Episode 59 — SCOTUS Update: Perez v. Sturgis Secures a Supreme Court Win for Disability Rights

Roman Martinez:

Hello and welcome to Connected with Latham, where we discuss ideas, legal developments, and business trends shaping the global economy. I'm Roman Martinez, partner in Latham's Washington, D.C. office and a member of the firm's Supreme Court & Appellate Practice. In this episode, we're going to discuss Perez v. Sturgis Public Schools — a Supreme Court case decided in March 2023 that involves the rights of children with disabilities to bring claims against public schools under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

We're very happy and proud to report that Latham won a 9-0 victory on behalf of our client, Miguel Luna Perez. Joining me to discuss today is Nick Rosellini, an associate in our San Francisco office and another member of Latham's Supreme Court & Appellate Practice, as well as Mitch Sickon, attorney at Disability Rights Michigan and our co-counsel in the case. Disability Rights Michigan is an independent, private, nonprofit, nonpartisan, advocacy organization that helps protect the legal rights of people with disabilities in Michigan. Nick, Mitch, great to have you with me to discuss this important case.

Nick Rosellini:

Thanks, Roman. Glad to be here.

Mitch Sickon:

Thanks, Roman.

Roman Martinez:

Terrific. Perez was a really interesting case from start to finish, but I think the person who's best positioned to speak to how it all began is Mitch. Mitch, can you tell us a little bit about our client, Miguel Luna Perez, and how you came to get to know him and the issues that he was having in the public schools in Michigan?

Mitch Sickon:

Absolutely. Thanks, Roman. Miguel is 27 years old now, and he's a deaf man living in South Michigan. He likes watching soccer and college football. He's been looking for a steady construction job since he graduated from Michigan School for the Deaf in 2020, but growing up he had a different experience from so many of us.

Like so many deaf folks he was born into a family that was hearing, so he didn't have natural language models, folks that could teach him a first language. For folks that are hearing, like you or me, it's easy for us to grow up and go through the world where, at the grocery store or anywhere else that we might go, there's language everywhere — it saturates the environment. We get to hear people using language all the time. Miguel didn't get that. When he got to Sturgis Public Schools he didn't have a first language — he didn't know Spanish, he didn't know English, he didn't know American Sign Language. They were charged with helping him learn a first language, but they failed to do that. That led to a lot of consequences for him in terms of what he was able to access for education and what his job prospects were.

Roman Martinez:

Mitch, let me ask you about that, because it seems like Miguel was facing a lot of challenges because he's deaf. It was also especially challenging because his family didn't speak a lot of English. Miguel came to this country from Mexico when he was nine. Is that right?

Mitch Sickon:

That's right. Not only was it a struggle for him to communicate with his family, it was a struggle for Sturgis to communicate with his parents about his educational program. That was part of the issue that we were having early on in the case, we felt that Sturgis didn't always incorporate interpreters for the parents to make sure that they were getting the information they needed to make informed decisions about Miguel's educational program. Even though there was a language barrier between the parents and the school, the same applied between Miguel and his parents.

Roman Martinez:

Mitch, Miguel was in the Sturgis Public Schools for 12 years. What can you tell us about the education that he got there and the way in which they dealt with, or didn’t deal with, his disability and getting him a free and appropriate public education?

Mitch Sickon:

You're right, Roman, he was there for 12 years. He started out in 2004, and Sturgis approached trying to get him that free, appropriate public education — the FAPE — by supporting him with an aide, who actually wasn't certified in American Sign Language, who was learning American Sign Language alongside Miguel. And so, between the two of them, they actually came up with a hodgepodge of ASL signs.

Later on in his education, that aide was actually taken away from him for hours at a time. Throughout his education he never got an interpreter who was certified, and the only language models that he did have exposure to was someone who worked at a regional entity who was there to help him at most three hours a week. It wasn't enough for him to learn ASL. It wasn't enough for him to learn English. He never got that first language internalized, and that's really what led to a lot of the problems in his education and really hurt his prospects for employment.

