COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS
DIVISION OF ADMINISTRATIVE LAW APPEALS
BUREAU OF SPECIAL EDUCATION APPEALS
In Re: Student v. Southbridge Public Schools & Department of Mental Health
BSEA #25-02501
RULING ON SOUTHBRIDGE PUBLIC SCHOOLS’ MOTION FOR EXPEDITED DISCOVERY
This matter comes before the Hearing Officer on Southbridge Public Schools’ Motion for Expedited Discovery (Motion)[1], filed with the BSEA on September 4, 2024 . Said Motion requests that the Hearing Officer order Parents, the moving party in the above-captioned matter, to produce to the District any and all documents responsive to the District’s First Request for Production of Documents by the Parents on or before September 16, 2024. According to Southbridge, “the documents requested are documents which are directly relevant to the issues in dispute, as identified in the Parents’ Request for Hearing, and are necessary for the District’s preparation for hearing and presentation of the District’s defense to the Parents’ claims. If required to proceed to hearing in the absence of this necessary documentation, the District will be materially prejudiced and denied due process in this matter.” In addition, “in the absence of an Order for Expedited Discovery, the Parents would have no obligation to produce documents responsive to the District’s reasonable requests until approximately October 3, 2024, thirty (30) calendar days following receipt of the District’s Discovery requests and well after the hearing will likely have concluded.”
On September 10, 2024, Parents filed Parents’/Student’s Response To The District’s September 4, 2024 Motion To Expedite Discovery (Response) , asserting that the District’s “request for expedited discovery is overly broad, unduly burdensome, unnecessarily duplicative of many records District already has in its possession, and requests records for which the Parents are not the keeper of the records.” Moreover, many of the records requested are voluminous, and “there is simply not enough time to vet the 1,000-2,0000 pages of records parents have recently
received to segregate and redact all the various information that may be contained in them that would not be appropriate to be shared with the District for hearing purposes at this time.”[2]
The parties did not request a hearing on the Motion, and I find that a hearing is not needed, as it would not likely advance my understanding of the issues.[3]
For the reasons set forth below, the District’s Motion is hereby ALLOWED.
FACTUAL BACKGROUND AND RELEVANT PROCEDURAL HISTORY[4]:
- On August 26, 2024, Parent filed a Hearing Request seeking accelerated status and alleging, in part, that Student’s in-District program is inappropriate and that the District and/or DMH must be ordered to fund/cost-share a residential therapeutic educational placement for Student. Parents’ Request for Accelerated Status was granted by the BSEA over the District’s objection on Tuesday, August 27, 2024.
- On August 29, 2024, the parties agreed to waive the convening of a Resolution Meeting in this matter.
- Also on August 29, 2024, counsel for the District emailed counsel for Parents requesting that Parents voluntarily agree to produce limited documentation relative to the Student’s mental health treatment, behaviors, and current DMH residential services that was necessary for the District’s preparation for hearing and defense of the Parents’ claims in the matter of BSEA #2502501.[5] In the alternative, District counsel proposed that Parents execute necessary releases for DMH and Student’s current residential treatment provider to enable the District to obtain responsive documentation directly from those entities if Parents were unwilling or unable to personally produce documents responsive to the District’s Requests. Counsel for the District requested that counsel for the Parents respond to the District’s request for the exchange of information required by the District by voluntary agreement by the conclusion of the business day on August 30, 2024. Counsel for Parents did not respond to the District’s request.
- On September 3, 2024[6], the District served Parents with the District’s First Request for Production of Documents by the Parents, requesting, “[d]ue to the Accelerated Status of the above matter, [that] these documents are to be produced on or before September 16, 2024.”
This matter is scheduled for hearing beginning on September 25, 2024.
LEGAL STANDARDS:
Rule V of the BSEA Hearing Rules governs the discovery process before the BSEA and “encourages” the parties to exchange information “cooperatively and by agreement prior to the hearing.”[7] According to BSEA Hearing Rule V(B), unless the case has been granted expedited status, formal requests for information may be made at any time after a request for hearing is filed and the resolution meeting, when required, has been held or waived. Rule V(A) further advises that “the parties are encouraged to exchange information cooperatively and by agreement prior to the hearing.” Additionally, parties can request of other parties that they produce documents or answer up to 25 interrogatories within thirty (30) calendar days of being served such requests, unless a Hearing Officer orders otherwise.[8] Where the information or the documents requested are “not subject to any sort of privilege, the accessibility of the documents requested and their relevance to the dispute may militate in favor or against production.”[9] 801 CMR 1.01(8)(i) [10] authorizes parties who do not receive some or all the discovery responses or answers requested to file a Motion for an Order Compelling Discovery.[11]
APPLICATION OF LEGAL STANDARDS AND CONCLUSIONS:
BSEA Hearing Rule V(B), instructing that documents must be produced within thirty (30) calendar days of being served such requests, unless a Hearing Officer orders otherwise, grants the Hearing Officer the authority to order an expedited schedule for discovery. Here, the District has articulated persuasive grounds for such an order, specifically, that the matter will proceed to Hearing in fewer than 20 days. In the absence of an Order for Expedited Discovery, the 30-day timeline for discovery production delineated in BSEA Hearing Rule V(B), which began after the waiving of the Resolution Meeting on August 29, 2024, would have Parents’ discovery production due after the date of the Hearing, resulting in clear prejudice to the District. I am sensitive to Parents’ argument that the records are voluminous, but this matter is proceeding to Hearing on an accelerated track at their request. In addition, Parents have had notice of the District’s discovery request since September 4, 2024.[12] The District’s Motion is therefore ALLOWED.
