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Full Opinion
SMITH ET AL.
v.
ROBINSON, RHODE ISLAND ASSOCIATE COMMISSIONER OF EDUCATION, ET AL.
Supreme Court of United States.
*994 E. Richard Larson argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the briefs were Burt Neuborne, Charles S. Sims, and Ivan E. Bodensteiner.
Forrest L. Avila argued the cause and filed a brief for respondents.[*]
Inez Smith Reid, Corporation Counsel, John H. Suda, Principal Deputy Corporation Counsel, Charles L. Reischel, Deputy Corporation Counsel, and Richard B. Nettler, Assistant Corporation Counsel, filed a brief for the District of Columbia as amicus curiae urging affirmance.
Gwendolyn H. Gregory, August W. Steinhilber, and Thomas A. Shannon filed a brief for the National School Boards Association as amicus curiae.
JUSTICE BLACKMUN delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents questions regarding the award of attorney's fees in a proceeding to secure a "free appropriate public education" for a handicapped child. At various stages in the proceeding, petitioners asserted claims for relief based on state law, on the Education of the Handicapped Act (EHA), 84 Stat. 175, as amended, 20 U. S. C. ยง 1400 et seq., on ยง 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 87 Stat. 394, as amended, 29 U. S. C. ยง 794, and on the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The United States Court of Appeals *995 for the First Circuit concluded that because the proceeding, in essence, was one to enforce the provisions of the EHA, a statute that does not provide for the payment of attorney's fees, petitioners were not entitled to such fees. Smith v. Cumberland School Committee, 703 F. 2d 4 (1983). Petitioners insist that this Court's decision in Maher v. Gagne, 448 U. S. 122 (1980), compels a different conclusion.
I
The procedural history of the case is complicated, but it is significant to the resolution of the issues. Petitioner Thomas F. Smith III (Tommy), suffers from cerebral palsy and a variety of physical and emotional handicaps. When this proceeding began in November 1976, Tommy was eight years old. In the preceding December, the Cumberland School Committee had agreed to place Tommy in a day program at Emma Pendleton Bradley Hospital in East Providence, R. I., and Tommy began attending that program. In November 1976, however, the Superintendent of Schools informed Tommy's parents, who are the other petitioners here, that the School Committee no longer would fund Tommy's placement because, as it construed Rhode Island law, the responsibility for educating an emotionally disturbed child lay with the State's Division of Mental Health, Retardation and Hospitals (MHRH). App. 25-26.
Petitioners took an appeal from the decision of the Superintendent to the School Committee. In addition, petitioners filed a complaint under 42 U. S. C. ยง 1983 in the United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island against the members of the School Committee, asserting that due process required that the Committee comply with "Article IX ย Procedural Safeguards" of the Regulations adopted by the State Board of Regents regarding Education of Handicapped Children (Regulations)[1] and that Tommy's placement *996 in his program be continued pending appeal of the Superintendent's decision.
In orders issued in December 1976 and January 1977, the District Court entered a temporary restraining order and then a preliminary injunction. The court agreed with petitioners that the Regulations required the School Committee to continue Tommy in his placement at Bradley Hospital pending appeal of the Superintendent's decision. The School Committee's failure to follow the Regulations, the court concluded, would constitute a deprivation of due process.
On May 10, 1978, petitioners filed a first amended complaint. App. 49. By that time, petitioners had completed the state administrative process. They had appealed the Superintendent's decision to the School Committee and then to the State Commissioner of Education, who delegated responsibility for conducting a hearing to an Associate Commissioner of Education. Petitioners had moved that the Associate Commissioner recuse himself from conducting the review of the School Committee's decision, since he was an employee of the state education agency and therefore not an impartial hearing officer. The Associate Commissioner denied the motion to recuse.
*997 All the state officers agreed that, under R. I. Gen. Laws, Tit. 40, ch. 7 (1977), the responsibility for educating Tommy lay with MHRH.[2] The Associate Commissioner acknowledged petitioners' argument that since ยง 40.1-7-8 would require them to pay a portion of the cost of services provided to Tommy,[3] the statute conflicted with the EHA, but concluded that the problem was not within his jurisdiction to resolve.