Roman Martinez:

Under the IDEA — the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act — it's a federal law that requires schools to provide a free and appropriate public education. The case that we’re litigating on behalf of Miguel ultimately involves claims that the school district didn't do that. What exactly did they do and how did they fall short?

Mitch Sickon:

Like I mentioned before, Miguel didn't have a natural language model in his home. So when he showed up at the steps of Sturgis Public Schools, he didn't have a first language. They were supposed to get him up and running with the first language, get him someone that was a language model in either English or American Sign Language, something so he could understand a language. They didn't do that. They also kind of failed to give him certified interpreters. But part of the problem with an interpreter is that,  if you don't have a first language, it's hard for you to benefit from an interpreter. Language models and interpreters are two separate kinds of folks. They didn't provide him with either.

Roman Martinez:

Nick, let me bring you into this discussion. Nick and I joined the team later, and we'll talk about the procedural history of the case. One of the things that struck both of us when we first got involved was the fact that they gave Miguel someone who is sort of with him in the classroom, but who didn’t really know how to communicate in American Sign Language or teach him those things. Can you talk about that a little bit, Nick?

Nick Rosellini:

Coming into this case late and fresh, that was one of the most appalling things. Even if you had a deaf student who had had, as Mitch was saying, a language model in the home and knew American Sign Language, they would still need somebody to translate the instructions from the teachers and help them communicate with their classmates.

Not only did they fail to provide that, Miguel was even further behind. He wouldn’t even be able to understand an ASL interpreter, had one been provided. So he needed even more help than someone who was non-hearing. To see Sturgis fail twice over for over a decade was pretty shocking. And it really, at least for me, was a huge motivator just to see this injustice playing out, and then him trying to get redress and just having the courthouse doors shut on him, which we'll talk about. But it was pretty surprising.

Roman Martinez:

What struck me was the fact that the school provided this individual to help Miguel. But the individual didn't really know American Sign Language, couldn't teach American Sign Language to Miguel, and, in fact, Miguel was sort of progressing every year in school. He was getting promoted from grade to grade, but really he wasn't. He was barely able to communicate. It was especially difficult for his parents to understand that, given their own language difficulties, not speaking English fluently. The school district, every year, would report to the parents how Miguel was doing and they would say he was doing well. He'd be promoted from grade to grade. They put him on the honor roll. And then what happened, Mitch, when he got close to graduation, the family got some news that surprised them.

Mitch Sickon:

Months before he was supposed to graduate, Sturgis surprises the family with the news that he's not going to get a merit diploma. He's going to get what they call a certificate of completion, which doesn't have the same weight. It means that you didn't really graduate and complete the program. So, hearing that, as well as having other folks in the picture who were trying to help him learn job skills under IDEA —there's something called transition, where kids who are getting to the age of contemplating where they're going to be in the workforce, they get additional help to understand that process.

We were getting a call from those employment support folks, and they were pointing out all these deficiencies. So we came in the spring of 2016 — he was supposed to be graduating that year with that certificate of completion — and we trying to get him on a new track where he was able to finish his education at the Michigan School for the Deaf.

Roman Martinez:

Miguel, the school district's conduct here, by not teaching him sign language and not giving him the language skills that he had, we think violates the statute that I mentioned earlier, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. At the same time, though, the conduct also violated the Americans with Disabilities Act, which is a separate federal statute that creates remedies for discrimination on the basis of disability.

So, for Miguel, his parents and his family and those supporting him, the first priority is to get the education he is entitled to and to get him learning and better able to communicate. But at the same time, he's got these legal claims. What happens next procedurally, Mitch? You go to a hearing officer and file the IDEA claim. Can you tell us a little bit about that process?

