Simba the service dog will not be accompanying his deaf master to a New York high school any time soon after a federal judge ruled that the school district had not violated disability law by refusing to let the animal on campus.

U.S. District Judge Arthur D. Spatt expressed some sympathy for the parents of John Cave Jr., 14, who believe Simba can help him cope with the challenges of being hearing-impaired while attending Clarke High School in Westbury, N.Y. They sued the school district in January after officials barred the dog from school property.

“The Court realizes that they have gone through this difficult path with the only goal of helping and nurturing their son,” Spatt said in a decision that followed a four-day hearing on the parents' motion for a preliminary injunction.

But Spatt still denied the motion, finding that the district had made “extraordinary” efforts to accommodate John's impairment and was likely to prevail on the merits of the case. Among other things, officials have provided the boy with a sign-language interpreter for nearly all his classes.

“In the Court’s view, John, Jr. is well served by the East Meadow School District,” Spatt concluded. “He has been afforded every accommodation in the auditory arsenal -- except the service dog.”

East Meadow's deputy superintendent told Newsday that the decision "radiates common sense and wisdom." But the plaintiffs, John and Nancy Cave, plan to appeal.

“He's inconsolable. He doesn't even want to go to school,” Nancy Cave said of her son. “He doesn't feel that they have any respect for his disability and that they don't care about him. He doesn't want to be in a place like that.”

The Caves had stressed the importance of the bonding process between John and Simba, a two-year-old Labrador retriever. As a result of the forced, school-day separation from John, they said in their complaint, the dog “has been declining in his ability and training” and was in “immediate danger of becoming an exorbitantly high-priced pet.”

Spatt, however, appeared to agree with the district that any concerns about service dog effectiveness were speculative and gave greater weight to such problems as Simba's possible effect on the health of “dog-allergic and asthmatic students and teachers.”

In the only other recorded case on the issue, a California judge in 1990 said a school district should accommodate a disabled student's request to bring a service dog to school. Under the Rehabilitation Act, the judge noted in Sullivan v. Vallejo City Unified Sch. Dist., 731 F. Supp. 947,

deference must be shown to the manner in which a handicapped person chooses to overcome the limitations created by her disabling condition.

Despite his recognition of the Caves' “difficult path,” Spatt showed a singular lack of deference to their son's choice of a service dog.

By Matthew Heller
3/7/07