In their first amended complaint, petitioners added as defendants the Commissioner of Education, the Associate Commissioner of Education, the Board of Regents for Education, and the Director of MHRH. They also specifically relied for the first time on the EHA, noting that at all times mentioned in the complaint, the State of Rhode Island had submitted a plan for state-administered programs of special education and related services and had received federal funds pursuant to the EHA.[4]
*998 In the first count of their amended complaint, petitioners challenged the fact that both the hearing before the School Committee and the hearing before the Associate Commissioner were conducted before examiners who were employees of the local or state education agency. They sought a declaratory judgment that the procedural safeguards contained in Article IX of the Regulations did not comply with the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment or with the requirements of the EHA, 20 U. S. C. ยง 1415, and its accompanying regulations. They also sought an injunction prohibiting the Commissioner and Associate Commissioner from conducting any more hearings in review of decisions of the Rhode Island local education agencies (LEA's) unless and until the Board of Regents adopted regulations that conformed to the requirements of ยง 1415 and its regulations. Finally, they sought reasonable attorney's fees and costs.
In the second count of their amended complaint, petitioners challenged the substance of the Associate Commissioner's decision. In their view, the decision violated Tommy's rights "under federal and state law to have his LEA provide a free, appropriate educational placement without regard to whether or not said placement can be made within the local school system." App. 61. They sought both a declaratory judgment that the School Committee, not MHRH, was responsible for providing Tommy a free appropriate education, and an injunction requiring the School Committee to provide Tommy such an education. They also asked for reasonable attorney's fees and costs.
On December 22, 1978, the District Court issued an opinion acknowledging confusion over whether, as a matter of state law, the School Committee or MHRH was responsible for funding and providing the necessary services for Tommy. Id., at 108. The court also noted that if the Associate *999 Commissioner were correct that Tommy's education was governed by ยง 40.1-7, the state scheme would appear to be in conflict with the requirements of the EHA, since ยง 40.1-7 may require parental contribution and may not require MHRH to provide education at all if it would cause the Department to incur a deficit. At the request of the state defendants, the District Court certified to the Supreme Court of Rhode Island the state-law questions whether the School Committee was required to provide special education for a resident handicapped student if the local educational programs were inadequate, and whether the cost of such programs was the responsibility of the local School Committee or of the MHRH.
On May 29, 1979, the District Court granted partial summary judgment for the defendants on petitioners' claim that they were denied due process by the requirement of the Regulations that they submit their dispute to the School Committee and by the Associate State Commissioner's refusal to recuse himself. The court noted that the School Committee's members were not "employees" of the local education agency, but elected officials, and determined that the provision of the EHA directing that no hearing shall be conducted by an employee of an agency or unit involved in the education or care of the child does not apply to hearings conducted by the state education agency.
On June 3, 1980, the Rhode Island Supreme Court issued an opinion answering the certified questions. Smith v. Cumberland School Committee, 415 A. 2d 168. Noting the responsibility of the Board of Regents for Education to comply with the requirements of the EHA, the court determined that the primary obligation of financing a handicapped child's special education lay with the local School Committee. Whatever obligation ยง 40.1-7 imposes on MHRH to provide educational services is limited and complements, rather than supplants, the obligations of School Committees under ยง 16.24-1.
*1000 Petitioners thereafter filed their second amended and supplemental complaint. App. 152. In it they added to Count II claims for relief under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and under ยง 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended, 29 U. S. C. ยง 794. They also requested attorney's fees under 42 U. S. C. ยง 1988 and what was then 31 U. S. C. ยง 1244(e) (1976 ed.).[5]
On January 12, 1981, the District Court issued an order declaring petitioners' rights, entering a permanent injunction against the School Committee defendants, and approving an award of attorney's fees against those defendants. App. 172. The court ordered the School Committee to pay the full cost of Tommy's attendance at Harmony Hill School, Tommy's then-current placement. By agreement between petitioners and the School Committee and without prejudice to petitioners' claims against the other defendants, the court awarded attorney's fees in the amount of $8,000, pursuant to 42 U. S. C. ยง 1988 and the then 31 U. S. C. ยง 1244 (e) (1976 ed.).
