“This is very bad for plaintiffs,” said Alan Morrison, former head of Public Citizen Litigation Group, reacting to the 5-4 decision in Ashcroft v. Iqbal . The May 18 ruling dismissed a complaint filed by a Pakistani Muslim against former Attorney General John Ashcroft seeking to hold Ashcroft liable for policies that led to the roundup of aliens including Iqbal following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Headlines have focused on that aspect of the ruling, but litigators are focusing on the broader impact of what the decision said about so-called “pleading standards” in civil litigation similar to Iqbal .
