Supreme Court hears arguments in phony autism specialist case

NORWALK — The “permanent” neurological damage suffered by four autistic children at the hands of an illegitimate special education consultant hired by the city’s public schools in 2007 should negate the technicality used to throw out the original lawsuit, argued the families’ attorney Monday.

The families of the four children filed suit against the city, school district and Board of Education in 2011. They claimed that a series of negligent acts that led to the hiring of Stacy Lore, who falsely claimed to be an autism specialist and provided services to special education students for more than a year, ultimately stunted the development of their children.

In 2017, Superior Court Judge Kenneth Povodator dismissed the suit, stating that the plaintiffs had failed to exhaust all “administrative remedies,” as is required by the federal Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA), before pursuing claims of discrimination. But now, the families are claiming that new rulings around the country may render that point ineffectual.

Angelo Ziotas, the Stamford attorney whose firm represents the families, argued before the Connecticut Supreme Court Monday that the technicality used to toss the case was based on a “misapplied and misinterpreted” reading of a case decided by U.S. Supreme Court later that year.

In Fry v. Napoleon Community Schools, Ziotas argued, the U.S. Supreme Court found that plaintiffs did not have to exhaust all state-level administrative remedies when a lawsuit was not related to “the denial of free appropriate education.”

Justice Gregory D’Auria, along with other justices, questioned the alleged connection between the Supreme Court ruling and the case at hand, though.

“It seems like the Fry decision goes through great lengths to have us look at the substance of the complaint and not just how its styled by the plaintiff, and that seems to be a little bit in conflict with just the strict statutory construction of whether we are talking about federal claims, but looking at the substance of the claims to see if we’re dealing with the free and appropriate education. How do you reconcile those two?” D’Auria asked.

Ziotas also pointed to a recent appeals court case in Massachusetts, Doucette v. Georgetown Public Schools, which found that the exhaustion requirement didn’t apply to certain cases.