Hidalgo v. New York City Department of Education
- Ronnie Abrams
- 1:19-cv-02590
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Hidalgo v. New York City Department of Education, Judge Abrams stayed plaintiffs’ reconsideration motion pending Second Circuit action on rehearing petitions.
The stay directly affects the plaintiffs’ pending motion for reconsideration and the New York City Department of Education as the opposing party. It also delays a decision concerning funding for L.S.’s educational placement.
What happened
Hidalgo v. New York City Department of Education concerns a student’s educational placement at iBRAIN during the 2018–2019 school year. The opinion says the student and her family had not received funding for her continued placement for nearly two school years.
The plaintiffs asked the court to decide their pending motion for reconsideration without applying two Second Circuit decisions because petitions seeking rehearing had been filed in those cases. They argued that the decisions should not control while those petitions were pending.
Judge Ronnie Abrams stayed the plaintiffs’ motion for reconsideration until the Second Circuit resolves the rehearing petitions. The parties must file a joint status letter within three days after that resolution.
The detailed version
- Hidalgo v. New York City Department of Education · No. 1:19-cv-02590
- Ronnie Abrams
- June 1, 2020
Background
The plaintiffs had a pending motion for reconsideration concerning L.S.’s educational placement at iBRAIN for the 2018–2019 school year. The opinion states that L.S. and her family had not received funding for the placement during nearly two school years. The provided text does not identify the ruling that the plaintiffs sought to have reconsidered.
The dispute involved the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act’s provision concerning a student’s right to remain in an educational placement while proceedings are pending, 20 U.S.C. § 1415(j). The plaintiffs’ counsel told the court that the plaintiffs did not intend to withdraw their reconsideration motion.
Plaintiffs’ position
The plaintiffs argued that two Second Circuit decisions—Ventura de Paulino and Navarro Carrillo v. N.Y.C. Department of Education—should not control the reconsideration motion because petitions for panel rehearing or rehearing by the full court had been filed in those cases. They maintained that the decisions were stayed by the filing of those petitions and asked the court to decide their motion based on the existing record and the previously used “substantial similarity” standard.
Court’s ruling
Judge Ronnie Abrams stayed the plaintiffs’ motion for reconsideration, docket entry 39, pending the Second Circuit’s resolution of the rehearing petitions in the two tandem cases. The court ordered the parties to file a joint status letter within three days after the Second Circuit resolves those petitions. The order did not decide the merits of the reconsideration motion.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.