Key Points

  • The Third Department unanimously affirmed dismissal of a parent's article 78 challenge to the Ithaca City School District's denial of medical vaccine exemptions for her two children.
  • An appeal to the Commissioner of Education under Education Law Section 310(6-a) must be exhausted even though the statute says an aggrieved party "may" appeal, and the parent's discontinuance of her pending appeals with prejudice was a failure to exhaust.
  • The futility exception did not apply because the parent offered only unsupported claims of delay and deference to local officials.
  • The irreparable-injury exception did not apply because the Commissioner could stay the exclusion and order enrollment, and homeschooling was an alternative the parent did not show was inadequate.
  • A claim that 10 NYCRR 66-1.1(l) conflicts with Public Health Law Section 2164(8) is a question of statutory and regulatory interpretation that must first be raised in the agency's own review process.

A New York appeals court ruled Thursday that a mother who abandoned her appeals to the state Commissioner of Education cannot go to court to challenge the Ithaca City School District's refusal to grant her two children medical exemptions from school vaccination requirements.

The Appellate Division, Third Department, unanimously affirmed a Tompkins County Supreme Court judgment dismissing the mother's petition under CPLR article 78. Justice Corcoran wrote for the five-justice panel, which held that the mother had failed to exhaust her administrative remedies, the rule that a party must pursue available agency review before asking a judge to intervene.

The decision holds that a parent must exhaust the appeal to the Commissioner that Education Law Section 310 provides, even though the statute says only that an aggrieved party "may" bring one, and that withdrawing a pending appeal does not satisfy the requirement. The court also held that a challenge to the state regulation defining when a vaccine "may be detrimental to a child's health" must first be raised in the agency's own review process.

According to the opinion, the mother, identified in court papers as Jane Doe, sought exemptions in August 2025 from the requirement that her two minor children be vaccinated against polio, tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis before attending a district school. She submitted certifications from a physician licensed in New York that the immunizations "may be detrimental to" the children's health, the standard set out in Public Health Law Section 2164(8).

The district's medical director reviewed the applications, consulted with the State Department of Health and recommended denial. Superintendent Luvelle Brown denied both in October 2025, finding that they "lack[ed] sufficient information of a medical contraindication or precaution [against immunization] consistent with [Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices] guidance or other nationally-recognized evidence-based standard of care." Because the immunization deadline had passed, the children were to be excluded from school until their mother either appealed to the Commissioner and obtained a stay or began vaccinating them.

The mother appealed to the Commissioner and asked for stays, but the Commissioner's designee told her none would be granted. She filed the article 78 proceeding in December 2025, seeking to annul the superintendent's decisions and to require the district to let the children attend school. When the district and the superintendent argued that her administrative appeals were still pending, she discontinued them with prejudice. Justice Elizabeth Aherne then ruled from the bench that the case had to be dismissed for failure to exhaust.

The Third Department agreed. Quoting a 2000 Second Department decision, Corcoran wrote that the fact that the remedy "is couched in permissive, rather than mandatory terms, . . . did not excuse . . . petitioner from exhausting [her] administrative remedies." The court added that "petitioner's calculated discontinuance of her appeals to the Commissioner and consequent failure to perfect them constituted a failure to exhaust those remedies."

The panel rejected each exception the mother invoked. She had argued that administrative review would be futile, citing delays in the appeals process and what she described as the Commissioner's deference to local school officials in earlier cases. The court found that she "failed to meaningfully support either proposition" and, quoting a 1984 Third Department ruling, that having "some reason to doubt that her appeal[s] would be successful" fell "far short . . . of establishing that pursuit of the appeal process would be an exercise in futility."

In a footnote, the court also addressed her argument that the Commissioner could not issue the declaration she wanted, that the exemptions were valid. A challenge to an agency's application of the Public Health Law belongs in an article 78 proceeding, the court wrote, and she "would not be entitled to declaratory relief regardless."

The mother also argued that pursuing the appeal would cause the children irreparable injury because they would be kept out of public school while it was pending. The court answered that the Commissioner had authority under a state regulation to stay the superintendent's decisions and direct the district to enroll the children during the appeal. Even without that power, the court said, homeschooling was available, and the mother had not shown that the children could not receive a "substantially equivalent" education at home while awaiting the outcome.

Her last argument was that the case presented a pure question of law, which courts may decide without prior agency review. She pointed out that Section 2164(8) says the vaccination requirement "shall be inapplicable" when a licensed physician certifies that immunization may be detrimental. The court observed that the statute does not define that phrase, and that a regulation, 10 NYCRR 66-1.1(l), defines it as "mean[ing] that a physician has determined that a child has a medical contraindication or precaution to a specific immunization consistent with [Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices] guidance or other nationally recognized evidence-based standard of care."

The mother contended that the regulation conflicts with the statute. The court held that "[q]uestions involving proper statutory interpretation, and . . . the reasonable interpretation of an agency's own regulations . . . must first be raised within the agency's own administrative review process," where factual and policy issues can be weighed. It said her remaining arguments had been "found to be lacking in merit."

Justices Reynolds Fitzgerald, who presided, Fisher, McShan and Mackey joined Corcoran's decision. Lawyers for the mother included Chad A. Davenport of Davenport Law PLLC; the district and the superintendent were represented by Kate I. Reid of Bond, Schoeneck & King, PLLC.

The court affirmed the judgment without costs, leaving the dismissal of the petition in place. The decision, 2026 NY Slip Op 06507, is uncorrected and subject to revision before publication in the Official Reports.