A federal judge has slapped down D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles’ efforts to recover fees from a plaintiffs’ lawyer who Nickles claimed was exploiting the city’s beleaguered special education system with “frivolous” litigation.
Nickles alleged that lawyer John A. Straus filed a needless due process complaint on behalf of a mentally disabled girl who had already been helped by the schools and asked the court for some $1,750 in attorneys’ fees. U.S. District Judge Richard Roberts tossed Nickles’ complaint this week, rebuking the attorney general for wasting time and money.
“It is beyond ironic that D.C.’s attorney general complains with great flourish … about lawyers who help parents secure disabled children’s rights, when his client, the [schools] has been found repeatedly in this court to have violated the children’s rights,” Roberts wrote in a footnote to the 10-page decision. “It is particularly unclear how the attorney general’s choice to sue in federal court … and not sue in the more streamlined and far less costly small claims branch of our D.C. Superior Court furthers his interest in saving taxpayer money.”
Nickles didn’t respond Thursday to requests for comment. Roberts’ decision, dated Tuesday, is another blow to the city’s efforts to repair the $300 million special education system after decades of neglect. Nickles has called the system, which is the most expensive in the country, “a snake pit.”
He focused his wrath upon Straus and his firm, James E. Brown & Associates, who have helped turn special-ed litigation into a cottage industry. Federal law sets deadlines for evaluating and treating children with disabilities, and D.C. school officials routinely miss those deadlines. The failures have allowed lawyers like Straus to bill taxpayers millions in litigation fees. D.C. has more special-ed litigation than the 50 states combined.