Mitch Sickon:

That’s right, Roman, we go to the IDEA hearing officer, and we've got both of these claims that you mentioned — the IDEA claims and the ADA claims. Now, the hearing officer doesn't have jurisdiction over the ADA claims, so they get kicked pretty early. He says that they're dismissed and so we continue to litigate the IDEA claims. We've got an expert saying that all of what Sturgis has done is against the IDEA and what it's supposed to do for students with disabilities like Miguel.

The strength of the case was obvious to us. What Sturgis presented to us as a settlement offer made us believe that they also felt like our case was strong, because they provided in the settlement offer everything that we might have wanted from the hearing officer, including compensatory education, attorney's fees, his continued placement at the Michigan School for the Deaf, which we felt was an appropriate placement where he could get the support that he needed and that were appropriate for him.

Roman Martinez:

So, the school offers you this settlement, which gives you everything that you're entitled to under the IDEA. And Miguel takes that settlement. The next step, though, is you've gotten everything for Miguel under the IDEA, he's able to go attend Michigan School for the Deaf, but you’ve still got this other legal problem, which is that the school has violated his rights under the ADA. At that point you file a federal court action under the ADA. Nick, do you want to talk us through what happens to that case when it gets to court?

Nick Rosellini:

Miguel got a whole lot of relief under the IDEA, everything he was asking for, but there were a lot of additional damages that he suffered that he didn't get relief for. For example, his vocational prospects, what kind of jobs he could have going forward were greatly reduced because of these decades of neglect. He suffered emotional distress by being isolated and cut off from those around him. He also lost four years of income by having to get remedial education at the Michigan School for the Deaf — those are four years he could have been working. So he had these other backward-looking claims that everyone agrees are not available under the IDEA, and he sued for that relief under the ADA claim. But what the district judge did would surprise many of you. The district judge said, oh, actually, it turns out because you settled your IDEA claim, you can no longer bring your ADA claim. You’ve forfeited it, even though you agreed with the school that you guys weren't resolving it. That doesn't matter. You're done. The case is over.

Roman Martinez:

Nick, let me stop you there. I think that would come as a surprise to our listeners, because that seems like it doesn't make a lot of sense that if you settle one claim under one statute, somehow that gives up your rights under another statute. So why don't we tell a little bit about the legal basis for that, and we'll try to keep it high level because it gets very technical in the language.

There's a provision of the IDEA which says that before bringing claims that involve the educational context, that involve the sort of facts that are implicated under the IDEA, you first need to go and exhaust your remedies and get the legal relief that you're entitled to under the IDEA. And it says that is sort of a sequencing provision whenever you're seeking relief available under the IDEA.

In this case, the district court and the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, say to Miguel, his family, and the legal team representing him, that because of this sequencing provision, Miguel can't go forward on his ADA claim because he settled his IDEA claim and therefore, he didn't exhaust the IDEA process because he accepted the settlement. Is that right, Nick?

Nick Rosellini:

That's exactly right. Roman. Section 1415L of the IDEA says that nothing in that statute should be construed to restrict the rights or remedies available under statutes like the American Disabilities Act, with one minor exception. That's a sequencing provision, and it says that except before the filing of a civil action under such laws seeking relief, that is also available under the IDEA, the IDEA’s exhaustion procedures have to be exhausted to the same extent as would be required if you were suing under the IDEA. So the key language is for this exhaustion requirement to kick in, you have to be seeking relief that is also available under the IDEA. The thing that that surprised us is the whole point of Miguel bringing this suit in federal court was that the relief he was seeking was not available under the IDEA. It was these backward-looking remedies for lost income and things like that. And that's what made us think something was wrong here.

Roman Martinez:

To underscore that point, the IDEA gives you the right to certain types of relief. Essentially, the school district has to give you educational benefits on the ground. Sometimes it has to pay for education that you should have gotten from them, that you have to now get from someone else, but it doesn't allow you to get money damages.

It doesn't allow you to get damages for, say, lost income. If the school refuses to educate you in such a way that your lifelong career prospects are diminished and you earn less money over your lifetime, the school is not on the hook for that under the IDEA, but it is potentially on the hook for that under other statutes like the Americans with Disabilities Act.

