Conley as a Special Case of Twombly and Iqbal: Exploring the Intersection of Evidence and Procedure and the Nature of Rules

Conley as a Special Case of Twombly and Iqbal: Exploring the Intersection of Evidence and Procedure and the Nature of Rules

By Ronald J. Allen and Alan E. Guy.

115 Penn St. L. Rev. 1.

A pair of Supreme Court cases interpreting the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure pleading requirements has caused quite a storm, and a third case has caused a puzzle. Twombly and Iqbal appear to virtually all observers as rejecting the Conley standard that the “short and plain statement” required of a complainant is satisfied “unless it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim that would entitle him to relief,” and instead requiring enough factual specificity to make the plaintiff’s allegations plausible. The Court itself seems to agree with the observation that it was rejecting the Conley standard. The puzzle comes from Erickson v. Pardus, in which the Court approved the adequacy of a bare bones pleading with virtually no factual specificity that was much closer to the Conley than to the Twombly standard.
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