Academic

Evans on Bell Atlantic v. Twombly

By Lawrence Solum

David S. Evans (University College, London) has posted What You Need to Know About Twombly: The Use and Misuse of Economic and Statistical Evidence in Pleadings
on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

In Bell Atlantic v. Twombly the Supreme Court clarified what plaintiffs must plead for their complaints to pass muster. It retired the Conley rule that a court should not dismiss a complaint 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 new rule is based on whether the complaint states a set of facts that, assuming their truth, makes it "plausible" that the plaintiff has a claim which would entitle her to relief. Although Twombly involved an antitrust conspiracy claim, most commentators agree that it modified general pleading standards for all cases. Lower courts have cited Twombly more than 10,000 times in a wide range of cases since it came down in May 2007. These cases involve a wide area of claims including the full gamut of antitrust cases. Defendants now routinely seek to dismiss complaints on the grounds that they do not state a plausible claim. This note explores what sorts of economic and statistical evidence help establish that a claim is plausible and what do not.

And from the paper:

The Supreme Court?s plausibility test starts with the prior belief that before examining the  complaint the plaintiff does not have a cause of action.  The purpose of the complaint is to provide facts  that, taken as true, would change that expectation to some degree.  That is consistent with the liberal  pleading standards reaffirmed in Erickson two weeks after Twombly.  The court has to take the facts in  the complaint as true. It then has to determine whether those facts move the needle from neutral (the  plaintiff is no different from other individuals or businesses that are not entitled to relief) to positive  (the plaintiff has presented some facts that make it plausible that she is titled to relief).  In Twombly the  ?parallel behavior? evidence left the needle on neutral while the facts pled in Erickson and Swierkiewicz  moved the needle in the plaintiffs? direction in the Court?s mind.

Full post as published by Legal Theory Blog on February 06, 2009 (boomark / email).