So that was the need for the ADA relief. Mitch, the lower courts are not receptive to the claim. The district court says that the case has to be dismissed. The Sixth Circuit agrees with the district court, and that's when you and the legal team representing Miguel reach out to Latham. What was your thinking behind that?

Mitch Sickon:

At that point, we had been a co-counsel team of special education experts, as well as experts in the rights of folks who are deaf. Along with Disability Rights Michigan, we had the National Association for the Deaf, attorneys like Caroline Jackson, Leah Wiederhorn, Brittany Shrader, and Marc Charmatz, and another firm from Rhode Island, an attorney named Ellen Saideman. All of those folks were helping us through this Sixth Circuit litigation. But once we got to that point, we realized the limitations of our expertise and we felt like we needed additional partners, so we reached out to Latham.

Roman Martinez:

We were very happy to get the call. I had been involved in a similar case involving another child with a disability a few years ago, back when I was in government service. And Latham's pro bono program is always looking for opportunities to help people in need with challenging legal problems. We thought Miguel's case would be a fascinating one to take on and one that we really wanted to help with.

We didn't have Nick's benefit at that time. We were working with another associate in our group, Caroline Flynn, and James Tomberlin, who had worked with me on some other disability rights cases. Caroline and James since left the firm to move on to other opportunities, but they did a great job and ended up recruiting Nick to join the team and take their place. Nick, do you want to talk about our strategy as we got involved in the case and decided to try to ask the Supreme Court to grant review.

Nick Rosellini:

Sure thing, Roman. The first thing is to make sure your case gets before the Supreme Court, because most people who want their case heard by Supreme Court don't get that chance. The Supreme Court docket is almost entirely discretionary, which means they select which cases they want to hear. So, you have to convince the court that not only that you're right on the legal issues, but that your case is worth their time and hearing it.

The way that you do that is you point to what's called a circuit split, where different courts of appeals have confronted the same legal question, and they've answered it different ways. So here we're bringing our case in Michigan, but if someone had filed in California, if it had come out a different way, that's exactly the type of situation that the Supreme Court would want to get involved in.

Roman Martinez:

We looked at the case and it seemed like there were a number of potential issues. But two jumped out to us. Number one, the point Nick was emphasizing earlier, the fact that the statute seems to say that this exhaustion requirement applies only when you're seeking relief that is available under the IDEA. But in this case we thought Miguel's ADA claim was seeking money damages, which is not available under the IDEA. So that's a pretty clean legal issue. The problem is there was no circuit split on that issue. So we thought we could tell the Supreme Court why the Sixth Circuit got that issue wrong, but we weren't going to be able to say that there was a disagreement among the lower courts on that issue.

There was a different argument in the case that we also thought was strong, and on which we did have a circuit split. That was the issue of whether or not Miguel's settlement under the IDEA actually did exhaust the IDEA procedures. And, in our view, Miguel did everything he was supposed to do under the IDEA statute.

The IDEA says that one way in which a school district and the student can resolve their IDEA dispute is by reaching a settlement. And that's actually spelled out in the statute. Here, as Mitch was saying earlier, Miguel reached a settlement that gave him all the relief he wanted under the IDEA. We thought we could argue to the Supreme Court that the settlement sort of counted as exhaustion, and that it would be futile for Miguel to have done anything more or anything different in the IDEA proceeding to exhaust it before satisfying the conditions under which he could bring his ADA suit.

We drafted the petition to focus on those two issues. We led with what I described as the second issue because there was a circuit split. The Sixth Circuit had said that a futility argument along the lines of what I described could never be a way to get around the exhaustion requirement. And it said that despite more than ten of the other courts of appeals saying the opposite. The Sixth Circuit also said that even if futility was a ground for getting around the exhaustion requirement, a settlement would not trigger a futility exception.

