Specter Calls To Lower Civil Pleading Standard

Specter Calls To Lower Civil Pleading Standard - 7/24/2009

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2009 News and Press Releases

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HEADLINES \| SETTLEMENTS AND DISMISSALS \| COURT FILINGS LINKS TO OTHER NEWS \| NEWS ARCHIVE	HEADLINES ARCHIVED SETTLEMENTS AND DISMISSALS ARCHIVED

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Specter Calls To Lower Civil Pleading Standard
Jessica Dye

Securities Law 360. July 24, 2009
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EXCERPT: Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., has introduced legislation that would undo the tougher civil pleading standards for plaintiffs adopted by the U.S. Supreme Court in its 2007 Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly decision, aiming to make it harder for defendants to get litigation tossed in its early stages. Specter said the Notice Pleading Restoration Act, submitted to the U.S. Senate on Wednesday, would restore the court's interpretation of notice-pleading language in Rule 8 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure as established in the Supreme Court's 1957 opinion for Conley v. Gibson, in which the high court ruled that complaints cannot be dismissed without strong evidence that the claims it contains are unsustainable. The FRCP's Rule 8(a)(2) requires only that complaints contain a “short and plain statement of the claim” that proves the plaintiff is “entitled to relief.” But the Supreme Court stretched that language in a pair of recent decisions, now requiring factual specificity and calling on judges to weigh civil claims' plausibility. Those readings have given judges undue authority to rule on a complaint's merits before plaintiffs have a chance to access critical information during discovery from defendants, Specter said. “I think that is an especially unwelcome development at a time when, with the litigating resources of our executive-branch and administrative agencies stretched thin, the enforcement of federal antitrust, consumer protection, civil rights and other laws that benefit the public will fall increasingly to private litigants,” Specter said in a floor speech introducing the bill. Specifically, Specter is taking aim at Twombly, decided by the Supreme Court in 2007, and Ashcroft v. Iqbal, decided in May. The high court's decision in those two cases effectively “end ran” Congress' authority to amend FRCP by establishing a higher pleading standard through the rulings, Specter said.

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