Dynamism in U.S. Pleading Standards: Rules, Interpretation, and Implementation

Thomas, Jeffrey E.

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-21981-3_13

Jeffrey E. Thomas⁵

Part of the book series: Ius Gentium: Comparative Perspectives on Law and Justice ((IUSGENT,volume 48))

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Abstract

This chapter looks at the U.S. Supreme Court’s adoption of a radical new pleading standard as an example of dynamism in U.S. law. The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provide for notice pleading and were liberally construed for nearly 70 years after initial adoption. Even though a rule-making procedure supervised by the U.S. Supreme Court was available to make direct changes to the pleading rule, the U.S. Supreme Court took a common law approach and adopted a new standard judicially rather than administratively. This shows a substantial role for the U.S. Supreme Court in directly making procedural law for the Federal courts. The lower courts, however, have moderated the new standard through the exercise of their independence and judicial powers of interpretation. Thus, dynamism is reflected by the U.S. Supreme Court’s judicial adoption of a new standard and by the lower courts reaction to that standard.

Professor, University of Missouri Kansas City Law School.

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Notes

1.
See Wright, Charles Alan and Mary Kay Kane. 2011. Law of Federal Courts, § 68, at 467.
2.
355 U.S. 41 (1957).
3.
355 U.S. at 45–46.
4.
556 U.S. 662 (2009).
5.
556 U.S. at 678 (quoting Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)).
6.
556 U.S. at 678 (citing Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)).
7.
556 U.S. at 679.
8.
556 U.S. at 679.
9.
556 U.S. at 679.
10.
Although there has been some debate about this point, the radical departure from the Rule and precedent seems to be the better view. See, e.g. Carrington, Paul. 2010. Politics and Civil Procedure Rulemaking: Reflections on Experience. Duke Law Journal 60:597–667, at 651 (finding a “drastic disregard of the text of Rule 8); Note (2007). The Supreme Court, 2006 Term: Leading Cases: Federal Jurisdiction and Procedure – Civil Procedure – Pleading Standards. Harvard Law Review 121:305–315, at 311 (arguing conflict with text, precedent and historical sources).
11.
Burbank, Stephen V. 1982. The Rules Enabling Act of 1934. University of Pennsylvania Law Review 130:1015–1197, at 1097–1098.
12.
Burbank, supra note 11, at 1036–1039.
13.
Burbank, supra note 11, at 1041 (quoting American Bar Association (1896) American Bar Association Reporter 19:411, 410).
14.
Burbank, supra note 11, at 1024.
15.
H.R. 26,462, 62nd Congress, 3d Session (1912); S.8454, 62nd Congress, 3d Session (1912).
16.
Burbank, supra note 11, at 1052–1053.
17.
Burbank, supra note 11, at 1066 and n.228.
18.
Burbank, supra note 11, at 1069–1070.
19.
Burbank, supra note 11, at 1097. The word that was added was “civil” in the first section to make it consistent with the second section. See ibid. at 1097 n.375.
20.
Public Law No. 73–415, 48 Stat. 1064 (codified at 28 U.S.C. § 2072).
21.
Public Law No. 73–415, 48 Stat. 1064 (codified at 28 U.S.C. § 2072).
22.
Bone, Robert G. 1999. The Process of Making Process: Court Rulemaking, Democratic Legitimacy, and Procedural Efficacy. Georgetown Law Journal 87:887–955, at 888.
23.
28 U.S.C. § 331.
24.
28 U.S.C. § 2073.
25.
28 U.S.C. § 331.
26.
28 U.S.C. § 2073.
27.
Bone, supra note 22, at 892.
28.
28 U.S.C. § 2073.
29.
28 U.S.C. § 2074(a).
30.
Bone, supra note 22, at 893. Congress exercised its veto power to block the proposed Federal Rules of Evidence and adopted a statutory version instead. See ibid. at 902.
31.
See Bone, supra note 22, at 900–902.
32.
Public Law No. 100–707, 102 Stat. 4642 (1988), codified at 27 U.S.C. § 2073(c)-(d). Although the Advisory had customarily “circulated drafts to bench and bar and invited input,” it “never seemed to treat participation as a requirement of legitimacy.” Bone, supra note 22, at 903 n. 86.
33.
Parness, Jeffrey A. Moore’s Federal Practice – Civil. 2015. 2–8:8.04.
34.
355 U.S. 41 (1957).
35.
Leatherman v. Tarrant County, 507 U.S. 163 (1997).
36.
Swierkiewicz v. Sorema N.A., 534 U.S. 506 (2002).
37.
556 U.S. 662 (2009).
38.
Although many commentators agree that Iqbal adopted a new pleading standard, see, e.g. Bone, Robert G. (2010). Plausibility Pleading Revisited and Revised: A comment on Ashcroft v. Iqbal. Notre Dame Law Review 85:849–885; Clermont, Kevin M. and Stephen C. Yeazell (2010). Inventing Tests, Destabilizing Systems. Iowa Law Review 95:821–861; Gressette, Thomas P., Jr. (2010). The Heightened Pleading Standard of Bell Atlantic v. Twombly and Ashcroft v. Iqbal. Drake Law Review 58: 401–455; Miller, Arthur R. (2010). From Conley to Twombly to Iqbal: A Double Plan on the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Duke Law Journal 60:1–130, some do not, see, e.g., Steinman, Adam N. (2010). The Pleading Problem. Stanford Law Review 62: 1293–1360.
