Failure to provide prior notice does not justify granting of motion to dismiss

Erin K. v. Naperville School Dist. No. 203, 2009 WL 3271954, N.D.Ill.,2009: Parents did not give prior notice of intent to make reimbursement claim prior to placing their daughter at a residential facility. The hearing officer dismissed the parents’ hearing request for failure to give proper notice. The district court reversed. The Court explained that “section 1412(a)(10)(C)(iii) provides that reimbursement may be reduced if proper notice was not given. It is not an automatic denial, as a matter of law, as the Hearing Officer concluded in this case. Rather, a hearing officer is permitted to consider all of the circumstances and then fashion an equitable result based on his or her discretion.”