Posted on May 15, 2013 by Richard Horder
What lessons can environmental litigators take from the Supreme Court’s recent jurisprudence on pleadings? As most of the legal community is aware, the Court retired the “no set of facts” standard for a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) and installed a “new” plausibility pleading standard in its 2007 decision, Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twomblyand 2009 decision, Ashcroft v. Iqbal. Together, these cases are often affectionately called “Twiqbal” and have caused both the courts and plaintiffs a great deal of angst over the years since their pronouncement. Yet, in the midst of the confusion, the greater question remains whether these decisions, as a practical matter, actually represent a game changer for pleading.
According to the latest Report to the Judicial Conference Advisory Committee on Civil Rules, there has been no increase in the rate of courts granting motions to dismiss following Twiqbal. However, a recent study from the University of California Hastings College of Law disputes this conclusion and finds that dismissal rates of all claims have, in fact, increased since Twiqbal. More importantly, the Hastings study finds a greater likelihood that a claim will be dismissed for factual insufficiency following the Supreme Court’s decisions.
Such studies raise the question of what impact, if any, Twiqbal has today on pleading environmental claims. Thus far, although several courts have addressed environmental claims under the Twiqbal plausibility standard, the results have not been consistent. Like the antitrust and civil rights claims addressed in Twombly and Iqbal, courts have often elevated the pleading standard for environmental claims due to their complexity, which often requires expensive discovery to flesh out the facts after filing the complaint. An early dismissal in such circumstances stands to avoid substantial litigation costs. Thus, if a court believes Twiqbal indeed represents a heightened pleading requirement, it is likely to require more specific facts to support the relevant environmental claims.
Accordingly, the environmental plaintiff should hedge its bets and take care in crafting its complaint if it is filing in federal court. Specifically, the plaintiff may want to take more time to investigate prior to filing to better describe the defendant, it’s link to the site, the types of hazardous substances released, and how specifically the defendant’s actions caused the release and the damages incurred. Depending on the circumstances, the plaintiff may want to avoid federal court altogether and rely on state claims as most states have yet to adopt the Twiqbal plausibility pleading standard. On the other side of the field, the environmental defendant should more carefully consider the value of filing a motion to dismiss for factual insufficiency and attack any gaps between the facts alleged and the formulaic recitations of the elements of the claim.
Tags: Twiqbal, environmental claims, plausibility pleading standard, liability litigation