C. C. v. New York City Department of Education

Background

C.C. initiated a due process hearing alleging that the New York City Department of Education denied D.A., her child, a free appropriate public education. The parties disputed how an impartial hearing officer’s order was implemented. C.C. asserted that the Department was directly responsible for D.A.’s lack of tutoring for seven months.

C.C. objected under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 72(a) to two orders issued by Magistrate Judge Cave. The September 21, 2021 order denied C.C.’s request to compel the Department to supplement its discovery responses. The September 30, 2021 opinion and order denied C.C.’s request for a preliminary injunction—a temporary court order—to require the Department to comply with a May 13, 2019 impartial hearing officer order concerning D.A.’s education.

The Court’s Review

Under Rule 72(a), a district judge may change a magistrate judge’s order on a non-final pretrial matter only if it is clearly erroneous or contrary to law. The court described this as a highly deferential standard that places a heavy burden on the party objecting to the magistrate judge’s ruling.

Discovery Objection

C.C. challenged the ruling that her request for information about attorney’s fees was premature. The court found no clear error. The parties had not attempted to meet and confer about the discovery request before C.C. filed her motion to compel. In addition, C.C. had represented that the requested information would not become relevant until summary judgment or a hearing, and she had not filed either a motion for attorney’s fees or a motion for summary judgment.

Preliminary-Injunction Objection

C.C. also argued that Magistrate Judge Cave misread the impartial hearing officer’s order and overlooked relevant facts when finding that C.C. had not shown a likelihood of success on her claim that the Department failed to implement that order.

The court found no clear error in that ruling. It concluded that the plain language of the hearing officer’s order did not require the Department to take additional action before D.A. could receive tutoring. The order stated that the tutoring hours were to be used by the family at times and locations it considered practicable, no later than August 31, 2021. The court also noted that compensatory tutoring began within twelve days after C.C.’s counsel designated a preferred service provider.

Disposition

The court overruled C.C.’s Rule 72 objections to the September 21 and September 30 orders and adopted Magistrate Judge Cave’s orders in their entirety. The opinion addresses the objections and the two challenged orders; it does not state a separate final disposition of the underlying education dispute.