Page:United States Reports 546.pdf/271

 546US1

60

Unit: $$U7

[09-04-08 12:12:39] PAGES PGT: OPIN

SCHAFFER v. WEAST Opinion of the Court

child be given the educational placement that a parent re­ quested during a dispute, but it did no such thing. Congress appears to have presumed instead that, if the Act’s proce­ dural requirements are respected, parents will prevail when they have legitimate grievances. See Rowley, supra, at 206 (noting the “legislative conviction that adequate compliance with the procedures prescribed would in most cases assure much if not all of what Congress wished in the way of sub­ stantive content in an IEP”). Petitioners’ most plausible argument is that “[t]he ordi­ nary rule, based on considerations of fairness, does not place the burden upon a litigant of establishing facts peculiarly within the knowledge of his adversary.” United States v. New York, N. H. & H. R. Co., 355 U. S. 253, 256, n. 5 (1957); see also Concrete Pipe & Products of Cal., Inc. v. Construc­ tion Laborers Pension Trust for Southern Cal., 508 U. S. 602, 626 (1993). But this “rule is far from being universal, and has many qualiﬁcations upon its application.” Green­ leaf ’s Lessee v. Birth, 6 Pet. 302, 312 (1832); see also McCor­ mick § 337, at 413 (“Very often one must plead and prove matters as to which his adversary has superior access to the proof ”). School districts have a “natural advantage” in in­ formation and expertise, but Congress addressed this when it obliged schools to safeguard the procedural rights of parents and to share information with them. See School Comm. of Burlington v. Department of Ed. of Mass., 471 U. S. 359, 368 (1985). As noted above, parents have the right to review all records that the school possesses in rela­ tion to their child. § 1415(b)(1). They also have the right to an “independent educational evaluation of the[ir] child.” Ibid. The regulations clarify this entitlement by providing that a “parent has the right to an independent educational evaluation at public expense if the parent disagrees with an evaluation obtained by the public agency.” 34 CFR § 300.502(b)(1) (2005). IDEA thus ensures parents access to an expert who can evaluate all the materials that the school