''Conley v. Gibson'', 355 U.S. 41 (1957), was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States that provided a basis for a broad reading of the "short plain statement" requirement for

pleading In law as practiced in countries that follow the English models, a pleading is a formal written statement of a party's claims or defenses to another party's claims in a civil action. The parties' pleadings in a case define the issues to be adju ...

under Rule 8 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

Opinion of the Court

The case arose from an alleged wrongful discharge of African-American employees from a railroad company and unequal protection from the union. The court ruled that general allegations of discrimination were sufficient to fulfill the Rule 8 requirement of a "short plain statement" because liberal discovery guidelines allowed the complaint to gain much more specificity before trial. The kind of pleading allowed by ''Conley'' was known as "notice pleading."Yeazell, p. 358 ''Conley'' presumes that the plaintiff's allegations are true, the facts are construed as most favorable to the plaintiff, and the case cannot be dismissed unless it is proven that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts.

Subsequent developments

In 2007, the United States Supreme Court overruled ''Conley'', creating a new, stricter standard of a pleading's required specificity. Under the standard the Court set forth in ''Conley'', a complaint need only state facts which make it "conceivable" that it could prove its legal claims—that is, that a court could only dismiss a claim if it appeared, beyond a doubt, that the plaintiff would be able to prove "no set of facts" in support of her claim that would entitle her to relief. In ''

Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly ''Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly'', 550 U.S. 544 (2007), was a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States involving antitrust law and civil procedure. Authored by Justice David Souter, it established that parallel conduct, absent evidence ...

'', the court adopted a more strict, "plausibility" standard, requiring in this case "enough fact to raise a reasonable expectation that discovery will reveal evidence of illegal agreement." The ''Twombly'' reading was upheld in ''

Ashcroft v. Iqbal ''Ashcroft v. Iqbal'', 556 U.S. 662 (2009), was a United States Supreme Court case which held that plaintiffs must present a "plausible" cause of action. Alongside ''Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly'' (and together known as Twiqbal), Iqbal raised th ...

'' in 2009.

References

External links

*{{caselaw source , case=''Conley v. Gibson'', {{ussc, 355, 41, 1957, el=no , findlaw=http://laws.findlaw.com/us/355/41.html , justia=http://supreme.justia.com/us/355/41/case.html United States Supreme Court cases United States motion to dismiss case law 1957 in United States case law United States Supreme Court cases of the Warren Court

Opinion of the Court

Subsequent developments

See also

References

External links