Last week, COPAA submitted an amicus brief to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit supporting the family of a child with dyslexia in T.M.J. v. Vallejo City Unified School District. COPAA’s brief urged the Ninth Circuit to reverse the decision of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California, which applied a rigid view of the statute of limitations for Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (“IDEA”) cases. You can read the amicus brief here.

The IDEA’s statute of limitations requires that a party request a due process hearing within two years of the date when the party “knew or should have known about the alleged action that forms the basis of the complaint….” 20 U.S.C. § 1415(f)(3)(C).

COPAA emphasized in its brief that the IDEA’s child find obligation applies to school districts, not to parents, and that the district court improperly shifted the obligation to parents, “who often have no knowledge of IDEA procedures or their accompanying rights.” This approach is particularly inappropriate with respect to T.M.J., who has dyslexia, which has complex diagnostic criteria that can be difficult for parents to understand. COPAA noted that the district court’s restrictive interpretation of the “Knew or Should Have Known” standard for the IDEA’s statute of limitations will lead to well-resourced students being granted IDEA protections, while lower income students—particularly those with disabilities that are difficult to detect—will not have those same protections.

The amicus brief was written by Jacob T. Randolph (Counsel of Record), Eric D. Vandevelde, Kiernan Panish, Swathi Sreerangarajan, and Kamia Williams of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP; and by COPAA Legal Director Selene Almazan.