Nick Rosellini:

One thing not to forget, Roman, is that the Supreme Court in this case from several decades ago called Honig v. Doe, had held in pretty clear language that Section 1415L does have a futility exception. Which again means if there's no point to you further pursuing the administrative process, you're not required to do that. The Supreme Court had said that which is why all these circuits had come out saying, yes, there was a futility exception, and the Sixth Circuit broke with all of that. So, for us, that seemed like the best hook to try to get our foot in the door.

Roman Martinez:

As Nick mentioned, it's hard to get the Supreme Court to grant cert. They receive 4,000, 5,000, 6,000 petitions every year and they grant, maybe 60 or so cases. If you're just going by the numbers, it's like buying a lottery ticket — you have a 1% chance. Mitch, you worked very closely with us on the cert papers, and you heard from us that we thought we had strong arguments, but we also cautioned you that it's always hard to get cert granted. How did you feel about our chances after we filed the petition?

Mitch Sickon:

Seeing all the work that went into the petition, being able to review it, it seemed clear to us that there was a good opportunity for cert to be granted. But we were taking tips from you all, and I think the phrase was cautious optimism. I think that was the mantra here. We continued to exercise cautious optimism all the way through decision, so it was a real learning opportunity for us. Roman, I’d love to hear about what it was like going in; what did you do to form your strategies at oral argument?

Roman Martinez:

We were lucky to get the case granted, and that meant we went forward and drafted the briefs and then ultimately had oral argument in front of the court in January. I always find oral argument in some ways the most fun part of preparing. The writing process, writing the briefs, is really hard. Oral argument is also hard, but I feel like it's an opportunity to crystallize in your own mind what the case is about. For those of you listening who haven't seen an oral argument at the Supreme Court, the way it works is you get up there and they give you two minutes where they promise not to interrupt you, and you get to talk and tell your side of the story. But you only get two minutes. Then you get 28 more minutes for a total of about 30 minutes, to really answer questions from the justices. Now, in recent years, they've tended to give a little bit more time. You can go over time, the justices have a lot of questions and they can expand the time. But, in general, each side is supposed to get about 30 minutes, and it's really just a question and answer session.

The Supreme Court bench is pretty hot, which means that they're throwing questions at you rapid-fire. And it’s really important to prepare. So, we do a couple of moot courts before the oral argument, I think in this case we did three, and we recruit some really smart lawyers who know a lot about the justices and how they think.

We asked them to read our legal briefs and to come at us with hard questions. So that was the preparation process in this case. Our strategy for the oral argument was to start by trying to frame the case as favorably as possible to Miguel. And, in the Supreme Court, you've got a bunch of really smart lawyers who are now justices. But it's important not to lose sight of the human aspect of the case, and to link the legal arguments to the equities and the facts. So that's what we tried to do. Maybe we can play the opening 30 seconds or so from the opening of our argument — this is from the two minutes of uninterrupted time at the beginning of the argument.

[AUDIO CLIP]

Chief Justice Roberts:

Mr. Martinez.

Roman Martinez:

Mr. Chief Justice and may it please the Court. For 12 years, Sturgis neglected Miguel, denied him an education, and lied to his parents about the progress he was allegedly making in school. This shameful conduct permanently stunted Miguel's ability to communicate with the outside world. It also violated two federal statutes, the IDEA and the ADA, giving different remedies to victims of discrimination. Miguel responded by doing everything the IDEA wants him to do. He filed an IDEA agency claim, he followed the IDEA settlement procedures, and he accepted a favorable settlement, giving him full IDEA relief, including an immediate FAPE. Sturgis wants you to hold that this settlement extinguishes Miguel's separate and distinct rights to money damages under the ADA. You should reject that.

[END AUDIO CLIP]

Roman Martinez:

Nick, you are sitting with me at the argument, second-chairing the argument. I was up there answering questions from the justices. You were able to observe a little bit more and react to and analyze what they were saying. I was just trying to get through my 30 minutes or so. What were your impressions on how they were approaching the case?

