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Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

2020

Fordham Law School

Supreme court

Courts

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Law

Case-Linked Jurisdiction And Busybody States, Howard M. Erichson, John C.P. Goldberg, Benjamin Zipursky Jan 2020

Case-Linked Jurisdiction And Busybody States, Howard M. Erichson, John C.P. Goldberg, Benjamin Zipursky

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


What's The Difference Between A Conclusion And A Fact?, Howard M. Erichson Jan 2020

What's The Difference Between A Conclusion And A Fact?, Howard M. Erichson

Faculty Scholarship

In Ashcroft v. Iqbal, building on Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, the Supreme Court instructed district courts to treat a complaint’s conclusions differently from allegations of fact. Facts, but not conclusions, are assumed true for purposes of a motion to dismiss. The Court did little to help judges or lawyers understand this elusive distinction, and, indeed, obscured the distinction with its language. The Court said it was distinguishing “legal conclusions” from factual allegations. The application in Twombly and Iqbal, however, shows that the relevant distinction is not between law and fact, but rather between different types of factual assertions. This …