[00:00:03] Speaker 01: Good morning and may it please the court. [00:00:05] Speaker 01: William Koski on behalf of plaintiff and appellant TMJ. [00:00:10] Speaker 01: So the central question before the court today is really straightforward. [00:00:15] Speaker 01: It's when did TMJ's mother know or when should she have known about the alleged action by the Vallejo and Fairfield school districts that forms the basis of his complaint. [00:00:25] Speaker 01: To answer that question, we really need to know two things. [00:00:28] Speaker 01: First of all, we need to understand the nature of TMJ's claim that the school districts denied him a free and appropriate public education or a FAPE. [00:00:36] Speaker 01: And second of all, we need to have a careful factual analysis of when TMJ's mother, a person with no specialized expertise in educational assessment, supports and interventions, should have discovered the basis of the claim. [00:00:49] Speaker 01: Though the question before the court is pretty straightforward, it has really significant consequences for the ability of families and children, particularly low-income families and children, to access their children's right to a FAPE. [00:01:01] Speaker 01: It will have significant consequences for whether the IDEA's ambition that school districts and families collaboratively plan for children's success can be realized, or whether families and school districts will be incentivized to mistrust and even file litigation against each other. [00:01:17] Speaker 01: The district court's decision needs to be reversed not only because it misapplies the discovery rule for when the claim accrues for purposes of the IDA statute of limitations. [00:01:28] Speaker 01: It must also be overturned because if it is allowed to stand, it will foster that mistrust and it will cause costly litigation between families and schools rather than collaboration toward student success. [00:01:40] Speaker 01: So with the rest of my time, I'm happy to answer any questions, but with the rest of my time I can describe the precise nature [00:01:46] Speaker 01: of TMJ's claims that he raised in the complaint, something the district court didn't go through very carefully. [00:01:52] Speaker 01: And then I'll also describe when TMJ's mother knew or should have known that her son had dyslexia-based needs. [00:02:00] Speaker 01: So the claim that we focus on here is that they failed to provide TMJ a free and appropriate public education because they did not identify his needs stemming from dyslexia. [00:02:11] Speaker 01: They did not implement evidence-based literacy programs and assistive technologies that would have helped him to read. [00:02:18] Speaker 01: This is really important to take a look at, because the district court- Can I ask you this, counsel? [00:02:21] Speaker 01: Yes. [00:02:21] Speaker 04: Because the briefing here really centers on his dyslexia, a dyslexia diagnosis, but that's not what's pled in the complaint. [00:02:30] Speaker 04: Is that a problem? [00:02:31] Speaker 04: There was an opportunity to amend, and you didn't choose to amend the complaint to make that specific allegation. [00:02:39] Speaker 04: What do we do with that? [00:02:40] Speaker 01: In the district court, the dyslexia-based needs were definitely pled. [00:02:44] Speaker 01: I believe that the reference was [00:02:47] Speaker 01: to the original complaint before the California Office for Administrative Hearings, where there was no specific mention of the word dyslexia. [00:02:54] Speaker 01: But over and over again, it was pled that all of the symptoms of dyslexia were failed to have been identified by the school district in that ALJ complaint, and that they did not provide the evidence-based interventions that would have addressed those needs. [00:03:09] Speaker 01: And if there were any question that dyslexia was in front and center here, in the context of the motion to dismiss the complaint before the ALJ, TMJ made it very clear it was the district's failure to assess his dyslexia and identify those dyslexia-based needs. [00:03:26] Speaker 01: So this has been known really since the beginning of the due process filing. [00:03:34] Speaker 04: So I see that there's a... [00:03:36] Speaker 04: allegation they had characteristics similar to a student with dyslexia. [00:03:41] Speaker 04: I think dyscalculia and dysgraphia were the other. [00:03:45] Speaker 04: Correct. [00:03:46] Speaker 04: Sometimes you're not relying on any of that. [00:03:48] Speaker 04: It's really the dyslexia that's an issue. [00:03:49] Speaker 01: Dyslexia is the main focus of this and the failure to provide those evidence-based reading interventions. [00:03:55] Speaker 01: And it was known right from the start by the Vallejo School District that