On June 4, 1981, the District Court issued two orders, this time addressed to petitioners' claims against the state defendants. In the first order, App. 177, the court denied the state defendants' motion to dismiss. In the second order, id., at 189, the court declared that Tommy is entitled to a *1001 free appropriate special education paid for by the Cumberland School Committee. The court noted that since Tommy was entitled to the relief he sought as a matter of state law, it was unnecessary and improper for the court to go further and reach petitioners' federal statutory and constitutional claims. Petitioners were given 14 days to move for an award of fees.
The Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed in an unpublished per curiam opinion filed on January 11, 1982. It concluded that the Commissioner was not immune from injunctive relief and that petitioners' challenge to the District Court's award of summary judgment to respondents on their due process challenge was moot.
Petitioners requested fees and costs against the state defendants. Id., at 195. On April 30, 1982, the District Court ruled orally that petitioners were entitled to fees and costs in the amount of $32,109 for the hours spent in the state administrative process both before and after the state defendants were named as parties to the federal litigation. App. to Pet. for Cert. A31-A58. Relying on New York Gaslight Club, Inc. v. Carey, 447 U. S. 54 (1980), and its own opinion in Turillo v. Tyson, 535 F. Supp. 577 (1982), the court reasoned that because petitioners were required to exhaust their EHA remedies before bringing their ยง 1983 and ยง 504 claims, they were entitled to fees for those procedures. The court agreed with respondents that petitioners were not entitled to compensation for hours spent challenging the use of employees as hearing officers. No fees were awarded for hours spent obtaining the preliminary injunctive relief, as petitioners already had been compensated for that work by the School Committee defendants. Finally, the court rejected the defendants' argument that fees should not be allowed because this was an action under the EHA, which does not provide for fees. In the court's view, respondents had given insufficient weight to the fact that petitioners had alleged equal protection and ยง 1983 claims as well as the EHA claim. The court *1002 added that it found the equal protection claim petitioners included in their second amended complaint to be colorable and nonfrivolous. Petitioners thus were entitled to fees for prevailing in an action to enforce their ยง 1983 claim.
The Court of Appeals reversed. Smith v. Cumberland School Committee, 703 F. 2d 4 (CA1 1983). The court first noted that, under what is labeled the "American Rule," attorney's fees are available as a general matter only when statutory authority so provides. Alyeska Pipeline Co. v. Wilderness Society, 421 U. S. 240 (1975). Here the action and relief granted in this case fell within the reach of the EHA, a federal statute that establishes a comprehensive federal-state scheme for the provision of special education to handicapped children, but that does not provide for attorney's fees.[6] For fees, the District Court had to look to ยง 1988 and ยง 505 of the Rehabilitation Act.
As to the ยง 1988 claim, the court acknowledged the general rule that when the claim upon which a plaintiff actually prevails is accompanied by a "substantial," though undecided, ยง 1983 claim arising from the same nucleus of facts, a fee award is appropriate. Maher v. Gagne, 448 U. S., at 130-131. Here, petitioners' ยง 1983 claims arguably were at least substantial enough to support federal jurisdiction. Ibid. Even if the ยง 1983 claims were substantial, however, *1003 the Court of Appeals concluded that, given the comprehensiveness of the EHA, Congress could not have intended its omission of attorney's fees relief to be rectified by recourse to ยง 1988.
