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Speaker 1: It's usually police dogs that are the subject of cases

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Speaker 1: at the Supreme Court, but this week it was a

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Speaker 1: golden doodle name Wonder, the service dog for a thirteen

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Speaker 1: year old Michigan girl with cerebral palsy. Elena Fry and

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Speaker 1: her parents have been fighting a battle that began in

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Speaker 1: two thousand nine when Elena's elementary school wouldn't let her

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Speaker 1: bring Wonder to school with her for kindergarten. The Justice

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Speaker 1: has ruled unanimously that Elena may be able to sue

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Speaker 1: her former public school for denying her access to her

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Speaker 1: service dog without first having to exhaust all administrative remedies.

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Speaker 1: Our guest is Robert Dinnerstein. He is the director of

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Speaker 1: the Disability Rights Law Clinic at American University's Washington College

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Speaker 1: of Law and Associate Dean for Experimental Education. Robert tell

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Speaker 1: us about the case. So, the case, as you said,

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Speaker 1: is a It was a unanimous decision by Supreme Court,

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Speaker 1: which is I think a little bit unusual. Was written

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Speaker 1: by Justice Kagan, and the Court in the case reversed

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Speaker 1: the judgment of the Sixth Circuit, which had said that

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Speaker 1: uh Elena's parents, the fraud had to exhaust administrative remedies

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Speaker 1: under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act or the I

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Speaker 1: d e A before they could go into federal court

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Speaker 1: on a different statute, which was titled two of the

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Speaker 1: A d A and Section Trible for the Rehabilitation Act.

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Speaker 1: So the idea was that that going to court, said

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Speaker 1: the Sixth Circuit was premature until she had exhausted administrative remedies.

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Speaker 1: Supreme Court rejected that view and said that unless you

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Speaker 1: actually are seeking or claiming that there's a denial of

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Speaker 1: what the law calls a free, appropriate public education, you

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Speaker 1: do not have to exhaust Rather, you can go directly

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Speaker 1: into court under those other laws. Look, it's a little complicated,

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Speaker 1: doesn't it, Robert, Because sometimes you could have a claim

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Speaker 1: where somebody saying you denied me my rights to education

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Speaker 1: under the Disabilities Individuals Disabilities Education Act, and you're it's

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Speaker 1: also discrimination against me under say the Rehabilitation Act or

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Speaker 1: the Americans Disabilities Act. So you could have a claimed

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Speaker 1: that has elements of both, and couldn't you write you

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Speaker 1: could absolutely? So let's say that the case here was

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Speaker 1: in addition to not letting her bring her service animal

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Speaker 1: to school, that they also said that the school's individualized

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Speaker 1: education program or the I E. P UH did not

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Speaker 1: adequately address her educational needs, and they had both claims

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Speaker 1: in the case, then she would have been required to

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Speaker 1: exhaust remedies in both of them if she was going

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Speaker 1: to bring the both cases together. Other times you're only

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Speaker 1: looking for one or the other. So in many cases

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Speaker 1: under the I d A, the claim would be that

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Speaker 1: you know, Helena is not receiving the special education and

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Speaker 1: related services she needs, but otherwise they're not discriminating. In

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Speaker 1: this case, it was the opposite. The claim was the

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Speaker 1: parents had no concern, no problem with the content of

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Speaker 1: the educational program. The complaint was that she wasn't allowed

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Speaker 1: to bring her service animal, and one of the ways

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Speaker 1: the school district responded was to say, well, we that

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Speaker 1: we have a human aid a person who will help Elena,

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Speaker 1: so we're not refusing to give her assistance, but we

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Speaker 1: just don't think you need to bring a service animal

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Speaker 1: to do that. And the Fries responded by saying that

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Speaker 1: actually part of their whole way of raising and educating

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Speaker 1: Elena is for her to become comfortable with with her

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Speaker 1: dog with Wonder, both in school and outside, a sort

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Speaker 1: of part of a more holistic way of living, and

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Speaker 1: they were frustrated that the school was not responsive to that. Robert,

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Speaker 1: this was a closely watched case for advocacy groups that

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Speaker 1: want to make it easier for disabled students to protect

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Speaker 1: their rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act. How much

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Speaker 1: of a win is it, Well, I think it's a

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Speaker 1: very big win. Um uh. You know, when you get

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Speaker 1: an eight nothing decision, it's tempting to look back and say, well,

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Speaker 1: you know, of course, but as someone when you litigate cases,

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Speaker 1: you never assume anything. I think, uh, it's it seems like.

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Speaker 1: One thing that was very clear was the court did

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Speaker 1: not accept the idea that if some case had some

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Speaker 1: possible relationship to the edge occasion of the student, that

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Speaker 1: Bennett had to be exhausted. One of the reasons why

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Speaker 1: exhaustion made no sense here was that the kind of

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Speaker 1: relief that the parents were seeking could not have been

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Speaker 1: given by the hearing officer in in the exhaustion context.

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Speaker 1: So why makes up why go through a fruitless uh

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Speaker 1: uh exercise if you couldn't actually get the relief. One

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Speaker 1: of the issues the court did not decide was what

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Speaker 1: if this did relate to the education, but the parents

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Speaker 1: were seeking remedy in this case damages that a hearing

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Speaker 1: officer would not have been able to give. So that's

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Speaker 1: left open in the footnote. Uh, and so that's to

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Speaker 1: be you know, that will be decided at some other point.

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Speaker 1: And there's also another case pending before the Supreme Court

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Speaker 1: that was argued in January, Andrew f Case, which has

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Speaker 1: to do with what's the standard for special education that

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Speaker 1: is required under the I d a um And the

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Speaker 1: decision for that will be sometime between now and the

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Speaker 1: end of June. So this has been a term of

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Speaker 1: the Supreme Court u with quite a lot of activity

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Speaker 1: in the disability and special education area. We'll be talking

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Speaker 1: to you again. Thank you for being on Bloomberg Law.

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Speaker 1: That's Robert Dinnerstein. He's the director of the Disabled Rights

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Speaker 1: Law Clinic at American University's Washington College of Law. Coming

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Speaker 1: up on Bloomberg Law, we're going to be talking about Brexit,

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Speaker 1: but Brexit's impact on law firms based in London. It's

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Speaker 1: causing movement in the legal space and leaving some law

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Speaker 1: firms with increased opportunities