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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 …