Disability Rights Wisconsin v. State of Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, No. 05-4171 (7th Cir. Sept. 13, 2006)

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has ruled that the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) must give the names of several students to the state’s protection and advocacy agency (P&A) charged with investigating alleged abuse or neglect of people with mental or physical disabilities without requiring the P&A to first obtain parental consent. The names are of special education students who were disciplined using a seclusion room and are contained in DPI investigative files. As required by the federal P&A statutes-the Developmental Disabilities and Bill of Rights Act (DD), the Protection and Advocacy for Mentally Ill Individuals Act of 1986 (PAIMI), and the Protection and Advocacy of Individual Rights Act (PAIR)-the State of Wisconsin designated Disability Rights Wisconsin Inc. (DRW) as its P&A agency charged with protecting and advocating for the physically disabled and mentally ill. Abraham Lincoln Elementary School (ALES) in Monroe used seclusion rooms to discipline special education students whose individual education plans allowed them to be placed in "time-out." A parent complained to DRW about the practice. After a local television aired a report about the seclusion room, other parents contacted DRW, and DPI also launched an investigation. The state concluded that the room violated several federal and state laws. The DPI report found that six students had been placed in the room, but did not identify them by name. DRW requested a copy of DPI’s investigative file, which would include the names of the students. When DPI forwarded the file to DRW, it redacted the students’ names and information that might have identified them, indicating this was required under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). DRW sued, seeking a court order to compel DPI to release the names. The district court denied DRW’s claim on the grounds that (1) DRW had not yet exhausted its administrative remedies or explained why it did not need to do so, and (2) that the P&A statutes require DRW to know the names of the individuals whose records it was seeking or to try to obtain consent for that access.
       The Seventh Circuit vacated the decision and remanded the case to the lower court. After examining the language of the P&A statutes, the appeals court concluded that they generally require P&A agencies to obtain a guardian’s consent in order to access individual records. This conclusion raised two issues: "(1) whether the records that DRW seeks are ‘individual records’; and (2) whether something special about the present case alters or eliminates the general consent requirement in these circumstances." Addressing the first issue, the court rejected DRW’s argument that the information it sought was investigative, which requires no guardian authorization, rather than "individual records." Once DRW obtained the students’ names it also would obtain individualized information about the students, such as their Individualized Education Programs, and access to such information requires authorization. Nonetheless, this conclusion did not preclude DRW from obtaining some of the information, the court found. The court’s review of federal case law applying the P&A statutes led it to conclude that P&A agencies’ duty to serve the disabled and mentally ill implies a duty of confidentiality. As a result, "requiring DRW to obtain authorization before it can learn the names of the children DPI believes were placed in the seclusion room violates both the spirit and the letter of the federal P&A statutes." Turning to the FERPA implications, the court found that DRW’s mandate to investigate and remedy suspected abuse or neglect frequently outweighs privacy interests, including FERPA concerns.

Disability Rights Wisconsin v. State of Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, No. 05-4171 (7th Cir. Sept. 13, 2006)
[Link to full opinion]