Supreme Court Preview: Another ‘dog’ case for the Justices
In its new term, the Supreme Court will hear arguments on Halloween about a conflict that started when a disabled child couldn’t bring a service dog to a public school.
Photo: ACLU Michigan
This isn’t the first time in recent years that a canine-related case has appeared before the Justices. In April 2015, the Court ruled in a 6-3 decision that police officers in Nebraska needed a search warrant after they deployed trained drug-sniffing dog officer Floyd after a traffic stop.
And back in early 2013, the Court ruled in two other important Fourth Amendment cases involving nosy police dogs. Both incidents took part in Florida. In Florida v. Harris, canine officer Aldo was on the scene of a traffic stop when his human partner was refused permission to search a car that was pulled over for a traffic violation. Aldo then alerted to a substance on a car handle, which the Justices upheld as evidence of probable cause for the officer to search within the car.
The other case, Florida v. Jardines, involved canine officer Franky, who was accompanying his partner after police received a tip about an alleged marijuana growing activity inside a house. Franky was on the house’s porch when he alerted to the presence of marijuana. The Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision that Franky’s sniff was a Fourth Amendment violation, since a search warrant was needed before Franky’s talents were deployed.
This year, Wonder the Goldendoodle is a minor, but important player in Fry v. Napoleon Community Schools. The controversy here is over the rights of a disabled child’s parents to sue a public school receiving federal funding after the school wouldn’t allow the child to bring a service dog to school to help her during her classes.
The child in the case was born with cerebral palsy. When the girl was the age of five, a pediatrician prescribed Wonder to the girl and her family to help her with daily tasks. The Napoleon Community school district in Michigan said that it had already provided a one-on-one support person to help the child at school, and the dog wasn’t needed. Wonder was later allowed at school in a limited fashion for a trial period, but the school decided to not allow Wonder back at school after that period ended.
The family withdrew the child from school, deciding on homeschooling as an option, and it filed a civil rights complaint, alleging the school district violated the federal Americans with Disabilities and Rehabilitation acts. A civil rights panel ruled that the school district violated the child’s rights, and the school agreed to let the child and her dog attend school together. But the school district didn’t admit liability in the case, and the child transferred to another school.
The family then sued on the child’s behalf to recover damages for the period when Wonder was barred from the school, on the theory the child suffered emotional and social harm.
A district court dismissed the lawsuit, saying that the family needed to find a solution with the school under another act, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (or IDEA). A divided federal Sixth Circuit Court panel agreed. The court cited yet another act, the Handicapped Children’s Protection Act of 1986 (or HCPA), that requires the family seek damages under the IDEA. The majority said the family hadn’t exhausted all of its educational options with the school under the IDEA and that a monetary damages civil suit wasn’t allowed under the IDEA. (A full bench then denied a rehearing and the family appealed to the Supreme Court.)
The Supreme Court accepted the appeal on June 28, 2016. The question before the Court is whether the HCPA commands exhaustion in a lawsuit, brought under the ADA and the Rehabilitation Act, that seeks damages – a remedy that is not available under the IDEA.
The Justice Department urged the Court to take the case to resolve a split among several federal circuit courts on the interpretation of the acts. “This case offers the Court a suitable vehicle in which to clarify the law and effectuate Congress’s goal of preserving freestanding causes of action—apart from the IDEA—as viable mechanisms for protecting children with disabilities,” it argued.
Scott Bomboy is the editor in chief of the National Constitution Center.
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