Page:Luna Perez v. Sturgis Public Schools.pdf/2

Syllabus

Those provisions provide children and families the right to a “due process hearing” before local or state administrators, §1415(f)(1)(A), followed by an “appeal” to the state education agency, §1415(g)(1). Mr. Perez reads §1415(l)’s “seeking relief” clause as applying only if he pursues remedies that are also available under IDEA. And because IDEA does not provide compensatory damages, §1415(l) does not foreclose his ADA claim. Sturgis reads the provision as requiring exhaustion of §1415(f) and (g) so long as a plaintiff seeks some form of redress for the underlying harm addressed by IDEA. And because Mr. Perez complains about Sturgis’s education-related shortcomings, his failure to exhaust is fatal. Pp. 3–4.

(b) Mr. Perez’s reading better comports with the statute’s terms. Because §1415(l)’s exhaustion requirement applies only to suits that “see[k] relief … also available under” IDEA, it poses no bar where a non-IDEA plaintiff sues for a remedy that is unavailable under IDEA. This interpretation admittedly treats “remedies” as synonymous with the “relief” a plaintiff “seek[s].” But that is how an ordinary reader would interpret the provision, based on a number of contextual clues. Section 1415(l) begins by directing a reader to the subject of “remedies,” offering first a general rule then a qualifying exception. IDEA treats “remedies” and “relief” as synonyms elsewhere, see §1415(i)(2)(C)(iii), (3)(D)(i)(III), as do other provisions in the U. S. Code, see 18 U. S. C. §3626(d); 28 U. S. C. §3306(a)(2)–(3). The second clause in §1415(l), moreover, refers to claims “seeking relief” available under IDEA. In law that phrase (or some variant) often refers to the remedies a plaintiff requests. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a)(3), for example, says a plaintiff’s complaint must include a list of requested remedies—i.e., “a demand for the relief sought.” Likewise, this Court often speaks of the “relief” a plaintiff “seeks” as the remedies he requests. See, e.g., South Carolina v. North Carolina, 558 U. S. 256, 260. Pp. 4–6.

(c) Sturgis suggests this interpretation is foreclosed by Fry v. Napoleon Community Schools, 580 U. S. 154. But the Court in Fry went out of its way to reserve rather than decide this question. What the Court did say in Fry about the question presented there does not advance the school district’s cause here. Finally, Sturgis says the Court’s interpretation will frustrate Congress’s wish to route claims about educational services to administrative experts. It is unclear what this proves, as either party’s interpretation of §1415(l) would preclude some unexhausted claims. In any event, it is the not the job of this Court to “ ‘replace the actual text with speculation as to Congress’s intent.’ ” Henson v. Santander Consumer USA Inc., 582 U. S. 79, 89. Pp. 6–7.

3 F. 4th 236, reversed and remanded.

Gorsuch, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.