Academic questions aside, the practical effect of Twombly and Iqbal is a crucial consideration for litigators drafting complaints or contemplating motions to dismiss. According to others, the decisions changed little if anything. Two years later in Iqbal, the Court confirmed that Twombly applies to all civil suits, not just antitrust cases or complex cases, and by a 5–4 vote rejected a complaint under Bivens alleging that, following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, former Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller unconstitutionally ordered restrictive and harsh detention of certain Arab Muslims.Īccording to some commentators, Twombly and Iqbal upended 70 years of federal pleading standards and have dramatically burdened plaintiffs. Gibson that "a complaint should not be dismissed for failure to state a claim unless it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief." The Twombly Court instead explained that Rule 8 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure requires that a complaint include facts (as distinct from legal "labels" and "conclusions") giving rise to a "plausible" (rather than merely "conceivable") entitlement to relief. In so holding, the Court put into "retirement" the oft-quoted line from its 1957 decision in Conley v. In Twombly, a seven-justice majority held that a complaint failed to state a claim of antitrust conspiracy when it alleged only parallel conduct, which was at least as consistent with legitimate business activity as with an antitrust violation. Iqbal (2009), few issues have generated as many questions. And following the Supreme Court's decisions in Bell Atlantic v. Few issues are more important in federal litigation than determining whether a case will be dismissed for failure to state a claim or instead slog on into discovery, potential fights over class certification, and beyond.
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