he had these dyslexia-based needs. [00:04:01] Speaker 01: In fact, [00:04:03] Speaker 01: Right from his first assessment during the 2013-14 school year, they identified that he struggles in phonemic awareness, reading fluency, and high-frequency words, indicating learning disabilities and dyslexia to anybody who is trained in those kinds of assessments. [00:04:16] Speaker 01: And that's not TMJ's mother. [00:04:18] Speaker 01: In fact, there was a computer-generated report at that very same time that said there should be some follow-up to determine whether or not he has a learning disability. [00:04:27] Speaker 01: Under the Timothy O standard for what is a suspected disability, this is more than enough to put that district on notice. [00:04:33] Speaker 01: Instead, they only focused on his ADD and ADHD, his attentional difficulties. [00:04:39] Speaker 01: And year after year, there were repeated assurances to TMJ's mother that it was those attentional needs that were the real problem causing his learning difficulties. [00:04:49] Speaker 01: She didn't know anything about dyslexia, she didn't understand [00:04:52] Speaker 01: what phonemic awareness was, no parent should be held to that kind of a specialized expertise standard. [00:04:58] Speaker 01: And so for year after year, she participated in IEPs. [00:05:03] Speaker 01: She was extremely diligent. [00:05:05] Speaker 01: She was very much involved in TMJ's education. [00:05:08] Speaker 01: But year after year, she was assured that the district was meeting his circumstances. [00:05:14] Speaker 01: Now, in the prior oral argument, there was some reference to the Andrew F. standard for what is a free and appropriate public education. [00:05:21] Speaker 01: And it is, you know, whether or not the student is making progress in light of the circumstances. [00:05:26] Speaker 01: The circumstances that TMJ's mother understood was that he had ADHD and he had attention problems. [00:05:32] Speaker 01: And it wasn't until during the pandemic and shortly thereafter where he was essentially or she was essentially his primary instructor sitting with him, [00:05:41] Speaker 01: doing Zoom school like so many people did, trying to focus his attention on the words on the page, that she realized that he didn't understand anything that was in front of him, that there must be something else going on. [00:05:54] Speaker 01: And so that's when she sought out additional assessments for him and that's when it was ultimately identified that he had these dyslexia-based needs and that the district. [00:06:03] Speaker 01: And what year was that again? [00:06:05] Speaker 01: That was during the 2020-23 school year and the fall of the 2022-23 school year. [00:06:11] Speaker 03: But the previous studies, to follow up on Judge Wynn's question, there had been assessments back in 2020 that he had a specific learning disability. [00:06:19] Speaker 03: That's correct. [00:06:19] Speaker 03: And doesn't that classification include dyslexia? [00:06:24] Speaker 01: The identification under the eligibility category of specific learning disability, one of the several disability categories under the IDEA, is only sort of marginally helpful in determining what the underlying needs are. [00:06:37] Speaker 01: And that's because the specific definition of specific learning disability includes a vast array of things that... How vast is the array? [00:06:46] Speaker 01: Perceptual disabilities, brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction, dyslexia, developmental aphasia, [00:06:53] Speaker 03: These are dyslexia included in those. [00:06:55] Speaker 01: It is definitely included among those, but the district never identified those dyslexia based needs. [00:07:00] Speaker 01: This would have been the Fairfield district at that point. [00:07:02] Speaker 00: But this is getting back to where we were with the last argument that it seems like what you want is for there to be actual knowledge. [00:07:08] Speaker 00: Right, I mean, if even a 2020 assessment, a new assessment that gives him a new diagnosis that could include dyslexia, if that's not sufficient to trigger the should have known standard, then basically you're asking for an actual diagnosis of dyslexia and saying that the statute can't run until somebody has that. [00:07:29] Speaker 01: So what we would be asking for is, again, going back to the claim that TMJ has, and that is he was denied a free and appropriate public education [00:07:38] Speaker 01: Neither of the school districts at any point said that he had these dyslexia-based needs and that we could address them through evidence-based structured literacy programs. [00:07:48] Speaker 01: No reasonable parent should understand that this wide category of specific learning disability that