The Court of Appeals drew support for its conclusion from this Court's decision in Middlesex County Sewerage Authority v. National Sea Clammers Assn., 453 U. S. 1 (1981). There the Court held that where Congress had provided comprehensive enforcement mechanisms for protection of a federal right and those mechanisms did not include a private right of action, a litigant could not obtain a private right of action by asserting his claim under ยง 1983. The Court of Appeals recognized that Sea Clammers might not logically preclude a ยง 1983 action for violation of the EHA, since the EHA expressly recognizes a private right of action, but it does support the more general proposition that when a statute creates a comprehensive remedial scheme, intentional "omissions" from that scheme should not be supplanted by the remedial apparatus of ยง 1983. In the view of the Court of Appeals, the fact that the ยง 1983 claims alleged here were based on independent constitutional violations rather than violations of the EHA was immaterial. The constitutional claims alleged ย a denial of due process and a denial of a free appropriate public education because of handicap ย are factually identical to the EHA claims. If a litigant could obtain fees simply by an incantation of ยง 1983, fees would become available in almost every case.[7]
*1004 The court disposed of the Rehabilitation Act basis for fees in a similar fashion. Even if Congress did not specifically intend to pre-empt ยง 504 claims with the EHA, the EHA's comprehensive remedial scheme entails a rejection of fee-shifting that properly limits the fees provision of the more general Rehabilitation Act.
Because of confusion in the Courts of Appeals over the proper interplay among the various statutory and constitutional bases for relief in cases of this nature, and over the effect of that interplay on the provision of attorney's fees,[8] we granted certiorari, 464 U. S. 932 (1983).
II
Petitioners insist that the Court of Appeals simply ignored the guidance of this Court in Maher v. Gagne, supra, that a prevailing party who asserts substantial but unaddressed constitutional claims is entitled to attorney's fees under 42 U. S. C. ยง 1988. They urge that the reliance of the Court of Appeals on Sea Clammers was misplaced. Sea Clammers had to do only with an effort to enlarge a statutory remedy by asserting a claim based on that statute under the "and laws" provision of ยง 1983.[9] In this case, petitioners made no *1005 effort to enlarge the remedies available under the EHA by asserting their claim through the "and laws" provision of ยง 1983. They presented separate constitutional claims, properly cognizable under ยง 1983. Since the claim on which they prevailed and their constitutional claims arose out of a " ` "common nucleus of operative fact," ' " Maher v. Gagne, 448 U. S., at 133, n. 15, quoting H. R. Rep. No. 94-1558, p. 4, n. 7 (1976), in turn quoting Mine Workers v. Gibbs, 383 U. S. 715, 725 (1966), and since the constitutional claims were found by the District Court and assumed by the Court of Appeals to be substantial, petitioners urge that they are entitled to fees under ยง 1988. In addition, petitioners presented a substantial claim under ยง 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. Since ยง 505 of that Act authorizes attorney's fees in the same manner as does ยง 1988 and in fact incorporates the legislative history of ยง 1988, see 124 Cong. Rec. 30346 (1978) (remarks of Sen. Cranston), the reasoning of Maher applies to claims based on ยง 504. Petitioners therefore, it is claimed, are entitled to fees for substantial, though unaddressed, ยง 504 claims.
Respondents counter that petitioners simply are attempting to circumvent the lack of a provision for attorney's fees in the EHA by resorting to the pleading trick of adding surplus constitutional claims and similar claims under ยง 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. Whatever Congress' intent was in authorizing fees for substantial, unaddressed claims based on ยง 1988 or ยง 505, it could not have been to allow plaintiffs to receive an award of attorney's fees in a situation where Congress has made clear its intent that fees not be available.
Resolution of this dispute requires us to explore congressional intent, both in authorizing fees for substantial unaddressed *1006 constitutional claims and in setting out the elaborate substantive and procedural requirements of the EHA, with no indication that attorney's fees are available in an action to enforce those requirements. We turn first to petitioners' claim that they were entitled to fees under 42 U. S. C. ยง 1988 because they asserted substantial constitutional claims.
