Monday, July 06, 2015

Meridian Joint School Dist. No. 2 v. D.A. (9th Cir. - July 6, 2015)

Here's a weird one. At least to an outsider like me.

Among other things, the Ninth Circuit vacates and injunction that prohibited a high school student from graduating.  That part doesn't seem strange.  Judge Callahan's opinion on that point seems spot on to me.

The somewhat bizarre thing is that the injunction was sought by the kid's parents.  They wanted the Ninth Circuit to affirm the injunction, even though their child had completed all of the requirements for graduation and he was now three years out of high school.

Reading an earlier portion of the opinion, which recounts that the (then-) child had set fire to a room of the family home when he was a freshman, you might think that the parents were perhaps trying to get back at the kid.

Nope.  They just wanted an injunction so the kid wouldn't graduate high school so the school district would have to give him additional services as a disabled child.

No dice, however.  Injunction gets lifted.  And the parents (and their counsel) don't get paid the vast majority of the attorney's fees they've run up in this incredibly long-running IDEA saga.