#11417 - Pleadings - Civil Procedure

Pleadings

Statement of claim = Complaint

Statement of defense = Answer

Two types of Pleading in a civil case:

1. Notice = used in federal district courts. Requires very little of pleader, a complaint needs only to provide short, plain statement of claim showing pleader is entitled to relief.

1. Goal: to relax strict rules of code pleading

2. Cause of action shifted to discovery

3. Modern trend = use of simple forms.

4. Facts should not be as important - could increase costs of modest claims before discovery phase is even reached. Plaintiffs may not have access to facts until discovery phase.

5. Why should we have this?

   1. Separation of powers = even if it leads to superfluous litigation, its not in the realm of court's power to decide this.

   2. Other pretrial safeguards

   3. Efficiency - no point in having a bunch of litigation over pleading itself = wastes court's resources

2. Code = used in minority of state courts, but that minority includes CA and NY. Complaint in CA state court must provide statement of facts constituting the cause of action, in ordinary and concise language. CA not as strict as Iqbal, more like Swierkowicz.

1. Goal: to abolish distinction between equity/law courts

2. to plead a cause of action, the pleader has to plead each element and also allege specific facts which, if proven with evidence at trial, would constitute proof of that element

3. Demurrer based on : claim merely states legal conclusions or evidentiary facts

4. Criticism: too difficult to fully research all the facts needed to bring a complaint before one had even initiated the action, and thus meritorious plaintiffs could not bring their complaints in time before the statute of limitations expired

1. Note = Particular subject areas have been singled out as warranting a higher standard of pleading, specifically federal securities fault.

   1. Policy: to reduce fraud, to reduce frivolous claims

FRCP Rules

7(a) - types of pleadings

7(b) - form of motions

8(a) - what qualifies as a 'claim'

11 - standard of conduct

12 - defenses

15 - amendments

Failure to state a claim

1. Elements: Pure question of law. 'in light most favorable to plaintiff' standard

   1. In notice system: what is relevant is only whether the complaint matches the law being complained about, not what actually happened, thus facts are not required.

      1. Policies

         1. ACCESS: the point is to see if p is entitled to offer evidence to support his claims, not to see if he will ultimately prevail.

         2. EFFICIENCY: gives D fair notice of P's accusations. Plus, there are other pre-trial safeguards to avoid unnecessary use of court's resources.

         3. AVOID SLIPPER SLOPE of requiring facts (rather the court only looks at if it is possible, under ANY possible fact set, for jury to find for plaintiff).

         4. CONSISTENCY: adheres with FRCP 8(a)

Cases

1. Access Now: Where the court accepted Southwest's motion for dismissal because plaintiff failed to show, in their pleading, that the website was a nexus between services offered and a physical location. Complaint did not plead in such a way as to show that the disabilities law had been broken. "Nexus" was not in the statute, but rather was case law

   1. Disagreement = court failed to view complaint through interpretation most favorable to the plaintiff.

   2. 2006 - Target (pg 605): Complaint asserted that Target failed to provide opportunity for goods and services offered at physical stores through their website. Court did not reject the complaint.

   3. Rendon: The Who Wants to Be a Millionaire case - telephone line was nexus between the physical place to play the game

   4. Reconciled with Sierkowicz notice pleading only if pleading of the website was a fatal fact (because there was no theory on which a website could be a place of public accommodation or a nexus). The complaint otherwise included all necessary elements - timely notice, legal statute, basic elements of the allegation.

      1. But maybe Access intentionally left the nexus argument out of their pleading in order to convert the entire internet into a form more accessible.

2. Swierkowicz (pg 608): Plaintiff asserts that he was fired as a result of his age and ethnicity. Court finds that no prima facie facts, beyond which is what is provided (supervisor's past conduct, hiring someone of French descent, P's alleged good job performance/qualification, etc). Pleading standard = provide notice.

   1. McDonnel Douglas which requires a p in an employment disc. complaint to allege facts constituting prima facie case of discrimination under framework set by court. Court says this is an evidentiary standard not a pleading standard.