includes everything from brain injuries to dyslexia [00:07:57] Speaker 01: No parent should understand. [00:07:59] Speaker 01: And that word, dyslexia, was not mentioned by the school districts again. [00:08:01] Speaker 01: It's not the specific diagnosis per se of dyslexia. [00:08:04] Speaker 01: It's what needs flow from that. [00:08:06] Speaker 01: And if there were any question that the districts themselves did not identify those needs, the Fairfield School District, after finding him eligible under the category specific learning disability, didn't provide those evidence-based interventions, didn't provide a structured literacy program. [00:08:24] Speaker 01: They just did the same old, same old again. [00:08:26] Speaker 01: So the district itself didn't do anything different. [00:08:30] Speaker 01: Why should a parent, again, a reasonable parent who was very much involved, why should a parent be put on notice at that point that she has a claim that the school districts failed to do something? [00:08:40] Speaker 01: I don't want to focus too much on the specific diagnosis of dyslexia. [00:08:45] Speaker 01: I want to focus on what a reasonable parent should know when she gets a specific learning disability identification under this broad category. [00:08:53] Speaker 01: Without that specialized expertise that the school district had, [00:08:57] Speaker 01: She shouldn't know much more. [00:08:58] Speaker 01: She didn't know much more. [00:08:59] Speaker 03: At that time of that 2020 study, there had been some eight years of this. [00:09:04] Speaker 03: Wasn't there essentially a period of some eight years of diagnosis that he really wasn't progressing very well? [00:09:10] Speaker 01: There's no question. [00:09:11] Speaker 01: Everybody knew that he wasn't progressing very quickly in his reading at all. [00:09:17] Speaker 01: That was never at issue. [00:09:18] Speaker 01: Year after year for eight years. [00:09:20] Speaker 01: So if poor performance alone, poor reading performance specifically were enough to [00:09:26] Speaker 01: give rise to a claim of a denial of free and appropriate public education, that would be great for me because then... Of course, that would be totally unworkable. [00:09:35] Speaker 03: That's totally unworkable. [00:09:37] Speaker 03: You're right, that would be great for your position, but that's unworkable. [00:09:39] Speaker 01: Yeah, exactly. [00:09:40] Speaker 01: And that's essentially what the district court found here because they said, the district court said in every year since that original identification under the IDEA, the parents should have known [00:09:50] Speaker 01: that he had a claim for denial of faith. [00:09:54] Speaker 01: That couldn't be true. [00:09:55] Speaker 01: That means one year, literally one year after that original identification, she should have filed a lawsuit. [00:10:01] Speaker 00: We don't need to conclude that. [00:10:03] Speaker 00: The issue is really the sum total of all these years, including 2020, and whether at that point the statute should have started to run. [00:10:12] Speaker 01: Harkening back to the conversation you had in the earlier case, [00:10:17] Speaker 01: What happened during that time period up until, we can leave that specific learning disability diagnosis aside for a second, what happened up until that point was over and over again the district gave reasonable assurances that they were addressing his, again, attention based needs, his ADD, ADHD needs. [00:10:36] Speaker 01: The mother, of course, without that specialized expertise is going to rely on that. [00:10:41] Speaker 01: So it's not merely the poor performance alone year after year after year, it's the poor performance plus [00:10:48] Speaker 01: the assurances that they were doing what they were supposed to do. [00:10:51] Speaker 00: Is this getting then into the tolling? [00:10:53] Speaker 00: Because the tolling doesn't provide for tolling based on assurances, it provides for tolling based on specific misrepresentations or withholding of certain specific statutorily required information. [00:11:05] Speaker 00: So it almost seems like you're trying to add a new tolling [00:11:08] Speaker 00: rule for reasonable assurances, which sounds like a reasonable rule, but it's just not the one that the statute has. [00:11:13] Speaker 01: What I'm trying to do is look carefully at the analysis of the should have known piece of this. [00:11:20] Speaker 01: She should not have known that there was something else going on with him. [00:11:24] Speaker 01: She should not have known that he had a learning disability because she was being assured. [00:11:27] Speaker 01: So that's why when you look at the standard here for [00:11:33] Speaker 01: when a claim accrues, it really is