On March 21, 2023 SCOTUS issued another pro-child, unanimous landmark decision in Perez v. Sturgis Public Schools.

The Court held that Perez did not need to exhaust his administrative remedies, effectively reversing the prior adverse ruling from the Sixth Circuit.

The Opinion  of the Court is located on our website at:

https://www.wrightslaw.com/law/scotus/sturgis/2023.0321.SCOTUS.Opinion.Perez.v.Sturgis.21-887.pdf

Significant quotes from Justice Gorsuch's ruling are:

Page 2
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 additional schooling at the Michigan School for the Deaf. 

After settling his administrative complaint, Mr. Perez filed a lawsuit in federal district court under the ADA seeking backward-looking relief in the form of compensatory damages.

(The Justice emphasized forward v. backward looking relief.)

Page 6 
In Fry, the Court held that Section 1415(i)'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 a suit admittedly premised on the past denial of a free and appropriate education may nonetheless proceed without exhausting 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. 


Page 7-8 
The parties pose a number of additional questions they would like us to answer—including whether IDEA's exhaustion requirement is susceptible to a judge-made futility exception 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 Section 415(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. 

(For the original complaint filed in the U.S. District Court, the transcript of the Oral Argument, and more, please go to:)

https://www.wrightslaw.com/law/scotus/sturgis/