Marcus I. Ex Rel. Karen I. v. Department of Education
Opinion
Opinion
MEMORANDUM
1. A stay-put order pursuant to 20 U.S.C. § 14150 ) is appealable under the collateral order doctrine, as it conclusively determines the disputed question of the child’s stay-put location, resolves an important issue completely separate from the merits of the child’s ultimate placement, and is effectively unreviewable on appeal from a final judgment. See Coopers & Lybrand v. Livesay, 437 U.S. 463, 468 , 98 S.Ct. 2454 , 57 L.Ed.2d 351 (1978) (citations omitted).
2. We affirm the district court’s order of April 12, 2012, granting stay-put at Loveland Academy. Whether or not this result is dictated as a matter of collateral estoppel, the clear implication of our 2011 memorandum was that the Five Oaks placement was no longer operative.
We dismissed Marcus’s challenge to the Five Oaks placement as moot, relying in part on the DOE’s representation that it was no longer seeking to send Marcus to Five Oaks and that the Five Oaks placement therefore would never be implemented. See Marcus I. ex rel. Karen v. Dep’t of Educ., 434 Fed.Appx. 600, 601-02 (9th Cir.2011). The premise of the mootness decision was that the Five Oaks placement had lapsed for all purposes, not that it…