Wednesday's opinions from the Ninth Circuit.
The Court issued three opinion today, addressing issues involving the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act; bankruptcy, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons:
In Parent V.S. v. Los Gatos-Saratoga Joint Union High Sch. Dist., the Court reversed the district court’s decision that appellant was not entitled to attorneys fees under the IDEA. The appellant had prevailed in administrative proceedings, receiving a finding that the school district had denied the child Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE). The district denied fees because it found the administrative determination, limited to a specific time period, to be de minimis, and because the school district was already provided an assessment.. The Court found that the district court had applied he appropriate legal standard, but incorrectly analyzed the effect of the administrative ruling, which obligated the school district to reassess the child before it could deny an IEP in future.
In Nichols v. Birdsell, the Court addressed an issue of first impression in the circuit’s bankruptcy jurisprudence: whether a debtor’s pre-petition right to an income tax refund is property of the estate. The debtors here had applied their pre-petition right to a refund to income tax debt that accrued after they filed their bankruptcy petition. The trustee demanded they return the value of their refund. The court rejected the debtors’ claim that because an election to apply a refund is irrevocable under the tax code, the refund was not property of the bankruptcy estate. The credit toward future tax debt had a dollar-to-dollar value of the refund, and that value properly belonged to the bankruptcy estate.
In Serrato v. Clark, the Court rejected claims by an inmate that the termination of a boot camp program by the Federal Bureau of Prisons was unlawful. The Court held the termination of the camp was within the agency’s discretion to determine how to use lump-lump allocations of funds. While her substantive claims failed, the Court held the inmate had standing to challenge the action because the termination of the program resulted in the denial of her right to be considered for the program which could have resulted in a reduction of her sentence. The sentencing judge had recommended the inmate be placed in the program.
