16–45. Shortly before an
administrative hearing, the parties reached a settlement.
Under its terms, Sturgis promised to provide Mr. Perez all
the forward-looking equitable relief he sought, including ad-
ditional schooling at the Michigan School for the Deaf.
   After settling his administrative complaint, Mr. Perez fled
a lawsuit in federal district court under the ADA seeking
backward-looking relief in the form of compensatory dam-
ages. 

 at 56–57. That complaint drew a motion to dis-
miss from Sturgis. The school district argued that a provi-
sion in IDEA, 

(l), barred Mr. Perez from
bringing an ADA claim without frst exhausting all of
IDEA's administrative dispute resolution procedures. Ulti-
mately, the district court agreed with Sturgis and dismissed
the suit. 

, *3–*4 (WD Mich., Dec. 19, 2019).
Bound by circuit precedent already addressing the question,
146      LUNA PEREZ v. STURGIS PUBLIC SCHOOLS

                      Opinion of the Court

the Sixth Circuit affrmed. 

, 241 (2021) (citing
Covington v. Knox Cty. School System, 

, 916–
917 (CA6 2000)).
   Whether § 1415(l) bars lawsuits like ours holds conse-
quences not just for Mr. Perez but for a great many chil-
dren with disabilities and their parents. Because our col-
leagues on the courts of appeals have disagreed about how
best to read the statute, we agreed to take up the ques-
tion. 598 U. S. ––– (2022). Compare 3 F. 4th, at 241–242;
McMillen v. New Caney Independent School Dist., 

, 647–648 (CA5 2019), with D. D. v. Los Angeles
Unifed School Dist., 

, 1059–1061 (CA9 2021)
(Bumatay, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part);
Doucette v. Georgetown Public Schools, 

, 31
(CA1 2019).
                        *    *     *
  Section 1415(l) contains two salient features. First, the
Page
statute setsProof      Pending
            forth this general           Publication
                               rule: “Nothing in [IDEA] shall
be construed to restrict” the ability of individuals to seek
“remedies” under the ADA or “other Federal laws protecting
the rights of children with disabilities.” Second, the statute
offers a qualifcation, prohibiting certain suits with this lan-
guage: “[E]xcept that before the fling of a civil action under
such [other federal] laws seeking relief that is also available
under this subchapter, the procedures under subsections (f)
and (g) shall be exhausted.” In turn, subsections (f) and (g)
provide affected children and their parents with the right to
a “due process hearing” before a local or state administrative
offcial, § 1415(f)(1)(A), followed by an “appeal” to the state
education agency, § 1415(g)(1).
   The parties offer very different interpretations of
 § 1415(l). Mr. Perez reads the statute to require a plaintiff
to exhaust the administrative processes found in subsections
(f) and (g) only to the extent he pursues a suit under another
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                      Opinion of the Court

federal law for remedies IDEA also provides. None of this,
Mr. Perez contends, forecloses his current claim because his
ADA complaint seeks only compensatory damages, a remedy
everyone before us agrees IDEA cannot supply. By con-
trast, Sturgis reads § 1415(l) as requiring a plaintiff to ex-
haust subsections (f) and (g) before he may pursue a suit
under another federal law if that suit seeks relief for
the same underlying harm IDEA exists to address. On
this view, the law bars Mr. Perez's ADA suit because it
seeks relief for harms fowing from Sturgis's alleged past
shortcomings in providing a free and appropriate public
education—a harm IDEA exists to address—and Mr. Perez
chose to settle his administrative complaint rather than ex-
haust § 1415(f) and (g)'s remedial processes.
   If both views are plausible ones, we believe Mr. Perez's
better comports with the statute's terms. Start with
§ 1415(l)'s frst clause. It focuses our attention on “reme-
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dies.” A “remedy” denotes “[t]he means of enforcing a
right,” and may come in the form of, say, money damages,
an injunction, or a declaratory judgment. Black's Law Dic-
tionary 1320 (8th ed. 2004); see also 13 Oxford English Dic-
tionary 584–585 (2d ed. 1991) (defning “remedy” as “[l]egal
redress”). The statute then proceeds to instruct that
“[n]othing” in IDEA shall be construed as “restrict[ing] or
limit[ing]” the availability of any of these things “under”
other federal statutes like the ADA.
   Of course, § 1415(l) carves out an exception to this rule.
The second clause bars individuals from “seeking relief ”
under other federal laws unless they frst exhaust “the pro-
cedures under subsections (f) and (g).” But, by its terms,
this limiting language does not apply to all suits seeking
relief that other federal laws provide. The statute's admin-
istrative exhaustion requirement applies only to suits that
“see[k] relief . . . also available under” IDEA. And that con-
dition simply is not met in situations like ours, where a plain-
148       LUNA PEREZ v. STURGIS PUBLIC SCHOOLS

                       Opinion of the Court

tiff brings a suit under another federal law for compensatory
damages—a form of relief everyone agrees IDEA does not
provide.
   Admittedly, our interpretation treats “remedies” (the key
term in the frst clause) as synonymous with the “relief ” a
plaintiff “seek[s]” (the critical phrase found in the second
clause). But a number of contextual clues persuade us that
is exactly how an ordinary reader would understand this par-
ticular provision. Not only does § 1415(l) begin by directing
a reader to the subject of remedies, offering frst a general
and then a qualifying rule on the subject. In at least
two other places, IDEA treats “remedies” and “relief ” as
synonyms, and we cannot conceive a persuasive reason why
the statute would operate differently only here. Section
1415(i)(2)(C)(iii) directs courts in IDEA cases to “grant such
relief as the court determines is appropriate.” (Emphasis
added.) That statutory instruction, we have said, author-
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izes courts to grant “as an available remedy” the “reimburse-
ment” of past educational expenses. School Comm. of Bur-
lington v. Department of Ed. of Mass., 