Nick Rosellini:

Yes. Coming into that courtroom as an advocate for the first time in my career was a pretty exciting experience. I had seen a bunch of oral arguments while I was clerking for Justice Breyer from the nosebleed seats that they let the clerks sit in, but walking right up to counsel table, sitting down, and watching all the justices file in and be an arm's length away was a new experience for me. I think I underestimated how cool it was to see them engaged with our arguments and pretty universally on our side, with varying degrees of enthusiasm. But any time a judge asked a sharp, difficult question, it was of the other side, which really seemed to bode well for us.

Nick Rosellini:

I think we walked out of that courtroom feeling pretty good. You never know for sure, but we were about as happy as you can be walking out after the argument.

Roman Martinez:

Mitch, you were there, not just as co-counsel but also with our client, Miguel. Can you tell us a little bit about what that was like, helping bring Miguel to Washington for the argument and seeing it through his eyes?

Mitch Sickon:

Absolutely. It was a pleasure being able to meet with Miguel again. I've met with him several times, and his family several times. He was joined by one of his sisters-in-law and they have been supportive of him throughout the litigation, but this was a special occasion. His report was that it was a positive experience. Just getting to the steps of the Supreme Court, he was impressed with the building, and getting inside, and all of the different layers. It's grand for folks who don't get to the Supreme Court very often, let alone to hear an oral argument about rights that are important to deciding issues in your own life. So when he was there, the initial impression was great. It was also impressive in another aspect, that I believe it was the first time that the Supreme Court was able to arrange interpreting services for someone like Miguel who was deaf.

Roman Martinez:

That's right. Nick, do you want to comment on that? Because we worked behind the scenes with the court to arrange for that interpretation. I think it really made Miguel feel welcome and made it possible for him to understand what was going on.

Nick Rosellini:

Absolutely, Roman. Lia Cattaneo, another one of our associates, deserves a shout-out. She's also since left the firm to go to a clerkship, but she really coordinated all of this. The Supreme Court did a great job accommodating Miguel, because as we talked about earlier, he didn't just need an ASL interpreter. He needed a team of four people that were working in shifts to translate the spoken word to ASL, to a simplified version of sign language that Miguel could understand. Again, given his language deficiencies caused in large part by Sturgis. We worked very closely with the court to make sure we could get this big group of people into the right place, so that Miguel could see the proceedings, see his interpreters, and they could also see what they needed to see.

I think my favorite piece of this, what might be described as a logistical nightmare, was encapsulated in one of the more beautiful courtroom drawings that I've ever seen. There's this portrait that was actually the banner on SCOTUS blog’s website for a few days when the decision came out or after oral argument was held, that had the justices and Roman at the podium in the background. But the focal point of the drawing was Miguel, and his counsel, and these interpreters, making sure he could understand the proceedings. It was a wonderful thing to see that these courts, the courthouse doors, were open to anyone who had their case heard.

Mitch Sickon:

I was there real close to Miguel that whole time. During the interpretation, it was clear to me that he was engaged. Later on, he reported that he appreciated how engaged the justices were. I could tell that some of the justices, their eyes were caught by what it required for Miguel to be able to gain access to the oral argument. It's not something that they see every day. So that was one of the things that really stuck with me.

Roman Martinez:

So, the oral argument happened, and we got to spend some time with Miguel afterwards, which was wonderful because a lot of our back and forth, especially for the Latham team, had been via Zoom and through interpreters, and it was nice to be able to be with him in person. But after the argument, the court goes, and they take time to draft the opinions.

We didn't get an opinion on the case for a couple of months, but we did ultimately get an opinion and it was exactly what we wanted. It was a short opinion. It was by Justice Gorsuch. It was straightforward and it essentially agreed with our argument in the case, that because Miguel was seeking money damages that were not available under the IDEA that this exhaustion requirement didn't apply at all. So that was a wonderful outcome. Nick, how did you get the news and what struck you about the opinion?

