A.J.T. is a teenage girl with a rare form of epilepsy that significantly impairs her physical and cognitive abilities. Her seizures occur frequently in the morning, which prevents her from attending school before noon. However, she is alert and able to learn from noon until about 6:00 p.m.
In A.J.T.’s early school years, her school accommodated her by excusing her from morning activities and providing evening instruction at home. In 2015, her family moved to Minnesota. A.J.T.’s new school district, the Osseo Area Public Schools, Independent School District No. 279, denied her parents’ repeated requests to include evening instruction in her Individualized Education Program (IEP). From 2015 to 2018, A.J.T. received only 4.25 hours of daily instruction, compared to the 6.5 hours school day that the District provided to other students. In 2018, as A.J.T. transitioned to middle school, the District proposed further reductions to her instructional time. Her parents again requested evening instruction and a longer school day. The District denied both requests and refused to maintain A.J.T.’s previous schedule.
A.J.T.’s parents filed a complaint under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) with the Minnesota Department of Education. After a five-day hearing, an Administrative Law Judge found that the District had violated the IDEA and ordered it to provide several hundred hours of compensatory education, including at-home instruction from 4:30 to 6:00 p.m. The District sought judicial review. A federal district court affirmed, concluding that the District had prioritized administrative convenience over A.J.T.’s educational needs. The Eighth Circuit affirmed that ruling.
A.J.T. and her parents then brought claims under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act against the District and school board. They asked the trial court to issue a permanent injunction, award reimbursement of certain costs, and grant compensatory damages. The District moved for summary judgment. The trial court sided with the District, granting summary judgment and holding that A.J.T. had failed to show school officials acted with “bad faith or gross misjudgment.” The Eighth Circuit affirmed, holding that plaintiffs must show “‘either bad faith or gross misjudgment,’ which requires ‘something more’ than mere non-compliance with the applicable federal statutes.” A.J.T. and her parents appealed.
The U.S. Supreme Court held that public school students bringing disability discrimination claims under the ADA and the Rehabilitation Act are not required to show “bad faith or gross misjudgment” in order to establish liability. The U.S. Supreme Court concluded that such education-related claims are governed by the same legal standards that apply in non-education contexts.
The U.S. Supreme Court began by noting that outside the school context, plaintiffs may establish violations of the ADA and Section 504 and obtain injunctive relief without proving intent to discriminate. For compensatory damages, courts typically require proof of intentional discrimination. Most courts of appeals find that standard satisfied by showing the defendant acted with “deliberate indifference.” “Deliberate indifference” means the defendant disregarded a strong likelihood that its conduct would violate federally protected rights. This standard does not require ill will or animus.
The U.S. Supreme Court emphasized that nothing in the text of Title II or Section 504 supports applying a distinct or more demanding standard in the educational services context. Both statutes apply broadly to “qualified individual[s]” with disabilities and authorize suits by “any person” subjected to discrimination. Their remedial provisions do not distinguish between educational and non-educational settings.
The U.S. Supreme Court traced the heightened “bad faith or gross misjudgment” standard to the Eighth Circuit’s 1982 decision in Monahan v. Nebraska. There, the Eighth Circuit reasoned that such a standard was necessary to harmonize the Rehabilitation Act with the IDEA and to respect the technical judgments of school officials. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected that reasoning in light of a subsequent act of Congress: 20 U.S.C. section 1415(l), which Congress added to the IDEA in 1986.
Section 1415(l) provides that nothing in the IDEA shall be construed to “restrict or limit the rights, procedures, and remedies available under the Constitution, the [ADA], [Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act], or other Federal laws protecting the rights of children with disabilities,” except that plaintiffs must first exhaust the IDEA’s administrative procedures if they seek relief that is also available under the IDEA. The U.S. Supreme Court viewed section 1415(l) as an unambiguous instruction from Congress that the IDEA does not displace or limit students’ independent rights under other federal disability statutes. By requiring a higher bar for education-related claims under the ADA and Section 504, the Eighth Circuit effectively curtailed those independent rights, in direct conflict with section 1415(l).
Finally, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to consider the District’s new argument that the “bad faith or gross misjudgment” standard should apply to all ADA and Section 504 claims, not just those in the education setting. The U.S. Supreme Court noted that the District had not raised this argument previously or presented it in the petition for certiorari.
The U.S. Supreme Court vacated the Eighth Circuit’s judgment and remanded the case for further proceedings consistent with its opinion.
A.J.T. v. Osseo Area Sch. (2025) ___U.S.___ [___L.Ed.2d___].