39.
556 U.S. at 669.
40.
556 U.S. at 681.
41.
556 U.S. at 682.
42.
556 U.S. at 683.
43.
556 U.S. at 682.
44.
556 U.S. at 682.
45.
550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007).
46.
550 U.S. at 550–551.
47.
550 U.S. at 557.
48.
660 U.S. at 566–568.
49.
550 U.S. at 553.
50.
Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 684.
51.
Twombly, 550 U.S. at 561–562.
52.
550 U.S. at 563.
53.
The Supreme Court has “the power to prescribe general rules of practice and procedure and rules of evidence for cases in the United States district court (including proceedings before magistrates thereof) and courts of appeals.” 28 U.S.C. § 2072. These rules must go through the administrative procedures outline above.
54.
Hoffman, Lonny. 2013. Rulemaking in the Age of Twombly and Iqbal. U.C. Davis Law Review 46: 1483–1558, at 1511.
55.
Miller, supra note 38, at 53. See Twombly, 550 U.S. at 557–560 (discussing the use of pleading standards to screen out meritless cases and to avoid in terrorem effect of expensive discovery); see also Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 685–686 (rejecting case management techniques as insufficient to avoid the consequences of discovery).
56.
For a summary of the literature, see Glelbach, Jonah. 2012. Selection in Motion: A Formal Model of Rule 12(b)(6) and the Twombly-Iqbal Shift in Pleading Policy at 5–8. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2138428. Accessed 20 November 2014.
57.
Kuperman, Andrea. 2011. Memorandum to Civil Rules Committee and Standing Rules Committee on Review of Case Law Applying Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly and Ashcroft v. Iqbal at 1 n. 2. http://www.uscourts.gov/uscourts/RulesAndPolicies/rules/iqbalmemo_112311.pdf. Accessed 5 September 2014.
58.
Cecil, Joe S., George W. Cort, Margaret S. Williams and Jared J. Bataillon. 2011. Motion to Dismiss for Failure to State a Claim after Iqbal: Report to the Judicial Conference Advisory Committee on Civil Rules. http://www.uscourts.gov/uscourts/RulesAndPolicies/rules/Publications/motioniqbal.pdf. Accessed 31 January 2015. This study considered cases from 23 Federal distinction courts that collectively accounted for 51 % of litigation for two nine-month periods, one before Iqbal and one afterwards. See ibid. at 5.
59.
Hoffman, supra note 54, at 1533–1534 (relying on data from the Federal Judicial Center report).
60.
Hoffman, supra note 54, at 1535 (financial instrument cases were an exception to this but were considered an outlier because of the financial crisis near that time).
61.
Gelbach, Jonah B. (2012). Locking the Doors to Discovery? Assessing the Effects of Twombly and Iqbal on Access to Discovery. Yale Law Journal 121:2270–2345.
62.
Gelbach, supra note 61, at 2338. Cases involving financial instruments were excluded because of a sharp rise in such cases after the 2008–09 financial crisis.
63.
Hoffman, supra note 54, at 1531.
64.
Kuperman, supra note 57, at 4.
65.
Kuperman, supra note 57, at 4–5.
66.
Kuperman, supra note 57, at 5.
67.
Spencer, A. Benjamin. 2009. Understanding Pleading Doctrine. Michigan Law Review 94:873–935, at 7 (citations omitted).
68.
Tamayo v. Blagojevich, 526 F.3d 1074, 1082–1083 (7th Cir. 2008).
69.
Swanson v. Citibank, N.A., 614 F.3d 400, 403 (7th Cir. 2010).
70.
Swanson, 614 F.3d at 404–405.
71.
Swanson, 614 F.3d at 405.
72.
Robbins v. Oklahoma ex rel. Department of Human Services, 519 F.3d 1242, 1247 (10th Cir. 2008).
73.
Robbins, 519 F.3d at 1248.
74.
Robbins, 519 F.3d at 1250.
75.
Moss v. United States Secret Service, 572 F.3d 962, 968 (9th Cir. 2009).
76.
Moss, 572 F.3d at 969 (quoting Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. at 1949).
77.
Moss, 572 F.3d at 970.
78.
Moss, 572 F.3d at 971.

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UMKC School of Law, 5100 Rockhill Road, Kansas City, MO, 64110, USA
Jeffrey E. Thomas

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Law Faculty, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
Colin B. Picker
The Interdisciplinary Center, The Radzyner School of Law, Herzliya, Israel
Guy Seidman

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Thomas, J.E. (2016). Dynamism in U.S. Pleading Standards: Rules, Interpretation, and Implementation. In: Picker, C., Seidman, G. (eds) The Dynamism of Civil Procedure - Global Trends and Developments. Ius Gentium: Comparative Perspectives on Law and Justice, vol 48. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21981-3_13

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21981-3_13
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