California OAH special education order · August 14, 2017
Order Denying Motion to Consolidate
OAH Case No. 2017051304 · ALJ Charles Marson
OAH denied Parent's last-minute motion to consolidate a new complaint with the District's case because it was untimely, lacked a required declaration, and would prejudice the District one day before hearing.
This case went to decision
Fairfield-Suisun Unified School District v. Student: Fairfield-Suisun Unified may move a hard-of-hearing student with intellectual disability to a functional academics class without parent consent. (2017)
Summary
Late on the Friday before the District's long-scheduled August 15, 2017 hearing, Parent filed a new due process complaint and asked to consolidate it with the District's case. OAH denied the motion. Parent had not mentioned a new complaint at the prehearing conference and did not file the sworn declaration the prehearing order required for late motions, and there was no sign the District had been served. Consolidating one day before hearing would also unfairly delay the District's case, which sought approval of Student's program for the school year just starting, by months.
Why it matters
Parents who plan to file their own complaint and combine it with a district's case should raise it early, ideally at the prehearing conference, and follow the prehearing order's rules for late motions. Eleventh-hour consolidation requests are likely to be denied, especially when they would delay a district's request to put a program in place for the current school year.
Topics
Full text of the order
Published text of the OAH order. Page headers and numbers from the original PDF have been dropped.
BEFORE THE
OFFICE OF ADMINISTRATIVE HEARINGS
STATE OF CALIFORNIA
In the Matter of:
FAIRFIELD-SUISUN UNIFIED SCHOOL OAH Case No. 2017051304
DISTRICT,
v. ORDER DENYING MOTION TO
CONSOLIDATE
PARENT ON BEHALF OF STUDENT.
This matter was filed by the Fairfield-Suisun Unified School District on May 26, 2017, and has been continued twice. On August 7, 2017, in an Order Following Prehearing Conference, the undersigned denied Parent’s motion for a third continuance, and on August 9, 2017, denied Parent’s renewed motion for a third continuance. The matter has long been set for hearing beginning August 15, 2017.
Shortly before the close of business on Friday, August 11, Parent filed a request for due process hearing and a request to combine (consolidate) the new matter with this one.
Fairfield-Suisun has not yet replied to the motion. At this time, the new case has not been opened and there is no description in the motion of the issues raised in the new case.
The motion is untimely. At no time prior to or during the prehearing conference did Parent mention she was contemplating filing a new complaint and asking that the matters be consolidated. . The Order Following Prehearing Conference required that any motion filed after that date be accompanied by a declaration under oath explaining why the motion was not filed sooner. Parent has not filed such a declaration. Further, there is no indication that Fairfield-Suisun was served with a copy of the motion to consolidate.
Finally, consolidation one day before the hearing would substantially prejudice Fairfield-Suisun, which has prepared for the hearing. Fairfield-Suisun’s case seeks an order permitting it to put into effect an educational program for Student for the school year now starting . Consolidation would effectively continue the hearing on its case for months into the fall and would frustrate Fairfield-Suisun’s attempt to settle the content of Student’s program until well into the school year the proposed program would govern.
For all of these reasons, the motion to consolidate is DENIED. The hearing in this matter will proceed as scheduled, beginning August 15, 2017.
DATE: August 14, 2017
CHARLES MARSON
Administrative Law Judge Office of Administrative Hearings