Hamamoto - New Law or Same Ol' Summary Judgment?

A Ninth Circuit panel issued an opinion reversing a Hawaiian district court's grant of summary judgment in a Rehabilitation Act § 504 action. The Hamamoto Family alleged that because of their disabilities, their two daughters couldn’t enjoy meaningful access to the benefits of a public education, provided by the Hawaii public school system, without autism-specific services.

The opinion follows the court's previous ruling that § 504 did provide a private cause of action (see Mark H. v. Haw. Dep’t of Educ., 513 F.3d 922 (9th Cir. 2008)). (Rehabilitation Act § 504 “forbids organizations that receive federal funding, including public schools, from discriminating against people with disabilities.” (Pg 11 of Slip Opinion, citing 29 U.S.C. § 794(b)(2)(B); Mark H., 513 F.3d at 929; Bird v. Lewis & Clark Coll., 303 F.3d 1015, 1020 (9th Cir. 2002))). The slip opinion can be found at the following link (http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2010/08/26/09-15754.pdf).

Summary Judgment?
The opinion can be taken as an ordinary summary judgment case where the court would conduct a de novo review to determine whether genuine issues of material fact were present on the record. There are plenty of clues that make this opinion just that. For example, the court takes time to enumerate "disputed facts" and "undisputed facts" (see page 3 of the slip opinion). The court under both prongs of the § 504 claim and under a separate claim under Regulation § 104.33 ( this regulations required the Hawaii department of education to “provide a free appropriate public education to each qualified handicapped person who is in the recipient’s jurisdiction, regardless of the nature or severity of the person’s handicap” (see pg 18 of the slip opinion)) searches the record to determine if the plaintiff's allegations are supported by the evidence. In each case the court finds that the plaintiff's raised a genuine issue of material fact to survive summary judgment. In this sense, the opinion is par for the course and doesn’t create new law by modifying the summary judgment standard.

New Law?
The opinion takes turns away from the traditional analysis of determining whether there were material facts to analyze legal arguments raised by the defendant (perhaps an inquiry into the second prong of summary judgment, i.e. whether the moving party is entitle to judgment as a matter of law). The court carefully analyzes the defendant’s arguments to the § 504 claim.
Under § 504 the court finds that “meaningful access” is part of a “broader rule” (pg. 16). The court dismisses the defendant’s attempts to narrow the definition of meaningful access to a particular context by seeking to limit relevant cases to the elementary school context or by pegging it to the letter of the law in Regulation § 104.33 (merely requiring adequate parity between a disabled and non-disabled child).

The 9th Circuit is leading the way with its reading of § 504 and the manner it provides coverage where the Individual with Disabilities Education Act doesn’t. For an extended discussion on the differences between IDEA and § 504 please read Mark Weber’s article (http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1006&context=mark_weber)