Lofton Ex Rel. T.C. v. District of Columbia, 7 F. Supp. 3d 117

T.C., a 17-year-old D.C. resident eligible for special-education services under IDEA, had attended Ivymount (a private separate day special-education school) since 2004 pursuant to prior IEPs.
At an IEP meeting on May 21, 2013, DCPS decided to place T.C. at Dunbar High School despite the IEP team (including his mother, Lofton) protesting that placement and asserting they were not meaningfully heard.
A hearing officer found DCPS denied Lofton meaningful participation and thus denied T.C. a FAPE, but ordered transition to Dunbar; T.C. began attending Dunbar on December 3, 2013.
After enrollment at Dunbar, T.C. suffered bullying and at least one physical assault, and Dunbar lacked an occupational therapist to provide services required by T.C.’s 2013–2014 IEP.
Lofton filed suit and moved for a TRO and preliminary injunction compelling DCPS to fund T.C.’s attendance and transportation to Ivymount pending a properly developed IEP with meaningful parental participation.
The district court found plaintiffs likely to succeed on the merits, that failure to provide required IEP services caused irreparable harm, that the balance of harms and public interest favored relief, and therefore ordered DCPS to pay for T.C.’s attendance and transportation to Ivymount until a proper IEP and placement were adopted.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits that DCPS violated IDEA by placing T.C. at Dunbar	Lofton: DCPS denied meaningful parental participation and placed T.C. where his IEP could not be implemented	DCPS: Dunbar is T.C.’s then-current placement and stay-put requires he remain there during proceedings	Held for plaintiffs: IEP services (OT) unavailable at Dunbar and parental participation was denied, so likelihood of success favors plaintiffs
Whether failure to provide IEP services constitutes irreparable harm	Lofton: Missed OT is irreparable because educational progress cannot be recovered	DCPS: Implementation issues can be remedied; no irreparable harm asserted strongly	Held for plaintiffs: Court found failure to provide FAPE/OT causes irreparable injury
Whether issuing injunction would harm the District or others	Lofton: Injunction is narrowly tailored and facilitates IDEA compliance	DCPS: Enforcement of stay-put and district resource concerns (implicit)	Held for plaintiffs: Court found no material harm to DCPS and injunction supports IDEA compliance
Whether injunction is in public interest	Lofton: Public interest favors enforcement of IDEA and parental due process	DCPS: Financial/administrative burdens (implicit)	Held for plaintiffs: Public interest favors protecting IDEA rights and due process

Chaplaincy of Full Gospel Churches v. England, 454 F.3d 290 (D.C. Cir. 2006) (extraordinary injunctive relief requires clear showing)
Winter v. Natural Res. Def. Council, 555 U.S. 7 (2008) (preliminary injunction standards require likelihood of success and irreparable harm)
Cobell v. Norton, 391 F.3d 251 (D.C. Cir. 2004) (reiterating the high burden for extraordinary relief)
Mazurek v. Armstrong, 520 U.S. 968 (1997) (standard for issuance of preliminary injunctions)
Anderson v. Anderson, 877 F.2d 1018 (D.C. Cir. 1989) (child entitled to injunction only outside IDEA stay-put by showing usual injunction grounds)
Davis v. Pension Benefit Guar. Corp., 571 F.3d 1288 (D.C. Cir. 2009) (sliding-scale approach to injunction factors in this Circuit)
Sherley v. Sebelius, 644 F.3d 388 (D.C. Cir. 2011) (discussing relationship of Winter to Circuit’s sliding-scale approach)
Honig v. Doe, 484 U.S. 305 (1988) (IEP is the centerpiece of IDEA’s process)
Petties v. District of Columbia, 238 F. Supp. 2d 114 (D.D.C. 2002) (district must place student in setting capable of fulfilling the IEP; public interest favors enforcing IDEA)