when the parent should have known about a denial of faith. [00:11:38] Speaker 01: She shouldn't have known that because she was being assured differently. [00:11:42] Speaker 01: So that's what the assurances, the work that the assurances are doing in the context of that initial analysis on the newer should have known standard. [00:11:50] Speaker 01: With the misrepresentation or the withholding of information tolling exceptions, it's doing a different kind of work over there. [00:11:57] Speaker 01: I really want to focus on the should have known piece of this and a reasonable parent in that context. [00:12:05] Speaker 00: I mean, this is a discovery rule. [00:12:06] Speaker 00: You know, in a discovery rule, usually put some duty of investigation on the plaintiff, right? [00:12:12] Speaker 00: And we can moderate that duty, perhaps, by saying a parent has a duty as a parent. [00:12:19] Speaker 00: A parent is not an expert. [00:12:21] Speaker 00: So I take your point on that. [00:12:22] Speaker 00: But even so, you know, at some point, if the child is doing so poorly, including in reading, which obviously has a connection to what you ultimately now claim, which is dyslexia, [00:12:33] Speaker 00: Do you not think there's some point along the line where a parent has to say, OK, whatever the cause of this, this is just not an adequate education, and now it's on me to kind of do something? [00:12:42] Speaker 01: Yeah, there is some point in each one of these cases, Your Honor. [00:12:45] Speaker 01: And the point here was when she realized it was not his attention difficulties. [00:12:49] Speaker 01: There is definitely going to be a different point in another case. [00:12:53] Speaker 03: That point was reached in 2020? [00:12:54] Speaker 03: 2022. [00:12:55] Speaker 03: But 2020 was the first time there was a reference to a specific learning disability. [00:13:00] Speaker 03: Isn't that correct? [00:13:02] Speaker 01: That was the, that again is when he became eligible under that. [00:13:05] Speaker 03: But I mean my point is 2020 is the first time there was a specific reference to a specific learning disability that included all, included. [00:13:15] Speaker 01: Your honors, I failed to reserve some of my time for rebuttal. [00:13:18] Speaker 01: I'm wondering if I could do that now. [00:13:20] Speaker 04: Good. [00:13:20] Speaker 04: Go ahead and answer the question first. [00:13:22] Speaker 03: I mean the point is, is that 2020 was the very first time that there was a reference to a specific learning disability that would include dyslexia. [00:13:31] Speaker 03: Up to that point, Tom, there was optimism. [00:13:33] Speaker 03: Correct. [00:13:33] Speaker 03: Among many other things. [00:13:35] Speaker 03: I understand. [00:13:35] Speaker 03: But my point is that it was 2020 when there was a specific reference to a specific learning disability. [00:13:40] Speaker 03: That is correct. [00:13:43] Speaker 04: Thank you, counsel. [00:13:59] Speaker 02: Good morning, honors, and may it please the court [00:14:01] Speaker 02: Kelly Murphy for Appellee Vallejo City Unified School District. [00:14:06] Speaker 02: The court should affirm the district court's decision in this matter. [00:14:10] Speaker 02: It's important to recognize that this is a case where the due process complaint at issue was filed nearly five years after Appellant, the student, left the Vallejo City Unified School District. [00:14:21] Speaker 02: At the time the student's parent filed the due process complaint, the student had not been a student at all in the district for almost five years. [00:14:29] Speaker 02: and had undergone subsequent evaluation and received services in an entirely different school district during that time. [00:14:36] Speaker 02: This is an extreme example of what could happen if the rule were that the statute of limitations begins to run when there is a diagnosis that the student or parent agrees with. [00:14:48] Speaker 02: The district court correctly found here that the appellant knew or had reason to know about the facts forming the basis of the due process complaint [00:14:58] Speaker 02: in each of the school years in which he alleges he was denied a FAPE by Vallejo City Unified School District. [00:15:03] Speaker 02: That's from 2013-14 school year through 2017-18 school year, five to nine years before the due process complaint was actually filed. [00:15:14] Speaker 02: The court found that there were sufficient facts in each of the school years for the student's parents to observe that he was not making progress and that he had demonstrated difficulties specifically in reading and language [00:15:26] Speaker 02: including demonstrated regression in several years. [00:15:30] Speaker 02: If that were not enough, the district