Flores v. Huppenthal, No. 13-15805 (9th Cir. 2015)
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The Flores Plaintiffs appealed the district court's order granting the State Defendants Rule
60(b)(5) relief from a judgment for alleged violations of the Equal Educational Opportunities Act (EEOA), 20 U.S.C. 1701–21. The district court also vacated its earlier injunction granting the Flores Plaintiffs statewide relief. The court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in granting the State Defendants’ Rule 60(b)(5) motion for relief from judgment because the circumstances surrounding the implementation and funding of English Language Learners (ELLs) programs at the state and national levels have changed substantially since 2000, and the current programs constitute “appropriate action” under the EEOA; the Flores Plaintiffs have not shown that Arizona is violating the EEOA on a statewide basis, and that the facts alleged by them are insufficient to justify the maintenance of a statewide injunction; and therefore, the court affirmed the district court's judgment.
Court Description: Equal Educational Opportunities Act. The panel affirmed the district court’s order, on remand from the United States Supreme Court, granting a motion for relief under Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b)(5) from a judgment for alleged violations of the Equal Educational Opportunities Act, and vacating an injunction granting statewide relief to a class of English Language Learners and their parents in Arizona’s Nogales Unified School District. The panel held that the district court complied with the Supreme Court’s order and did not abuse its discretion in granting defendants’ Rule 60(b)(5) motion because the circumstances surrounding the implementation and funding of English Language Learner programs at the state and national levels had changed substantially since 2000, when the judgment was entered, and the current programs constituted “appropriate action” under the EEOA. The panel further held that plaintiffs had not shown that Arizona was violating the EEOA on a statewide basis, and the FLORES V. HUPPENTHAL 3 facts alleged by them were insufficient to justify the maintenance of a statewide injunction. The panel concluded the plaintiffs were not attacking the validity of a statewide policy; rather, they were challenging local implementation after the first year of a four-hour English Language Development requirement, and its alleged negative effects on English Language Learner students, some of whom might receive less academic content than their English-speaking peers. The panel held that plaintiffs did not demonstrate standing to raise statewide claims. Judge Friedland concurred in Parts I.1-I.4 of the majority opinion, which addressed the motion for relief from judgment, and she concurred in the judgment. Judge Friedland agreed with the majority that the district court obeyed the Supreme Court’s directives regarding how the remand in this case should proceed, and that the district court did not abuse its discretion in, accordingly, granting Rule 60(b)(5) relief to defendants. Judge Friedland wrote separately to address additional arguments she understood plaintiffs to be making. Judge Friedland would hold that although plaintiffs had standing to bring a facial challenge to the four-hour English Language Development model adopted for use statewide, this challenge failed on the merits. She also would hold that plaintiffs did not show that their new objections to the four-four model’s implementation in Nogales constituted EEOA violations that required maintaining an injunction in Nogales. 4 FLORES V. HUPPENTHAL
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