The Supreme Court issued a 5-4 opinion in the case emAshcroft v. Iqbal,/em 129 S. Ct. 1937, on May 18, 2009. As previously reported here, Cardozo’s own professor Alexander Reinert argued the case before the Court. Federal authorities detained Mr. Iqbal, a Pakistani citizen, in restrictive conditions following the September 11th attacks. Mr. Iqbal’s complaint alleges that John Ashcroft, in his capacity as the Attorney General, and Robert Mueller, in his capacity as Director of the FBI, directly approved of the rounding up of Muslim men following September 11th and maliciously agreed to subject Iqbal to harsh conditions.

The Court, in an opinion written by Justice Kennedy, found that Mr. Iqbal’s complaint failed to plead sufficient facts to state a claim against Mr. Ashcroft and Mr. Mueller for purposeful and unlawful discrimination. Rule 8 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure requires that a complaint contain a “short plain statement of the claim showing the pleader is entitled to relief.” The Court previously ruled in emBell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly/em that a claim must be “plausible on its face” in order to survive a motion to dismiss. The Court determined that Mr. Iqbal’s pleading does not comply with Rule 8 as it is interpreted under emTwombly/em because it does not contain sufficient facts to support the allegation that Mr. Ashcroft and Mr. Mueller approved of a broad discriminatory detention policy. The Court viewed the complaint as conclusory in its allegations as it related to Mr. Ashcroft and Mr. Mueller.

For all those Civil Procedure fans out there, the Court also ruled that emTwombly/em is not limited to the antitrust context. Studies have shown that the emTwombly/em standard may disproportionately affect civil rights cases at the motion to dismiss stage.As noted this summer by Adam Liptak, the Supreme Court correspondent for The New York Times, the emIqbal/em decision is quickly becoming one of the Court’s most significant cases interpreting pleading standards in the federal courts. Look here for a future article on the expanding impact of this opinion on federal civil litigation.