   2. No need to plead underlying facts, can plead elements in conclusory fashion as long as it gives the defendant sufficient notice to construct argument.

   3. You only need to say that "I was discriminated against on basis of x", rather than providing all the facts which support the inference of "I was discriminated against on basis of x."

3. Gomez v Toledo: where plaintiff was not found to have burden of pleading defendant's bad faith in complaint regarding deprivation of due process in his dismissal. P meets requirement of statute complained over- he alleged his discharge violated his right to procedural due process, and that D acted under color of Puerto Rican law. Cleary's Theory…shows who has to say what when pleading. An affirmative defense must be pleaded by the defendant.

   1. POLICY

      1. Justice. bad faith always difficult to prove, because it's in the other party's head

      2. Best left to jury. You could think that officials are more likely to act in ways that weed out corruption, and thus that they acted in good faith in letting p go after being accused of wiretapping. Or you could look at it as an officer would only report other officers, given the risks involved, if he was acting in good faith, and thus that P is the one most likely to be acting correctly.

   2. Later: court changed from state-of-mind standard to reasonable person standard

4. Twombly: where the court found that the plaintiff failed to state a claim in not providing enough facts in the pleading to support the claim of anti-trust violation. The pleading clearly provided notice. Judge said that the allegations are conclusory, merely parroting the statutory language itself. All conclusory language must be discarded, and the factual allegations left must be sufficient to support an inference for the plaintiff. Allows for alternative explanations of defendant's conduct. Legal conclusions = impermissible form of pleading. 2 principles: 1) While all factual allegations must be taken as true, not bound to accept as true a legal conclusion couched as factual allegation. 2) When well-pleaded facts do not permit court to infer more than mere possibility of misconduct, complaint has alleged-but not shown - that pleader is entitled to relief .

   1. Policy: Notice pleading is bad because 1) summary judgment safe guards are not adequate; 2) too many frivolous suits are "getting through the gates"

   2. Lasting: Flexible Plausibility Standard

   3. 8(a)(2) demands more than "labels and conclusions." Must have factual development.

5. Iqbal: (printout attached): where the court finds that Iqbal's claims of deprivation of due process did not meet the threshold of plausibility, once conclusory language was omitted (not sufficient factual allegations). Burden of pleading is on plaintiff for facts which only the defendant has access to (before discovery). Goes beyond what was decided in Twombly: we move from legal conclusion in sense of pleading the language of the statute without any adornment to statements that are not simply parrotting the law but which apparently are insufficiently detailed.

   1. But note: the whole shift from code -> notice pleading = too difficult to differentiate between facts and conclusions

   2. Policy concern: Difficulty in application for lower courts - 'legal conclusions' & 'flexibile plausibility' are very subjective. Make decisions unpredictable/uncertain. Too much variability.

      1. Court wants to protect from undue discovery costs. Relies heavily on idea that post-pleading procedures (malicious prosecution, lawyer fees, summary judgment) will not block out frivolous litigation.

   3. Does not overrule Swierkowicz. This is a testament to the subjectivity.

   4. Majority: Factual allegations left = FBI (under direction of Mueller) arrested/detained thousands of Arab men as part of investigation; the policy of holding in highly restrictive conditions until cleared by FBI was approved by Ashcroft and Mueller. These allegations are consistent with ps' purposefully designating detainees of high interest because of race, religion, national origin. But they do not plausibly establish this purpose.

   5. Dissent: Factual allegations alone are not sufficient, but these allegations are supplemented by other statements, which the court assume to be conclusory -Ashcroft was principal architect in these policies and that Mueller was instrumental in adoption and implementation. Not bare - give specifics: aftermath of 9/11, specific policy, and results of that policy.

      1. NOT: they knew of, condoned, and willfully and maliciously agreed to subject him to discriminatory practice left undefined . BUT: they knew of, condoned, and willfully and maliciously agreed to subject him to a particular, discrete, discriminatory policy detailed in the complaint

      2. NOT: Ashcroft was architect of some amorphous discrimination, or that Mueller was instrumental...