III
As the legislative history illustrates and as this Court has recognized, ยง 1988 is a broad grant of authority to courts to award attorney's fees to plaintiffs seeking to vindicate federal constitutional and statutory rights. Maine v. Thiboutot, 448 U. S. 1, 9 (1980); Maher v. Gagne, supra; Hutto v. Finney, 437 U. S. 678, 694 (1978); S. Rep. No. 94-1011, p. 4 (1976) (a prevailing plaintiff " `should ordinarily recover an attorney's fee unless special circumstances would render such an award unjust,' " quoting Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises, Inc., 390 U. S. 400, 402 (1968)). Congress did not intend to have that authority extinguished by the fact that the case was settled or resolved on a nonconstitutional ground. Maher v. Gagne, 448 U. S., at 132. As the Court also has recognized, however, the authority to award fees in a case where the plaintiff prevails on substantial constitutional claims is not without qualification. Due regard must be paid, not only to the fact that a plaintiff "prevailed," but also to the relationship between the claims on which effort was expended and the ultimate relief obtained. Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U. S. 424 (1983); Blum v. Stenson, 465 U. S. 886 (1984). Thus, for example, fees are not properly awarded for work done on a claim on which a plaintiff did not prevail and which involved distinctly different facts and legal theories from the claims on the basis of which relief was awarded. Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U. S., at 434-435, 440. Although, in most cases, there is no clear line between hours of work that contributed to a plaintiff's success and those that did not, district courts remain charged with the responsibility, imposed by Congress, of evaluating the award requested *1007 in light of the relationship between particular claims for which work is done and the plaintiff's success. Id., at 436-437.
A similar analysis is appropriate in a case like this, where the prevailing plaintiffs rely on substantial, unaddressed constitutional claims as the basis for an award of attorney's fees. The fact that constitutional claims are made does not render automatic an award of fees for the entire proceeding. Congress' purpose in authorizing a fee award for an unaddressed constitutional claim was to avoid penalizing a litigant for the fact that courts are properly reluctant to resolve constitutional questions if a nonconstitutional claim is dispositive. H. R. Rep. No. 94-1558, at 4, n. 7. That purpose does not alter the requirement that a claim for which fees are awarded be reasonably related to the plaintiff's ultimate success. It simply authorizes a district court to assume that the plaintiff has prevailed on his fee-generating claim and to award fees appropriate to that success.[10]
In light of the requirement that a claim for which fees are awarded be reasonably related to the plaintiff's ultimate success, it is clear that plaintiffs may not rely simply on the fact that substantial fee-generating claims were made during the course of the litigation. Closer examination of the nature of the claims and the relationship between those claims and petitioners' ultimate success is required.
Besides making a claim under the EHA, petitioners asserted at two different points in the proceedings that procedures employed by state officials denied them due process. They also claimed that Tommy was being discriminated against on the basis of his handicapping condition, in violation *1008 of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
A
The first due process claim may be disposed of briefly. Petitioners challenged the refusal of the School Committee to grant them a full hearing before terminating Tommy's funding. Petitioners were awarded fees against the School Committee for their efforts in obtaining an injunction to prevent that due process deprivation. The award was not challenged on appeal and we therefore assume that it was proper.
The fact that petitioners prevailed on their initial due process claim, however, by itself does not entitle them to fees for the subsequent administrative and judicial proceedings. The due process claim that entitled petitioners to an order maintaining Tommy's placement throughout the course of the subsequent proceedings is entirely separate from the claims petitioners made in those proceedings. Nor were those proceedings necessitated by the School Committee's failings. Even if the School Committee had complied with state regulations and had guaranteed Tommy's continued placement pending administrative review of its decision, petitioners still would have had to avail themselves of the administrative process in order to obtain the permanent relief they wanted ย an interpretation of state law that placed on the School Committee the obligation to pay for Tommy's education. Petitioners' initial due process claim is not sufficiently related to their ultimate success to support an award of fees for the entire proceeding. We turn, therefore, to petitioners' other ยง 1983 claims.
As petitioners emphasize, their ยง 1983 claims were not based on alleged violations of the EHA,[11] but on independent *1009 claims of constitutional deprivations. As the Court of Appeals recognized, however, petitioners' constitutional claims, a denial of due process and a denial of a free appropriate public education as guaranteed by the Equal Protection Clause, are virtually identical to their EHA claims.[12] The question to be asked, therefore, is whether Congress intended that the EHA be the exclusive avenue through which a plaintiff may assert those claims.