court found that, at a minimum, the student's parents knew or should have known about the facts underlying the due process complaint at the latest, as of February 11th of 2020, when the subsequent school district assessed and identified a parent as having a specific learning disability, which, as was discussed earlier, includes dyslexia. [00:15:54] Speaker 04: This was more than three years. [00:15:56] Speaker 04: As we discussed in the last case, it's really, I think, difficult to say that when a child's not progressing, that that alone should trigger the statute of limitations. [00:16:04] Speaker 04: I mean, that can't be the case. [00:16:06] Speaker 04: You wouldn't want parents to rush to the courthouse every time their child's not doing well in any given school year. [00:16:13] Speaker 04: So do we need to address any years prior to 2020? [00:16:19] Speaker 02: Well, I think [00:16:21] Speaker 02: It isn't that at the first evidence the child's not doing well, the statute of limitation begins to run. [00:16:28] Speaker 02: But here we have this extreme example of six years where there was demonstrated regression, there was demonstrated problems with the student. [00:16:38] Speaker 02: So we don't have to pick a time really anywhere in there other than to say, [00:16:45] Speaker 04: Do we have to pick a time before 2020? [00:16:47] Speaker 04: Because in 2020 was when he was diagnosed with suffering from a specific disability, right? [00:16:54] Speaker 04: And within that umbrella category includes dyslexia. [00:16:59] Speaker 02: Well, I do think that there was a time period before that where the parents should have known that the FAPE was being denied and had all the facts to know that. [00:17:10] Speaker 00: We understand that, but I guess the question is if [00:17:14] Speaker 00: Is it sufficient to conclude that by 2020 they knew or should have known? [00:17:19] Speaker 00: If that's true, do you prevail? [00:17:22] Speaker 02: Yes, I believe so. [00:17:23] Speaker 02: Because that's the very latest that the parent should have known. [00:17:27] Speaker 00: Right. [00:17:28] Speaker 00: So I mean, whether they knew or should have known in 2013 or 2014 or 2016, we wouldn't necessarily need to decide that. [00:17:35] Speaker 02: Correct. [00:17:37] Speaker 02: Correct. [00:17:39] Speaker 02: To allow these claims to proceed against Folio City Unified School District would effectively eliminate the limitations period for IDE claims. [00:17:47] Speaker 02: And it would allow parents to ignore clear and repeated knowledge of their child's educational challenges and deficits. [00:17:54] Speaker 02: And it would extend the triggering of the statute of limitations indefinitely, unless and until there's evidence of a possible diagnosis that was allegedly missed by the school district. [00:18:05] Speaker 02: There simply has to be a limit, and there is. [00:18:09] Speaker 02: This court has described the standard as the limitations period begins to run when a parent has knowledge that a student's education is inadequate, not when the parent learns they have a cognizable legal claim. [00:18:23] Speaker 02: And here, the appellant argued in the district court that the newer reason to know or had reason to know date was during the 21-22 school year when his mother worked with him on independent study. [00:18:38] Speaker 02: And they argued that the parent shouldn't have to have expert knowledge to reach this conclusion or to trigger the statute of limitations. [00:18:48] Speaker 02: But there was no expert knowledge needed at that time. [00:18:52] Speaker 04: The parent merely sat down with the student. [00:18:53] Speaker 04: I think that your position is at least by the 2019-2020 time frame, because he had regressed and had done so poorly that the parents were on at least inquiry notice that their child was not receiving a favor. [00:19:08] Speaker 02: Absolutely. [00:19:09] Speaker 02: Absolutely. [00:19:10] Speaker 02: And the latest time that this statute of limitations can be triggered, it's important to note that the student was not even a student at Vallejo City Unified School District. [00:19:22] Speaker 02: There were things that had occurred after the student left. [00:19:26] Speaker 02: And so they hadn't even assessed the student further at that time. [00:19:31] Speaker 02: Now, different than in the district court, [00:19:36] Speaker 02: the appellants arguing that the date is even later during the 22-23 school year when the mother requested that the subsequent school district evaluate him for dyslexia. [00:19:49] Speaker 02: And it's also important to note here that there's nothing alleged and nothing, I believe, in the record that shows there was actually a diagnosis of dyslexia or that he had dyslexia when he