In July, Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) introduced legislation that would revert the standard for dismissing a federal complaint to that of Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41 (1957), i.e., a complaint will not be dismissed for failure to state a claim unless plaintiff can prove no set of facts to support the claim. The bill, S. 1504 , entitled “Notice Pleading Restoration Act of 2009,” seeks to overturn the Supreme Court’s rulings in Ashcroft v. Iqbal , and Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly , which together created a heightened pleading standard, whereby merely stating legal conclusions or formulaic recitations of the elements of a cause of action are no longer sufficient to survive a motion to dismiss under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
The bill proposes to amend Rule 12(b)(6) or (e) to disallow granting a motion to dismiss except under Conley’ s standard. This article will detail the Iqbal and Twombly decisions, the implications of the decisions upon product liability cases and address the potential ramifications of Senator Specter’s legislation, should Congress enact it.
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