B
We have little difficulty concluding that Congress intended the EHA to be the exclusive avenue through which a plaintiff may assert an equal protection claim to a publicly financed special education. The EHA is a comprehensive scheme set up by Congress to aid the States in complying with their constitutional obligations to provide public education for handicapped children. Both the provisions of the statute and its legislative history indicate that Congress intended handicapped children with constitutional claims to a free appropriate public education to pursue those claims through the carefully tailored administrative and judicial mechanism set out in the statute.
In the statement of findings with which the EHA begins, Congress noted that there were more than 8 million handicapped children in the country, the special education needs of most of whom were not being fully met. 20 U. S. C. *1010 ยงยง 1400(b)(1), (2), and (3). Congress also recognized that in a series of "landmark court cases," the right to an equal education opportunity for handicapped children had been established. S. Rep. No. 94-168, p. 6 (1975). See also id., at 13 ("It is the intent of the Committee to establish and protect the right to education for all handicapped children and to provide assistance to the States in carrying out their responsibilities under State law and the Constitution of the United States to provide equal protection of the laws"). The EHA was an attempt to relieve the fiscal burden placed on States and localities by their responsibility to provide education for all handicapped children. 20 U. S. C. ยงยง 1400(b)(8) and (9). At the same time, however, Congress made clear that the EHA is not simply a funding statute. The responsibility for providing the required education remains on the States. S. Rep. No. 94-168, at 22. And the Act establishes an enforceable substantive right to a free appropriate public education. See Board of Education of Hendrick Hudson Central School Dist. v. Rowley, 458 U. S. 176 (1982). See also 121 Cong. Rec. 37417 (1975) (statement of Sen. Schweiker: "It can no longer be the policy of the Government to merely establish an unenforceable goal requiring all children to be in school. [The bill] takes positive necessary steps to insure that the rights of children and their families are protected").[13] Finally, the Act establishes an elaborate procedural mechanism to protect the rights of handicapped *1011 children. The procedures not only ensure that hearings conducted by the State are fair and adequate. They also effect Congress' intent that each child's individual educational needs be worked out through a process that begins on the local level and includes ongoing parental involvement, detailed procedural safeguards, and a right to judicial review. ยงยง 1412(4), 1414(a)(5), 1415. See also S. Rep. No. 94-168, at 11-12 (emphasizing the role of parental involvement in assuring that appropriate services are provided to a handicapped child); id., at 22; Board of Education of Hendrick Hudson Central School Dist. v. Rowley, 458 U. S., at 208-209.
In light of the comprehensive nature of the procedures and guarantees set out in the EHA and Congress' express efforts to place on local and state educational agencies the primary responsibility for developing a plan to accommodate the needs of each individual handicapped child, we find it difficult to believe that Congress also meant to leave undisturbed the ability of a handicapped child to go directly to court with an equal protection claim to a free appropriate public education.[14] Not only would such a result render superfluous most of the detailed procedural protections outlined in the statute, *1012 but, more important, it would also run counter to Congress' view that the needs of handicapped children are best accommodated by having the parents and the local education agency work together to formulate an individualized plan for each handicapped child's education. No federal district court presented with a constitutional claim to a public education can duplicate that process.
We do not lightly conclude that Congress intended to preclude reliance on ยง 1983 as a remedy for a substantial equal protection claim. Since 1871, when it was passed by Congress, ยง 1983 has stood as an independent safeguard against deprivations of federal constitutional and statutory rights. See Patsy v. Florida Board of Regents, 457 U. S. 496 (1982); Mitchum v. Foster, 407 U. S. 225, 242 (1972); Monroe v. Pape, 365 U. S. 167, 183 (1961). Nevertheless, ยง 1983 is a statutory remedy and Congress retains the authority to repeal it or replace it with an alternative remedy.[15] The crucial consideration is what Congress intended. See Brown v. GSA, 425 U. S. 820, 825-829 (1976); Johnson v. Railway Express Agency, Inc., 421 U. S. 454, 459 (1975); Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co., 398 U. S. 144, 151, n. 5 (1970).
