The Supreme Court of the United States recently discussed notice pleading in a complaint and held that plaintiff’s statement of the facts was not sufficient to withstand a motion to dismiss. In Bell Atlantic Corporation v. William Twobly 127 S. Ct. 1955 (2007) The Court discussed what a plaintiff must plead in order to state a claim under Section 1 of the Sherman Act. In doing so the Court viewed the decisions it considered precedent in determining sufficiency of the notice pleading permitted by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8th (a) (2) and said:
“Federal Rule requires only “a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief,” in order to “give the defendant fair notice of what the …claim is and the grounds upon which it rests,” Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 47 (1957). While a complaint attacked by a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss does not need detailed factual allegations, ibid.; Sanjuan v. American Bd. of Psychiatry and Neurology, Inc., 40 F. 3d 247, 251 (CA7 1994), a plaintiff’s obligation to provide the “grounds” of his “entitle[ment] to relief” requires more than labels and conclusions, and a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do, see Papasan v. Allain, 478 U.S. 265, 286 (1986) (on a motion to dismiss, courts “are not bound to accept as true a legal conclusion couched as a factual allegation”). Factual allegations must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level, see 5 C. Wright & A. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure ? 1216, pp. 235, 236 (3d ed. 2004).”
And holding that the complaint did not have enough factual matter to survive a motion to dismiss the Court said:
“Here in contrast, we do not require heightened fact pleading of specifics, but only enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face. Because the plaintiffs here have not nudged their claims across the line from conceivable to plausible, their complaint must be dismissed.”