Court: Parents can sue without lawyer

WASHINGTON - Parents need not hire a lawyer to sue public school districts over their children's special-education needs, the Supreme Court ruled yesterday.

The decision makes it easier for parents to file federal lawsuits if they are unhappy with a local school system's plans to educate children with mental retardation, autism or other disabilities.

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for the court in Winkelman v. Parma City School District, said that not just children but also their parents had legal rights under the federal Individuals With Disabilities in Education Act. Parents are "entitled to prosecute IDEA claims on their own behalf," he wrote.

Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, who partially dissented from the decision, said they favored giving parents more limited rights to sue.

The decision came in the case of Jacob Winkelman, 9, an autistic boy from Ohio, whose parents argued that they were effectively denied access to the courts because they could not afford a lawyer to challenge the school district's plans for their son.

Federal law gives every child the right to a free appropriate public education, which in the case of special-needs children sometimes means enrollment in a private facility.

But most federal courts had concluded that parents who are not lawyers and who want to challenge decisions must hire an attorney to represent them.

The court sided with Jacob and his parents, Jeff and Sandee Winkelman, in their fight against the Parma school district outside Cleveland.

The Winkelmans cannot afford a lawyer or the cost of private schooling for Jacob. Neither parent is a lawyer.

The parents objected to the Parma schools' plan to educate Jacob at a public school. They wanted the district to pay for his $56,000 yearly enrollment in a private school that specializes in educating autistic children.

They have spent about $30,000 in legal fees since first contesting Jacob's treatment in 2003. Jeff Winkelman has taken a second job; Sandee Winkelman has researched previous rulings and written her own filings.

Sandee Winkelman said she might press the case on behalf of Jacob with one of several attorneys who have offered to represent the family for free. If not, she said, the family would proceed without an attorney.

It is unclear how many parents forgo lawsuits because they cannot afford them, although advocates for disabled children said in court papers that most parents of disabled children lacked the means to hire a lawyer.

Nearly seven million of the nation's 50 million children in public schools are enrolled in special-education programs.

Whether Jacob should have private schooling at public expense was not before the court, only his parents' right to go into federal court without a lawyer.

The Cincinnati-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth District had ruled in the school district's favor.

The justices yesterday:

in the cases of three U.S. Muslims challenging their convictions for preparing for holy war against the United States.

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Read the court ruling in

the Winkelman case via http://go.philly.com/specialedEndText