attended Vallejo City Unified School District. [00:20:02] Speaker 02: So the statute of limitations [00:20:05] Speaker 02: according to the appellant's argument, might not yet have accrued. [00:20:10] Speaker 02: And again, we're so far beyond the time when the student actually even attended the district that that would just be an absurd result. [00:20:21] Speaker 02: And I think that what the appellant actually is arguing, or the effective argument that the appellant's making here, is there has to be actual knowledge on the parent's part. [00:20:32] Speaker 02: And that's simply not the standard. [00:20:35] Speaker 02: And I think that there's confusion, that the appellant's confusing the exceptions to the rule with the standard new or should have known. [00:20:45] Speaker 02: It's important to note that the, again, I believe that the statute of limitations was triggered at the latest in 2020 based on the new or should have known. [00:20:57] Speaker 02: But there's absolutely no evidence of any misrepresentations, specific misrepresentations by the school district. [00:21:05] Speaker 02: or withholding of information that Vallejo City Unified School District was required to give to the parents. [00:21:11] Speaker 02: And there's been argument that effectively equates a specific misrepresentation to reasonable assurances that the deficits are due to a particular cause. [00:21:25] Speaker 02: And that simply can't be the case because that would mean that every time a school district got it wrong, there was a specific misrepresentation. [00:21:35] Speaker 02: And that's not the standard. [00:21:37] Speaker 02: Here, we don't believe that the Vallejo City Unified School District got it wrong, but there is absolutely no evidence of any specific misrepresentation by the district that it had resolved the problem that forms the basis of the complaint, or any misrepresentation of anything by the district. [00:21:55] Speaker 02: So to find that because the district assured the parent that [00:22:04] Speaker 02: they were assessing the student or that they had evaluated the student for any of a number of things, again, is not a specific misrepresentation. [00:22:14] Speaker 02: And the district court correctly found that neither of the exceptions applied. [00:22:18] Speaker 02: The appellant actually never even argued the first ground, the first exception in the district court, never cited to any evidence of any specific misrepresentation. [00:22:30] Speaker 02: And there simply is none. [00:22:33] Speaker 02: There's also no evidence of any withholding of information from the parent that was required to be given to the parent under the IDEA. [00:22:48] Speaker 02: If there are any questions, I'm happy to answer those. [00:22:53] Speaker ?: Thank you. [00:22:53] Speaker 02: Thank you. [00:22:53] Speaker 02: Thank you, Your Honors. [00:22:55] Speaker 02: Thank you. [00:23:01] Speaker 01: Very briefly, Your Honors, I just want to reiterate the fact that the 2020 identification under the eligibility category of specific learning disability did not give enough or any real new information to the parent that should have triggered her knowledge. [00:23:18] Speaker 01: And that's because, again, it is such a broad category of things. [00:23:22] Speaker 01: So much so, again, that the Fairfield School District didn't change any of their methods of teaching TMJ. [00:23:30] Speaker 01: So she had no reason to believe that there was anything new going on until later on when she discovered that it wasn't his attention problems that were causing his reading problems. [00:23:40] Speaker 01: And then the last thing that I will say is that [00:23:43] Speaker 01: With regard, the word inadequate has been thrown around quite a bit. [00:23:46] Speaker 01: It comes up in the Hathaway decision. [00:23:48] Speaker 01: I really want to focus on the point on which a parent knew or should have known, not that it was an inadequate education per se, but rather that it was a denial of a free, appropriate public education. [00:23:59] Speaker 01: And that's when the claim and the basis of the claim should have been known. [00:24:03] Speaker 01: And I just wanted to bring it back to that because otherwise we're going to get into a conversation about what does inadequate mean. [00:24:09] Speaker 01: Is inadequate about the outcomes for the child or is inadequate about the actual education the child was receiving? [00:24:15] Speaker 01: I want to focus on the denial of faith. [00:24:18] Speaker 04: All right, thank you very much to both sides for your argument this morning. [00:24:21] Speaker 04: The matter is submitted and that concludes this morning's argument. [00:24:25] Speaker 04: Calendar will be in recess until tomorrow morning. [00:24:29] Speaker 04: All rise.