Nick Rosellini:

On the West Coast, I have to wake up early for Supreme Court opinions, they come out at 7 a.m. my time. I think we knew you're never going to get a decision in under a month, but after about a month we were feeling pretty good about the result based on the warm reception of our whole argument. I thought it could be a quick one, so I would wake up on every opinion day before my alarm went off to check what had happened. Finally, I woke up on March 21 and the opinion had dropped. We were hoping it might even be 9-0 and it was, which was pretty striking.

I think the pleasure for us, and especially Roman, was that we won on our first argument — that this exhaustion requirement doesn't apply because Miguel is seeking relief that's not available under the IDEA. That always struck us as the simplest way to resolve this case. It seemed right under the text of the statute, and it struck us as very strange that pretty much every circuit had disagreed with that position. So to prevail, despite fighting an uphill battle against the precedent in the lower courts, was quite rewarding. I should kick back to Roman, how did that feel after your experience in Fry?

Roman Martinez:

The Fry case was one I'd argued on a very similar issue a couple of years earlier. We won the case, but the court seemed a little bit skeptical of an argument we were making, that was essentially the same as the argument we would make in Perez. So it was very gratifying to see the court embrace this argument the second time around, even though some of the justices had been skeptical the first time. Also, a nice thing about the opinion was that it was written by Justice Gorsuch. Justice Gorsuch, when he had been a court of appeals judge on the Tenth Circuit, had actually written an opinion that rejected parts of our argument in a different case.

He was one of the justices that we knew we would have to work especially hard to persuade at the Supreme Court. So to see him come out and not just vote for us, but also write the opinion articulating why we were right, that was especially gratifying from an advocacy perspective. I think the other thing that really was great was we loved working with Miguel and I've loved trying to help him. But one thing that Miguel has always appreciated about the case is that it's not just about him. The legal issue here is a legal issue that could affect a lot of people in his situation: children with disabilities who are discriminated against, who suffer harm, and have claims under both of these statutes, the IDEA and the ADA.

One of the results of the opinion in our case is that going forward, students in these circumstances can bring their ADA claims whenever they want to. They don't have to exhaust an IDEA proceeding that's not going to be able to give them the relief that they're actually seeking. I think that's a big win, not just for Miguel, but for other children with disabilities who are in a similar position. To go back to Miguel — Mitch, what happens now? In Miguel’s situation, the decisions are reversed, the case can move forward, but he hasn't proved his claims yet in court. So what the Supreme Court's ruling means is that he gets to have his day in court. So, where does the case stand?

Mitch Sickon:

Right now, Roman, it stands back at the Western District Court in Michigan. We've let Miguel know throughout this process — when we're talking about administrative exhaustion, we're talking about these legal issues that are difficult to understand — that the takeaway is the judge has told Miguel he couldn't tell his story in court yet. Since we've cleared those hurdles, I think he's excited. He's excited to be able to tell his story. He wants people to understand that students like him should have an interpreter. He wants to be able to fulfill his potential. He wanted to go to college. He wants to be able to work construction. For him, being able to tell that story now is key.

Roman Martinez:

We will have to follow and see, and we remain on standby as part of the team to help you all sort through that and hopefully get Miguel the relief he's entitled to. So, I want to wrap up here. I want to thank Mitch. Thank you for all your leadership throughout the case and for bringing us on. It was great to partner with you, and thanks for joining today. And I also want to thank Nick, who did such a great job in briefing the case with me and helping with all the oral argument preparation. Thanks to you as well, Nick, for participating today.

Hello again, listeners. I’m very happy to provide an update on this case since we first taped this episode a few weeks ago. In mid-October, Miguel and the Sturgis School District settled the litigation. As a result of the settlement, the case was dismissed by the District Court on October 18th. I’m not allowed to discuss the terms of the settlement, what I can say is that Miguel and his family are very happy with the result and are looking to moving on from the litigation.

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