Example of a liberal pleading? Forum

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corporatelaw87

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Example of a liberal pleading?

Post by corporatelaw87 » Fri Dec 03, 2010 1:29 pm

We didn't cover any of the cases that involve liberal pleadings in class (not sure why), but my prof could potentially throw this on the exam to see if we recognize the countervailing federal interest. What are some examples?

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Unitas

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Re: Example of a liberal pleading?

Post by Unitas » Fri Dec 03, 2010 3:12 pm

Are you talking about the expansion of requirements for pleadings?

The Twombly and Iqbal cases? If so, go read them. They don't mean much as of yet as it hasn't been decided how far they go for the most part - different judges are treating them different. I think from what I recall a huge amount of briefs are citing them now though to get cases kicked out. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Atlan ... v._Twombly and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashcroft_v._Iqbal.

Twombly was basically allegations without factual basis weren't enough for a sherman act claim, most thought it was limtied to these types of claims. Like fraud has a stricter standard. However, in Iqbal they seemed to endorse the stronger pleadings to all cases under Rule 8. In Iqbal they basically claimed this guy did something, but didn't say how or accuse him of doing it besides the conclusory terms. This was found to be insufficient to sustain a complaint. Basically you have to have factual allegations leading up to the conclusory terms. I can't just say you cheated me, I have to describe how you cheated me; so on and so forth.

If this isn't what you are talking about, I'm sorry.

corporatelaw87

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Re: Example of a liberal pleading?

Post by corporatelaw87 » Fri Dec 03, 2010 3:58 pm

How can that be applied to the balance on interests test under Erie though? I read somewhere that these pleadings rules can be considered a countervailing federal interest. Thus, override any outcome determination test, causing federal law to be used even when federal rule and state rule do not directly conflict.

Baylan

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Re: Example of a liberal pleading?

Post by Baylan » Fri Dec 03, 2010 4:09 pm

I don't know much about the jurisdictional implications of the change in pleading standard, but the Conley -> Twombley -> Iqbal pleading standard essentially changed the pleading standard from "Conceivably true" to "Plausibly true in these cases" to "Plausibly true" according to my Prof.

The movement is basically to throw out extremely weak causes and ease up on the court system a little bit. Conley was a civil rights case, and in that case the court wanted to force judges to at least let these civil cases be heard, but under Twombley and Iqbal, the plaintiff had no factual basis for their theory, it was just a plausible theory as to whether or not it could be true.

So another way of putting it was an evolution from Lets Hear Almost Every Case -> Lets Hear Less Cases -> Affirmation that this means we hear less cases in all forms.

Some early interps of Twombley said that it would only apply to anti-trust cases, which is where Iqbal came in.

at least, this is what my prof says.

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Unitas

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Re: Example of a liberal pleading?

Post by Unitas » Fri Dec 03, 2010 5:12 pm

corporatelaw87 wrote:How can that be applied to the balance on interests test under Erie though? I read somewhere that these pleadings rules can be considered a countervailing federal interest. Thus, override any outcome determination test, causing federal law to be used even when federal rule and state rule do not directly conflict.
These cases have nothing to do with Erie, they are based off of rule 8 and what is required in a pleading.

Baylan, that is pretty much what I said. But Iqbal, that made harder pleadings seemingly apply to all cases, had a lot to do with conclusive statements not being enough versus specific allegations being enough.

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