Rochelle Driessen v. Miami-Dade County School Board
Rochelle Driessen v. Miami-Dade County School Board
Opinion
Rochelle Driessen appeals the district court’s dismissal for frivolity under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(i) of her Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) claim. After careful review, we affirm.
On June 15, 2012, Driessen filed suit against the above defendants, alleging several IDEA violations. In her complaint, she conceded that a Florida state court had terminated her parental rights to her two children and attached a copy of a state-court order to that effect. The district court took note and sua sponte dismissed Driessen’s complaint as frivolous, noting that she had filed two previous IDEA lawsuits, both dismissed because she had no parental rights and therefore lacked standing to sue under the IDEA, and that her parental status had admittedly remained unchanged. This is Dries-sen’s appeal.
We review a dismissal for frivolity for an abuse of discretion. Miller v. Donald, 541 F.3d 1091, 1100 (11th Cir. 2008). “A claim is frivolous if and only if it lacks an arguable basis either in law or in fact.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). Dries-sen appealed both of her prior IDEA cases to this court. In the first, we affirmed the district court’s dismissal on grounds not relevant to this appeal. See Driessen v. Miami-Dade Cnty. Sch. Bd., 504 Fed.Appx. 864 (11th Cir. 2013) (unpublished). In the second, we also affirmed, holding that Driessen lacked standing because, as someone who did not have permanent legal guardianship of her children, she was without the authority to make educational decisions for her children that is necessary to confer standing to assert an IDEA claim. Driessen v. Lockman, 518 Fed.Appx. 809, 2013 WL 1920911 (11th Cir. May 10, 2013) (unpublished). Driessen admitted in her complaint in the instant case that she still lacked legal guardianship of her children. Accordingly, for the reasons stated in Driessen v. Lockman, we conclude that Driessen’s assertion of standing to bring this suit “lacks an arguable basis either in law or in fact,” Miller, 541 F.3d at 1100 (internal quotation marks omitted), and the district court did not abuse its discre *913 tion in dismissing her case under § 1915(e)(2)(B)(i).
AFFIRMED.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.