Law Commons^™

Plausibility Beyond The Complaint, Joseph A. Seiner

William & Mary Law Review

In Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, and Ashcroft v. Iqbal, the Supreme Court announced a new plausibility standard for a plaintiff’s allegations. The decisions may have even broader implications, however, as many federal district courts have already applied this pleading standard to a defendant’s affirmative defenses. This Article makes sense of Twombly and Iqbal in the context of the affirmative defense.

This Article addresses the two possible readings of Twombly and Iqbal: first, that the decisions are limited to a plaintiff’s civil complaint, and second, that a defendant must also comply with the Supreme Court’s plausibility standard by pleading enough …

Iqbal, Al-Kidd And Pleading Past Qualified Immunity: What The Cases Mean And How They Demonstrate A Need To Eliminate The Immunity Doctrines From Constitutional Tort Law, John M. Greabe

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

The Supreme Court’s decisions in Ashcroft v. Iqbal and Ashcroft v. al-Kidd contain issue-framing statements indicating that a constitutional tort plaintiff is required to plead facts sufficient to establish the inapplicability of the qualified immunity defense. Yet, framing the issue in this way ignores the Court’s earlier decisions in Gomez v. Toledo and Crawford-El v. Britton and is at odds with the established law of pleading; a plaintiff is not required to anticipate an affirmative defense and negate its applicabilityin the complaint. These cases thus raise a number of questions—Does the Court really mean what its issue-framing statements suggest? If …

Breaking The Transsubstantive Pleading Mold: Public Interest Environmental Litigation After Ashcroft V. Iqbal, Scott Foster

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

No abstract provided.

The Plaintiff Neutrality Principle: Pleading Complex Litigation In The Era Of Twombly And Iqbal, Robin J. Effron

William & Mary Law Review

Two recent Supreme Court cases have stirred the world of pleading civil litigation. Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly introduced the concept of “plausibility pleading” in which the plaintiff is required to plead facts sufficient to suggest that the claim for relief is “plausible,” and Ashcroft v. Iqbal affirmed that the plausibility standard applies to all aspects of a complaint subject to Rule 8(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. This Article examines the consequences of the plausibility standard for pleadings in complex litigation cases. The Article argues that it is unacceptable to automatically equate the existence of a class …