ORDER:
Southbridge Public Schools’ Motion for Expedited Discovery is ALLOWED. Parents are instructed to respond to the District’s First Request for Production of Documents by the Parents on or before the close of business day on September 16, 2024.
In addition, any objections by Parents to the District’s First Request for Production of Documents by the Parents must be filed by the close of business day on September 13, 2024.
Moreover, as the matter is scheduled for hearing beginning on September 25, 2024, all objections to the allowance of any motion must be filed within 48 hours after a written motion is filed with the Hearing Officer and the opposing party, unless I determine that a shorter or longer time is warranted.
So Ordered by the Hearing Officer,
/s/ Alina Kantor Nir
Alina Kantor Nir, Hearing Officer
Dated: September 11, 2024
[1] Southbridge submitted 2 exhibits in support of its Motion.
[2] Parents’ Response also appears to raise specific objections to Document Request Nos. 4, 7, 8, 9, 16, 17, 18 and 19. This Ruling does not address these specific objections. If needed, they will be addressed in a later Ruling. Via email dated September 10, 2024, Parents’ Counsel asserted that “the discovery request is beyond that which can be produced or even responded to on an expedited basis, because of the nature and volume of the records requested are beyond what can reasonably be produced or responded to, and its overly broad and unduly burdensome and unnecessarily duplicative to be produced or reminded to within the expedited timeline requested by the district. I objected to the motion, and I listed my objections and provided specific examples. My request was that the hea[r]ing officer order exhibit binders only.”
[3] See BSEA Hearing Rule VI D.
[4] The information in this section is drawn from the parties’ pleadings and is subject to revision in further proceedings.
[5] In the District’s email dated August 29, 2024, Counsel asked whether Parents would be “amenable to voluntarily providing the following documents to the District within the next 10 business days?
1. Admissions and discharge documentation pertaining to the student’s hospitalization(s) at the
conclusion of the 2022-2023 school year and up to her IRTP placement at 3 Rivers.
2. Admissions documentation for the current IRTP program at 3 Rivers.
3. Parents’ communications to the Southbridge Public Schools since January 2023.
[4.] Parents’ communications to and from the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health since January 2023.
[5.] Parents’ communications to date to and from 3 Rivers, the IRTP residential program in which the
student has been residing.
[6.] Reports of evaluations and, if any, functional behavioral assessments, of the student conducted while the student has been at 3 Rivers, except for evaluations conducted by Southbridge.
[7.] Copies of invitations to any treatment planning or discharge planning meetings that the parents have received since from DMH or 3 Rivers since 1/2024.
[8.] Documentation pertaining to weekend home visits by the student since 9/2023.
[9.] A copy of the student’s DMH ISP.
… I have deliberately scaled back the scope of the documentation I would normally be seeking under a standard hearing timeline and process.”
[6] Parents’ Response indicated that the District’s discovery was served on September 4, 2024. However, Exhibit 2 of the District’s Motion, certifies that the document was served on September 3, 2024.
[7] BSEA Hearing Rule V(A).
[8] See BSEA Hearing Rule V(B)(1) and (2).
[9] In Re: Dorian and Waltham Public Schools (Ruling), BSEA # 17-02306 (Reichbach, 2017). The Massachusetts Rules of Civil Procedure expatiates further as to the scope of discovery:
“[p]arties may obtain discovery regarding any matter, not privileged, which is relevant to the subject matter involved in the pending action, whether it relates to the claim of defense of the party seeking discovery or to the claim or defense of any party…It is not ground for objection that the information sought will be inadmissible at the trial if…[it] appears reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence.” Mass. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1).
The parallel Federal Rule permits discovery of
“…any nonprivileged matter that is relevant to any party’s claim or defense and proportional to the needs of the case, considering the importance of the issues…, the amount in controversy, the parties’ relative access to relevant information, the parties’ resources, the importance of the discovery in resolving issues, and whether the burden or expense of the proposed discovery outweighs its likely benefit. Information…need not be admissible in evidence to be discoverable.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1).
Objections to any discovery requests can be made within ten (10) calendar days of service of the request, or parties can move for a protective order within that timeframe as well. See BSEA Hearing Rule V(C).
[10]Pursuant to the Scope of the Rules section introductory to the Hearing Rules, “Unless modified explicitly by these Rules, hearings are conducted under the Formal Standard Adjudicatory Rules of Practice and Procedure, 801 CMR 1.01 et seq.”
[11] In the event an Order is issued granting a Motion to compel, 801 CMR 1.01(8)(i) further authorizes a Hearing Officer, in situations for which good cause does not exist to justify failure to comply with such Order, to issue further orders regarding such failure,
“… as are just, including one or more of the following:
1. An order that designated facts shall be established adversely to the Party failing to comply with the order; or
2. An order refusing to allow the disobedient Party to support or oppose designated claims or defenses, or prohibiting him or her from introducing evidence on designated matters.”
[12] Parents’ argument that that “the discovery request is beyond that which can be produced or even responded to on an expedited basis” is unpersuasive. Parents may make specific objections to specific document requests. In addition, the District is entitled to engage in discovery in preparation for Hearing. It is not appropriate, as Parents request, that the parties forgo discovery and the Hearing Officer “order [production of] exhibit binders only.”