Law Commons^™

Twombly And Iqbal Reconsidered, Brian T. Fitzpatrick

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

In Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly and Ashcroft v. Iqbal, the Supreme Court reinterpreted the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to permit judges to dismiss claims at the very outset of a case whenever they think the claims are implausible. The decisions have been extremely controversial, and they are already on track to become the most cited Supreme Court decisions of all time. Critics contend that the decisions are prime examples of the “conservative judicial activism” widely attributed to the Roberts Court. In particular, critics contend that the decisions circumvented the usual process for promulgating amendments to the Federal Rules …