In this case, we think Congress' intent is clear. Allowing a plaintiff to circumvent the EHA administrative remedies would be inconsistent with Congress' carefully tailored scheme. The legislative history gives no indication that Congress intended such a result.[16] Rather, it indicates that *1013 Congress perceived the EHA as the most effective vehicle for protecting the constitutional right of a handicapped child to a public education. We conclude, therefore, that where the EHA is available to a handicapped child asserting a right to a free appropriate public education, based either on the EHA or on the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the EHA is the exclusive avenue through which the child and his parents or guardian can pursue their claim.
C
Petitioners also made a due process challenge to the partiality of the state hearing officer. The question whether this claim will support an award of attorney's fees has two aspects ย whether the procedural safeguards set out in the EHA manifest Congress' intent to preclude resort to ยง 1983 *1014 on a due process challenge and, if not, whether petitioners are entitled to attorney's fees for their due process claim. We find it unnecessary to resolve the first question, because we are satisfied that even if an independent due process challenge may be maintained, petitioners are not entitled to attorney's fees for their particular claim.[17]
*1015 Petitioners' plea for injunctive relief was not made until after the administrative proceedings had ended. They did not seek an order requiring the Commissioner of Education to grant them a new hearing, but only a declaratory judgment that the state Regulations did not comply with the requirements of due process and the EHA, and an injunction prohibiting the Commissioner from conducting further hearings under those Regulations. App. 59-60. That due process claim and the substantive claim on which petitioners ultimately prevailed involved entirely separate legal theories and, more important, would have warranted entirely different relief. According to their complaint, petitioners did not even seek relief for themselves on the due process claim, but sought only to protect the rights of others coming after them in the administrative process. The efforts petitioners subsequently expended in the judicial process addressed only the substantive question as to which agency, as a matter of state and federal law, was required to pay for Tommy's education. Whether or not the state procedures accorded petitioners the process they were due had no bearing on that substantive question.
We conclude that where, as here, petitioners have presented distinctly different claims for different relief, based on different facts and legal theories, and have prevailed only on a nonfee claim, they are not entitled to a fee award simply because the other claim was a constitutional claim that could be asserted through ยง 1983. We note that a contrary conclusion would mean that every EHA plaintiff who seeks judicial review after an adverse agency determination could ensure a fee award for successful judicial efforts simply by including in his substantive challenge a claim that the administrative process was unfair. If the court ignored the due process claim but granted substantive relief, the due process claim could be considered a substantial unaddressed constitutional *1016 claim and the plaintiff would be entitled to fees.[18] It is unlikely that Congress intended such a result.
IV
We turn, finally, to petitioners' claim that they were entitled to fees under ยง 505 of the Rehabilitation Act, because they asserted a substantial claim for relief under ยง 504 of that Act.
Much of our analysis of petitioners' equal protection claim is applicable here. The EHA is a comprehensive scheme designed by Congress as the most effective way to protect the right of a handicapped child to a free appropriate public education. We concluded above that in enacting the EHA, Congress was aware of, and intended to accommodate, the claims of handicapped children that the Equal Protection Clause required that they be ensured access to public education. We also concluded that Congress did not intend to have the EHA scheme circumvented by resort to the more general provisions of ยง 1983. We reach the same conclusion regarding petitioners' ยง 504 claim. The relationship between the EHA and ยง 504, however, requires a slightly different analysis from that required by petitioners' equal protection claim.
Section 504 and the EHA are different substantive statutes. While the EHA guarantees a right to a free appropriate public education, ยง 504 simply prevents discrimination on the basis of handicap. But while the EHA is limited to handicapped children seeking access to public education, *1017 ยง 504 protects handicapped persons of all ages from discrimination in a variety of programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance.
