West Penn Allegheny Health System, Inc. v. UPMC, 627 F.3d 85 (3d Cir. 2010). The standards for a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim under New Jersey’s Rule 4:6-2(e) make it very difficult for such motions to succeed. See, e.g., NCP Litigation Trust v. KPMG, LLP, 187 N.J. 353, 365 (2006) (stating the standard and citing other cases on the subject). The United States Supreme Court, however, has made the federal standard for failure to state a claim under Rule 12(b)(6), much more defendant-friendly. See Ashcroft v. Iqbal, ___ U.S. ___, 129 S. Ct. 1937 (2009); Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 (2007).
Twombly, an antitrust case, required that a plaintiff’s allegations be “plausible” in order to survive a motion to dismiss. In West Penn, also an antitrust case, the district court dismissed the complaint, stating that the district courts are to be “gatekeepers” and must subject antitrust and other complex cases to heightened scrutiny. The Third Circuit disagreed. According to the panel, Twombly rejected the notion that a heightened pleading standard applies in antitrust cases, and Iqbal made clear that the pleading standards of Federal Rule 8 govern in all civil actions. The Third Circuit went on to reinstate the complaint in West Penn.
District and Circuit courts are still feeling their way toward the proper application of Twombly and Iqbal. West Penn rightly declined to go too far in keeping plaintiffs out of court merely because their causes of action are complex.