Federal appellate court rules parents not required to exhaust physical abuse and timeout claims under IDEA, but they failed on the merits of those claims
The Tenth Circuit has ruled that the parents of a disabled student were not required under the IDEA to exhaust their administrative remedies before bringing suit claiming physical abuse by staff and staff use of unapproved timeouts with their child. However, the Court concluded that the parents had failed on the merits of their claims, styled as a § 1983 action based on violation of the student’s Fourteenth Amendment substantive due process right, because the instances of alleged physical abuse and use of timeouts were not constitutional torts since the defendants’ behavior did not “shock the conscience” of the court.
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