Because both statutes are built around fundamental notions of equal access to state programs and facilities, their substantive requirements, as applied to the right of a handicapped child to a public education, have been interpreted to be strikingly similar. In regulations promulgated pursuant to ยง 504, the Secretary of Education[19] has interpreted ยง 504 as requiring a recipient of federal funds that operates a public elementary or secondary education program to provide a free appropriate public education to each qualified handicapped person in the recipient's jurisdiction. 34 CFR ยง 104.33(a) (1983).[20] The requirement extends to the provision of a public or private residential placement if necessary to provide a free appropriate public education. ยง 104.33(c)(3). The regulations also require that the recipient implement procedural safeguards, including notice, an opportunity for the parents or guardian to examine relevant records, an impartial hearing with opportunity for participation by the parents or guardian and representation by counsel, and a review procedure. ยง 104.36. The Secretary declined to require the exact EHA procedures, because those procedures might be inappropriate for some recipients not subject to the EHA, see 34 *1018 CFR, Subtitle B, ch. 1, App. A, p. 371 (1983), but indicated that compliance with EHA procedures would satisfy ยง 104.36.
On the other hand, although both statutes begin with an equal protection premise that handicapped children must be given access to public education, it does not follow that the affirmative requirements imposed by the two statutes are the same. The significant difference between the two, as applied to special education claims, is that the substantive and procedural rights assumed to be guaranteed by both statutes are specifically required only by the EHA.
Section 504, 29 U. S. C. ยง 794, provides, in pertinent part:
"No otherwise qualified handicapped individual in the United States, . . . shall, solely by reason of his handicap, be excluded from the participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance. . . ."
In Southeastern Community College v. Davis, 442 U. S. 397 (1979), the Court emphasized that ยง 504 does not require affirmative action on behalf of handicapped persons, but only the absence of discrimination against those persons. 442 U. S., at 411-412. In light of Davis, courts construing ยง 504 as applied to the educational needs of handicapped children have expressed confusion about the extent to which ยง 504 requires special services necessary to make public education accessible to handicapped children.[21]
In the EHA, on the other hand, Congress specified the affirmative obligations imposed on States to ensure that *1019 equal access to a public education is not an empty guarantee, but offers some benefit to a handicapped child. Thus, the statute specifically requires "such . . . supportive services. . . as may be required to assist a handicapped child to benefit from special education," see Board of Education v. Rowley, 458 U. S., at 200, including, if the public facilities are inadequate for the needs of the child, "instruction in hospitals and institutions." 20 U. S. C. ยงยง 1401(16) and (17).
We need not decide the extent of the guarantee of a free appropriate public education Congress intended to impose under ยง 504. We note the uncertainty regarding the reach of ยง 504 to emphasize that it is only in the EHA that Congress specified the rights and remedies available to a handicapped child seeking access to public education. Even assuming that the reach of ยง 504 is coextensive with that of the EHA, there is no doubt that the remedies, rights, and procedures Congress set out in the EHA are the ones it intended to apply to a handicapped child's claim to a free appropriate public education. We are satisfied that Congress did not intend a handicapped child to be able to circumvent the requirements or supplement the remedies of the EHA by resort to the general antidiscrimination provision of ยง 504.
There is no suggestion that ยง 504 adds anything to petitioners' substantive right to a free appropriate public education.[22] The only elements added by ยง 504 are the possibility of circumventing EHA administrative procedures and going straight to court with a ยง 504 claim,[23] the possibility of a damages *1020 award in cases where no such award is available under the EHA,[24] and attorney's fees. As discussed above, Congress' intent to place on local and state educational agencies the responsibility for determining the most appropriate educational plan for a handicapped child is clear. To the extent ยง 504 otherwise would allow a plaintiff to circumvent that state procedure, we are satisfied that the remedy conflicts with Congress' intent in the EHA.
Congress did not explain the absence of a provision for a damages remedy and attorney's fees in the EHA. Several references in the statute itself and in its legislative history, however, indicate that the omissions were in response to Congress' awareness of the financial burden already imposed on States by the responsibility of providing education for handicapped children. As noted above, one of the stated purposes of the statute was to relieve this financial burden. See 20 U. S. C. ยงยง 1400(b)(8) and (9). Discussions of the EHA by its proponents reflect Congress' intent to "make every resource, or as much as possible, available to the direct activities and the direct programs that are going to benefit the handicapped." 121 Cong. Rec. 19501 (1975) (remarks of Sen. Dole). See also id., at 37025 (procedural safeguards designed to further the congressional goal of ensuring full educational opportuni