,
369–370 (1985) (emphasis added). Elsewhere, IDEA some-
times bars those who reject a school district's settlement
offer from recovering attorney's fees for later work if “the
relief fnally obtained . . . is not more favorable . . . than the
offer.” § 1415(i)(3)(D)(i)(III) (emphasis added). Once more,
relief means remedy.
   Nor is IDEA particularly unusual in treating remedies and
relief as synonyms. Other provisions in the U. S. Code do
too. By way of example, 

(d) provides that
“[t]he limitations on remedies in this section shall not apply
to relief entered by a State court based solely upon claims
arising under State law.” (Emphases added.) Likewise, 

(a)(2)–(3) indicate that “the United States . . .
may obtain . . . a remedy under this chapter . . . or . . . any
other relief the circumstances may require.” (Emphases
added.)
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                       Opinion of the Court

   Infuencing our thinking as well is the fact that the second
clause in § 1415(l) refers to claims “seeking relief ” available
under IDEA. To “seek” is “[t]o ask for” or “request.” 14
Oxford English Dictionary, at 877. And often enough the
phrase “seeking relief ” or some variant of it is used in the
law to refer to the remedies a plaintiff requests. Under the
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, for example, a plaintiff's
complaint must include a list of requested remedies, or what
the law calls “a demand for the relief sought.” Fed. Rule
Civ. Proc. 8(a)(3) (emphasis added); see also Fed. Rule Civ.
Proc. 54(c). Many of our opinions as well similarly speak of
the “relief ” a plaintiff “seeks” as the remedies he requests.
See, e. g., South Carolina v. North Carolina, 

,
260 (2010) (describing the “relief ” South Carolina “seeks” as
the remedies demanded in its “Prayer for Relief ”); New York
State Rife & Pistol Assn., Inc. v. City of New York, 590
U. S. –––, ––– (2020) (per curiam) (describing “the precise
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relief that petitioners requested in the prayer” as two reme-
dies, a declaration and an injunction); Bowen v. Massachu-
setts, 

, 892 (1988) (discussing 

's
reference to an “ `action . . . seeking relief other than
money damages' ”).
   Faced with all this, Sturgis replies that, whatever the mer-
its of our interpretation, precedent forecloses it. Brief for
Respondents 19–20, 26–27. Specifcally, the school district
points to Fry v. Napoleon Community Schools, 

(2017). But the Court in Fry went out of its way to reserve
rather than decide the question we now face. See 

; 

. And what the Court did say in
Fry about the question presented there hardly advances the
school district's cause here. In Fry, the Court held that
§ 1415(l)'s exhaustion requirement does not apply unless the
plaintiff “seeks relief for the denial of ” a free and appropriate
public education “because that is the only `relief ' ” IDEA's
administrative processes can supply. Id., at 165, 168. This
case presents an analogous but different question—whether
150       LUNA PEREZ v. STURGIS PUBLIC SCHOOLS

                      Opinion of the Court

a suit admittedly premised on the past denial of a free and
appropriate education may nonetheless proceed without ex-
hausting IDEA's administrative processes if the remedy a
plaintiff seeks is not one IDEA provides. In both cases, the
question is whether a plaintiff must exhaust administrative
processes under IDEA that cannot supply what he seeks.
And here, as in Fry, we answer in the negative.
   Failing all else, Sturgis closes with an appeal to congres-
sional purpose. Brief for Respondents 22–24. The school
district worries that our understanding of § 1415(l) would
frustrate Congress's wish to route claims about educational
services to administrative agencies with “ `special exper-
tise' ” in such matters. Id., at 22. But “it is . . . our job to
apply faithfully the law Congress has written,” and “ `[w]e
cannot replace the actual text with speculation as to Con-
gress' intent.' ” Henson v. Santander Consumer USA Inc.,

, 89 (2017) (quoting Magwood v. Patterson, 561
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U. S. 320, 334 (2010)). Even on its own terms, it is unclear
what the school district's argument proves. Either inter-
pretation of § 1415(l) operates to preclude some unexhausted
claims. Under our view, for example, a plaintiff who fles an
ADA action seeking both damages and the sort of equitable
relief IDEA provides may fnd his request for equitable re-
lief barred or deferred if he has yet to exhaust § 1415(f) and
(g). Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 22. It is
“quite mistaken to assume,” too, that any interpretation of a
law that does more to advance a statute's putative goal
“must be the law.” Henson, 582 U. S., at 89. Laws are the
product of “compromise,” and no law “ `pursues its . . . pur-
pose[s] at all costs.' ” Ibid. And it isn't exactly diffcult to
imagine that a rational Congress might have sought to tem-
per a demand for administrative exhaustion when a plaintiff
seeks a remedy IDEA can supply with a rule excusing ex-
haustion when a plaintiff seeks a remedy IDEA cannot
provide.
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                      Opinion of the Court

                         *      *      *
   The parties pose a number of additional questions they
would like us to answer—including whether IDEA's exhaus-
tion requirement is susceptible to a judge-made futility ex-
ception and whether the compensatory damages Mr. Perez
seeks in his ADA suit are in fact available under that statute.
But today, we have no occasion to address any of those
things. In proceedings below, the courts held that § 1415(l)
precluded Mr. Perez's ADA lawsuit. We clarify that nothing
in that provision bars his way. The judgment of the Court
of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further
proceedings consistent with this opinion.
                                                   So ordered.




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  The attached opinion has been revised to refect the usual publication
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include adjustments to formatting, captions, citation form, and any errant
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